On President's Day with apologies. A reminder that George Washington is honored, in part, because he refused to be king.
Let's take a longer view on recent events. Instead of using 9/11/2001 or 1776 as the reference point I believe Kossacks should view today's political troubles in the context of the year 1215 and the Magna Carta .
Magna Carta is often thought of as the corner-stone of liberty and the chief defence against arbitrary and unjust rule in England. In fact it contains few sweeping statements of principle, but is a series of concessions wrung from the unwilling King John by his rebellious barons in 1215. However, Magna Carta established for the first time a very significant constitutional principle: that the power of the king could be limited by a written grant.
We'll begin at the 50,000 acre Armstrong ranch with a small hunting party of American nobles and their loyal retainers.
The Armstrongs as noted elsewhere (recently
What was Dick Really Hiding? ) are among the political elite who can count on their 410 peasants and serfs in Kenedy county to do their bidding. Theirs is a rigid and strictly hierarchical society. They maintain a private army. So powerful are they that the authority of the State of Texas in the form of the local Sheriff and his deputies are dismissed when they seek to investigate a possible crime.
Who among the small farmers, tenants, sharecroppers and laborers will complain? They all owe their allegiance to the local nobility. In this quiet part of Texas generations of these medieval peasants exist somewhat out of modern times. They know their lack of loyalty will be repaid with cruel vengence, after all the Armstrongs, Browns and others have become powerful by supplying knights and horses military might to the King.
Indeed modern American nobles still love land, although it is no longer the primary source of wealth. Excluding the peasants from the land is a flamboyant manner of displaying wealth and power. But they aren't much different from the aristocracy in past times and other places. King Francois 1 of France built Chateau de Chambord as a hunting lodge for his court and may have hired Leonardo da Vinci to help with the design. Magnifique!
In the new feudal society technology has provided power, wealth and luxury beyond any medieval king's dreams. Their's is a world of yachts, jets, helicopters, and armored cars keeping that other world of the great unwashed masses securely beyond the gates. An aristocrat doesn't need to ever experience, see or hear anything that might be upsetting.
Private schools and Universities provide places for the aristocracy to be reaffirmed and to meet others of their kind. The Headmasters and Deans can be kind to those of the upper class. Kind enough to let unworthy junior scions collect degrees that should be awarded on merit. Schools like Harvard and Princeton are excellent places for young nobles to find vassals too.
Modern vassals are peasants with talent and ambition. Or they possess skills that are useful for other reasons. The ancient ruling class continues to look for homage and fealty. Even today in secret societies vassals kneel before their masters, bow their heads and place their hands between the hands of their lords. In exchange for their oaths the vassals will receive favors beyond their station in life.
Perhaps that group of bright young men who uphold tradition by opposing women on campus might prove useful someday. They are inclined to serve the aristocracy. That one can be counted on. He told us on his application. His most fundamental belief is in the divine right of kings. Promote him to be among the other supreme judges to return the unfettered rightful power to King John George.
The means of creating wealth have changed since 1215. Few peasants live on farms anymore. A few hundred years ago the Scottish peasants were herded off the land, their houses burned. They were loaded onto ships bound for North Carolina and Nova Scotia. Today the peasant jobs are rounded up and shipped off to Bangalore and Beijing. Houses aren't burned. They're repossessed. Yes the terms are kinder but the term "middle class" just sounds like a promotion.
Better to be a fool. A useful fool. A vassal fool in media is best. Everything that fool owns comes from the modern American nobility. Whisper in my ear master. I am sworn to your political, military, and financial service. Tell me and I will let the people know. Your will be done.
Yes Kossacks, though the name of our humble community comes from MarKos it nevertheless is an homage to the peasants of yore. Peasants with pitchforks, scythes and blades who fought oppression in countless uprisings and rebellions. Peasants who now need to convince the minor aristocracy that this is the time for a new Magna Carta.
As might be expected, the text of Magna Carta of 1215 bears many traces of haste, and is clearly the product of much bargaining and many hands. Most of its clauses deal with specific, and often long-standing, grievances rather than with general principles of law. Some of the grievances are self-explanatory: others can be understood only in the context of the feudal society in which they arose. Of a few clauses, the precise meaning is still a matter of argument.
In 1215 King John signed the document that ended feudalism in England. He was forced to recognize that he was not above the law. Today's battles are to be fought against the aristocracy and their vassal fools in a new manner with old spirit.
Get ready for the long haul. Be inspired by the words of a member of the minor aristocracy and his regard for law, from his address to the Harrow School in 1941.
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.
Emphasis added.