by Neil Vodavzny

Lest anyone thinks I’m a one-trick-pony, or some sort of idle dreamer, let’s get a bit more pragmatic, namely democratic. Behind every good democracy is an idea, whether it’s Israel – the chosen place, if not race – or the US ideal. Behind every bad democracy is a heavy machine of idle bureaucracy – men of inaction and fewer ideas.

Speaking of which, did anyone catch this in the Telegraph by Tim Stanley on Theo Roosevelt?

Tim must be a straight-A student because this is an exercise in misdirection on a cosmic scale. First of all, statements like, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of 10 are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the 10th“ are par for the course. Which was how the west was won. Chief Seattle wasn’t yet recognized as a prophet for nature’s poison trail. Indians lived with nature, the white man lived against nature, so the one was obviously stronger than the other. Such anachronistic sentiments reflect nothing on Theo. Moving on to his power-mania, “I believe in power… The biggest [presidential] matters I managed without consultation with anyone, for when a matter is of capital importance, it is well to have it handled by one man only… I don’t think that any harm comes from the concentration of power in one man’s hands.“

In actual fact, in bringing the railroads et al to heel, Roosevelt relied on trust-busting court-cases, not executive power. The concentration of power in a president isn’t the same as in a government. As one of the commentators says, he was a libertarian man-of-action, so maybe that is super-heroic after all?

It may be news to some Europeans that American government doesn’t always work that well – the constitution is an exercise in power-sharing. The president exercises executive power in concert with 2 Houses of Congress (often divided), state governers, and the supreme court, with the latter in principle able to trump anything via a close-reading of the constitution. It’s quite instructive how this led to numerous court-battles over the rights to bear arms in the 19th century, concealed or open, depending on state.

Given that America is an idea, it’s not democratic so much as an idea first. The situation we have at present has almost no ideas, and is more or less democracy in the abstract, which tends to favour the socialised urban-classes – en effect, social democracy. In the UK (including Scotland) you vote for different degrees of the same thing, a de facto status quo. It’s no accident the French gain traction on the Right with their more relaxed, peasant-oriented lifestyle. I wouldn’t say any party in the UK is that right-wing – UKIP doesn’t compare to Marine le Pen’s FN. So if the Right are champing at the bit, and there is a market out there, let’s try an ideas-based approach to see where it takes us.

Social urbanisation takes no account of the land and products of the land. Taking Britain as a case-in-point, social democracy at least since WWII has produced a suburban voting-class that cares nothing for the countryside, culminating in Cameron’s death-ride through England’s green and pleasant land of new “garden-cities” to house all our immigrants (just kidding).

You could probably add here that voting-rights were originally tied to property-rights in the 19th century, and before that land-tenure was just a commonplace right. Hence, democracy in the abstract is urbanised and takes no account of the land and the products of the land. Is America so different? I guess it’s not perfect, but cattle-ranchers are still doing what they’ve always done because that is ingrained in the idea of America – e pluribus unum.

Politicians speak of “the idea of Europe”, but I always recall a scene from the film Cabaret, set in pre-war Germany:

... An adolescent vision of Hitler Youth starts singing amid a rustic scene and, as Liza Minnelli says, the palpable sentimentality builds in menace as the song progresses. Would it be far-fetched to say that rustic idyll is a type of mythos that is very European and yet which “the idea of Europe” has no time for? In short, an idea of Europe has to start from the non-political. I mean, I saw this picture of Francois Hollande and pals at the Senate in the Hague, and I didn’t even know there was a Senate at the Hague! They could be on Alpha Centauri and it would be totally the same - see Carpenter’s They Live!

Taking this as a critique of social-democracy, it would be up to right-wing parties to call for Euro-wide constitutional reform, based not on politics, but on mythos or the idea of Europe. This would involve legend, folklore, origins. Our politicos sure are killing-off the idea of Europa – from the Greek legend of a Phoenician princess.

Legends are as often as not allied with history. The discovery of linear-B at Knossos lends credence to the story of a tyrannical Greek king extracting tribute from Athens in the form of sacrifices. Crete having originally been Minoan, Mycenaean/Minoan civilization is a blending of myths, if not blood. Since that is the beginning of Europe, it’s not a bad for instance of the power of myth to shape history, over and above other factors, including racial.

This stands to reason. Northern Greeks were in the presence of an ancient sophistication in the arts, and it is in fact not possible to distinguish Mycenaean from Minoan. Slightly facetiously, if their king had said, “Guys, I’m not sure these are genuine Europeans”, the whole of history would have been different. Obviously, he couldn’t say that since Europe is an invention.

If peasantry is a type of mythos, I’d venture to suggest the Monarchy is also, as the European equivalent of Hollywood. Charles III would seem well-suited to adopt a land-reform role, as an advocate of traditional agriculture and holistic principles. Romantic poet Byron affected to hate “even a democratic royalty”, but in another line cast aspersions on the peasants for, “throwing off the upper classes, like o’er burdened asses”.

In that the monarchy is only the apex of the landed aristocracy, any re-establishment of land-rights would involve all tiers of a new rural (ruling) class, maybe by re-invoking lairdships, tied-villages, the right to land as distinct from social-democratic human-rights. The question is, what appeal might this less politicised system have to the suburban youth, in their comfort zones? Not sure, but even arch-trend Russell Brand is saying “no” to voting – does he know something they don’t?