Author Topic: Ideal Catholic state (Read 12675 times)

Canuk the Lionheart · « **on:** February 17, 2011, 08:35:15 PM »

Hi, this is Crusading Canuk (lost password for old account..) anyways, I just wanted to try a philosophical experiment with my fellow traditional Catholics. Imagine we are starting a new nation to be based on Catholic principals. Which political system would we use, economics, immigration, armed forces etc...

Raoul76 · « **Reply #1 on:** February 17, 2011, 10:20:03 PM »

Political system -- Monarchy, bien sur.

Immigration -- Allowed, but very strict and controlled, the people have to really be willing to respect that it is a Catholic country and follow all the rules ( but not necessarily believe )

Economics -- Not really my field, all I know is that the internal economy would have to be very strong. The stance should be nearly isolationist, but not in the sense America purported to be isolationist, in terms of "freedom" and not getting involved in others' wars ( which we never managed to actually live up to ) -- I mean economically isolationist i.e. not globalized. The people would produce the goods that their fellows would then consume, for the most part.

Trade would be limited, there would be high tariffs on all imports, and if any industry tried to hire cheap labor in China while avoiding taxes by creating shelters in Switzerland, they would be heavily fined and punished, and ultimately dissolved if they didn't change their ways. I don't care if this ruins "competitivity," someone else will come and take their place. And I don't care if another country is temporarily more wealthy, because if you do things the right way, you win in the end.

Everything that is done today, just reverse it, and that is the way that this future ideal state should be.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 17, 2011, 10:24:52 PM »

Mark thee well, I am not one of these who have confused a hysterical anti-immigration stance with being "right wing." Even Catholic Spain, during most of its history, was so rife with immigration it might as well have been the California of today. Immigration, it seems to me, is at times vital for the health of a country. It smacks of fantasy to imagine a completely homogenous state. I wonder if such a thing has ever existed.

I am just against illegal immigration.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 17, 2011, 10:45:16 PM »

Armed forces -- You have to be Catholic to be in the armed forces. An army should be on the same team spiritually and mentally.

Dignity would thus be restored to the armed forces and it would be considered a desireable occupation. The higher members of the army, generals and colonels or whatever they are called in this ideal state, would be carefully chosen and be expected to lead irreproachable lives, like the Templars were ( hear that Roscoe? )

Women would be attracted to those in the military, this in turn would make men want to join, and to do that they would have to convert... See my plan?

Those who served the country well could be made lords and barons. All sorts of incentives should be given to get people into the military, it should be seen by all as a way to truly advance in life in an honorable way.

Some kind of check would have to be put on ambition, though, which the Church was not able to do in the Middle Ages. Military men would have to be kept from getting bored and getting into useless skirmishes, dragging everyone down with them. The military side of the country therefore should be totally subservient to the Church and a fear of God put into all people from their childhood on -- priests should be held in even higher esteem than the soldiers.

The military leaders should also be willing to be purely decorative from time-to-time, they should learn to be on the defensive and not the offensive, and for this they should be more highly educated in theology and philosophy than in the past. They should be taught to respect peacetime as well as wartime and not be made to feel they are weak or feminized when they aren't battling. Military valor and fighting can become an addiction and this has to be tempered.

The nation should be taught to hate personal ambition and to be totally attuned to God's will. Egotism should be made a detestable quality. Even in Catholic Europe, all too often, the emphasis was on STRENGTH instead of on DUTY TO GOD. A warlord who fights for the sake of fighting should not be held in esteem by anyone.

The concept of honor and duty would have to be emphasized constantly, and those who served themselves only should be denounced from every pulpit.

gladius_veritatis · « **Reply #4 on:** February 18, 2011, 09:41:31 AM »

Having a "standing army" would not necessarily be required, IMO. Professional soldiers do not always make the very best defenders. I am not saying such an army would, in se, be a BAD idea, but I would not set up such an army unless I had moral certitude that it was a necessary measure and an unavoidable, justifiable expense. IMO, post-Chastisement, such a measure will not be required, at least for a time. That is why the time has been referred to as an "Era of Peace."

With respect to incentives, one always has to keep in mind that fallen nature tends to be mercenary. If I do something (mainly) for money, to attract a woman, etc., my motives are hardly what might be called pure.

Catholic Samurai · « **Reply #5 on:** February 18, 2011, 01:16:57 PM »

A professional army may not have to be set up, but will more than likely evolve out of some sort of militant organization. If there is no professional army already in place then it will eventually evolve from a militia that will attain a superiority over the rest through their experience, organization, skill, popularity, etc. . And if there is to be a Catholic State it will require a force to back it and secure it's domain. If there is no organized army, then I think we are being unrealistic in our theory of setting up a Catholic State.

The army that is created should not however replace or substitute any kind of local militia or individual/personal defense options like what is happening in our country today.

Lybus · « **Reply #6 on:** February 18, 2011, 01:58:11 PM »

The ideal Catholic state, in relation to the other states in the world, would probably end up being the most hated as well. Plato said in his republic that the "perfect" unjust man is going to have a perfect reputation for being just, whereas an ideally just man is going to have a perfect reputation for being unjust, and will usually end up being killed (Our Lord himself had to suffer this). Likewise, a perfectly ideal Catholic state, which would have to be a just state, is going to be hated most perfectly by other states. Most likely in the eyes of the world, our kings will be tyrants and our clergymen will be unenlightened, haters of science, elitists, dogmatic, narrow-minded, and haters of women and ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs.

Which basically means our state is going to be crucified by the world, unless of course we can investigate here in this thread a means of survival, if we are to have such a God-like state.

Also, we can investigate what it means to have a perfectly just or virtuous state, if we didn't want to get ahead of ourselves. Would we look at this state as automatically having saintly kings, for instance, or as having a means to develop saintly kings? It would seem that we must first discover how we can produce saintly kings, and not always expect to be privileged with such kings. But that would be realistically. Ideally, I suppose we can assume saintly kings, for if we needed a means to develop saintly kings, then that would mean that there was a sort of imperfection to our ideally catholic state.

So, would we be looking at our state from a more realistic perspective, which had room for human sin and corruption, or perfectly ideal, in which even its rulers and even its citizens are perfectly virtuous? Which way should this be taken?

In short, Garden of Eden style, or World of Satan style?

Canuk the Lionheart · « **Reply #7 on:** February 18, 2011, 03:02:09 PM »

Ultimately, this should be a realistic thread. Any theory based on the assumption that [insert x] dosen't exist when x really does is a flawed theory. Flawed theories are no use to anybody. Assuming we have the perfect world without corruption of any kind would be pointless, we should discuss how the ideal Catholic state would deal with corruption.

Lybus · « **Reply #8 on:** February 18, 2011, 05:25:00 PM »

Alright, that sounds like fun. I'll try to start us off.

I suppose we should start from the very beginning, and that would be with God. God is one God in three divine persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This is how God is, and this is how he is most Happy. God, deciding that he would like to share his happiness, made man. He made us according to his image, as it says in Genesis. Now, why would he have made us this way? Surely because by being like God, we can each achieve a superior happiness to that which is not like God? So, in that regard, each man, in his own way, has to be an image of the trinity.
So taking this into account, we can say that the goodness of man lies somewhere in the trinity, and his happiness comes from the trinity in some way. So, I think if we want to understand the ideal catholic state, this has to be kept in mind, that his most natural dispositions are somehow connected to the trinity, and that his corruptions and weaknesses shy away from the trinity.

So I saythat the Ideal Catholic State can be found by at least having an understanding of the trinity that is sufficient to deal with man's weaknesses and such. The ideal Catholic state will funciton similar to the relations between the three divine persons. At least, that is my opinion.

We could start off small by looking at the family unit first. How does the father work, and how does the mother work, and how do the children work? What are their roles, and how are they an image of the trinity?

gladius_veritatis · « **Reply #9 on:** February 18, 2011, 08:39:03 PM »

Quote from: Catholic Samurai

A professional army may not have to be set up, but will more than likely evolve out of some sort of militant organization.

Maybe...maybe not.

Quote

If there is no professional army already in place then it will eventually evolve from a militia that will attain a superiority over the rest through their experience, organization, skill, popularity, etc.

IF there is a need. All I am saying is...AFTER The Purification is over, there may or may not be such a need.

Quote

And if there is to be a Catholic State it will require a force to back it and secure it's domain.

This presupposes external threats of a certain magnitude. It may seem inconceivable now, but it is well within the realm of possibility that the external threats post-Purification will be few and far between, at least for a few years.

Keep in mind, the Great Monarch is not even supposed to levy taxes for TWELVE years. The world that will follow this mega-storm will not be ANYTHING like the one we all know. It is clear from Fr. Fahey's works that the question of the proper means of national self-defense is very low on the list of important points when constituting a rightly-ordered state. In fact, he does not even discuss the topic (not that doing so is wrong, useless, etc).

Quote

If there is no organized army, then I think we are being unrealistic in our theory of setting up a Catholic State.

FWIW, 'organized' and 'professional' are different words that express different concepts.

Canuk the Lionheart · « **Reply #10 on:** February 18, 2011, 08:51:06 PM »

Ok, the father should be the main provider for the family unit. He should be the bread winner. The mother should be the home maker and be concerned with matters of education. Both should be active in the upbringing of the children and raising them in the Faith. The parents should be united and have a harmony so that no one is the "master" of the other but they should be equal partners although having different roles. The children should be obedient to their parents and raised to be respectful, fair and moral. Each family should be encouraged to have at least two children to increase our population and sustain our culture. Also what should we call our nation?

ora pro me · « **Reply #11 on:** February 18, 2011, 11:42:20 PM »

Quote from: Canuk the Lionheart

Each family should be encouraged to have at least two children to increase our population and sustain our culture.

A birthrate of 2 children per marriage will not sustain a culture. The muslim birthrate is somewhere between 7 and 8 children per woman of childbearing age. Read "America Alone - The End of the World as We Know It" by Mark Steyn. Get it at your library or get it off the Amazon link at the top of this website. Please, if you haven't read this book, read it and then tell others about it. (Warning: this book is not for the timid.)

Here's an excerpt from one of the reviews on Amazon for this book:
Who is reproducing themselves: the US at 2.1 babies per couple, [...] at 7.46, Mali at 7.42, Somalia at 6.76, Afghanistan at 6.69, Ireland at 1.9, New Zealand at 2.11. There are Germany and Austria at 1.3, Russia and Italy at 1.2, and Spain at 1.1. Those with birthrates over 2 are Muslim; those under Caucasian Christian.

(I'm not sure what was left out of this review in the [...] - Maybe the reviewer put that in there?)

Do the math with the birth rates. You don't have to be a math whiz to see that we are in deep trouble. Deep, deep trouble, but nothing that Our Lady cannot help us with. Pray, my friends, as you have never prayed before.

Canuk the Lionheart · « **Reply #12 on:** February 18, 2011, 11:58:04 PM »

An average of 2.11 children per family are needed to sustain a culture, I saw the statistic on a youtube video (origionally put out by the BNP I think). However in this scenario we are just in the first steps of creating our nation. I'm sure we'll find reason for increasing the average birth rate later.

Catholic Samurai · « **Reply #13 on:** February 19, 2011, 12:51:50 PM »

Quote from: gladius_veritatis

Quote
And if there is to be a Catholic State it will require a force to back it and secure it's domain.

This presupposes external threats of a certain magnitude. It may seem inconceivable now, but it is well within the realm of possibility that the external threats post-Purification will be few and far between, at least for a few years.

Keep in mind, the Great Monarch is not even supposed to levy taxes for TWELVE years. The world that will follow this mega-storm will not be ANYTHING like the one we all know. It is clear from Fr. Fahey's works that the question of the proper means of national self-defense is very low on the list of important points when constituting a rightly-ordered state. In fact, he does not even discuss the topic (not that doing so is wrong, useless, etc).

The army would not so much be a measure against foreign threats as it would be against domestic ones. Not everyone is going to be comfortable with a religious state. I do believe for this reason the approach should be more public-service oriented rather than military, but as a security measure I think there should be a military present assisting in reconstruction efforts.

Any kind of military at that point, however, is going to be made up of volunteers pretty much, so it will be attracting a different breed of man to it's ranks who will not be expecting any significant pay for his service.

Catholic Samurai · « **Reply #14 on:** February 19, 2011, 01:00:20 PM »

Quote from: gladius_veritatis

Quote
If there is no organized army, then I think we are being unrealistic in our theory of setting up a Catholic State.

FWIW, 'organized' and 'professional' are different words that express different concepts.

I was thinking along the lines of skill and discipline, rather than an institution providing work for warriors. But I do believe that we would need a full time army, only on a much smaller scale than what we have now. We dont need a Pentagon, nukes, bases all around the world, large weapons manufacturers, etc.