Eureka!

1933 – This was the last time any party (in this case, the Republicans) in my home state of California maintained a legislative supermajority. Most Americans would find the state during the depression as foreign as Saudi Arabia. One could easily be thrown to jail under vagrancies laws, the majority of the populace viewed communists and other far-out leftists with scorn (now, they occupy Academia), and cultural views on abortion and marriage faced no debate.

Nearly 80 years later, the Democratic Party finds itself with a supermajority in the State Senate and Assembly. It last had one in 1883.

The Golden State, along with a fraction of other states, requires a 2/3 majority, and not a simply majority, to raised taxes and pass the budget. This began with Proposition 13 in 1978. The liberal majority now had to compromise with at least a few Republicans, and gridlock has ensued ever since. Democrats needed to pander with or court a few Republicans to pass any legislation of fiscal importance. Governor Jerry Brown (once a Jesuit seminarian), decried the gridlock as preventing him or his party from accomplishing anything. This led to Brown drafting and promoting what can so far be called the jewel of his second stint as governor, Proposition 30.

An attempt to stop California’s education system from facing anymore budget cuts, Proposition 30 will take from the wealthiest to crutch up the public schools and colleges. One wonders if this will solve anything, considering the state spends more money on prisons than on colleges, Harvard College (or Yale, or Princeton) is cheaper than Cal. State East Bay, and public employees receive excellent benefits (and pensions at age 55), all bankrolled by a state that simply has no money.

One can only wonder what will happen in this state. Atwater recently joined San Bernardino, Stockton, and Mammoth Lakes; all filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Another city, Vallejo, filed for bankruptcy in 2008.

Our liberal friends over at salon.com, citing “the increasing diversity of the electorate, the relative liberalism of the youth vote, [and] the declining influence of old white males,” view a California under the new supermajority with hope, finally freeing the state from the tyranny of the Proposition 13 (the last act of any importance of the white, conservative California of old).

In typical West Coast pride, Salon declares that “The rest of the nation is just catching up.”

The rest of the world will watch, as one of the world’s most populous, geographically largest, and culturally influential entities no longer has any excuse. There is nothing stopping California from leading the nation and the world further along to “Progress,” and whatever gains or mis-steps it makes in advancing green policies, statist economics, or conquering over the few obstacles resisting the “new normal” lie only with the liberals themselves.

Election 2012; Surprised?

Waking up the morning the November 6, 2012, I, along with many other conservatives and traditional Catholics, hoped that Barack Obama, hoped that somehow, Mitt Romney would emerge victorious and become the 45th President of the United States. Not because Mr. Romney is a better candidate; he isn’t (both will push the same imperialistic foreign policy, neither particular care for moral norms on marriage, contraception, or abortion, both will spend this country to oblivion, just at different rates, and, as this image illustrates, the same groups of people bankrolled their campaigns.

In spite of this, perhaps in a fit of pure schadenfreude, I wanted the President to lose. It’s easy to place economic blame on him (his administration’s first accomplishment, the stimulus, failed) even as his fiscal policies are simply exponentially exaggerated versions of Republican spending. His Republican challenger, whom the mainstream view as a “radical conservative,” notably opposed the GOP’s policies of the 1980s, as well as their social policy (his Senate run against Ted Kennedy illustrated all of this).

There was a hope, however small, that a Romney win would mean the re-implementation of the Mexico City Policy, conservative, pro-life Supreme Court Justices, an end to Obamacare (which John Birch types decried as “draconian” when it passed), and although he would not be able to stop the fiscal and moral direction of the country, perhaps the Governor could at least put the brakes on them.

Governor Romney, a liberal in 1994, a “moderate” in 2008, and a “conservative” in 2012, found himself lost and facing an electorate that found his views “too extreme,” and too conservative. I listened to Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico and the Libertarian Party’s candidate for president, tell the Godless John Stossel that his former party would have to drop its out-of-touch social policy (meaning, fully embrace abortion “rights” and marriage “equality”), and adopt libertarian policy similar to his. In short, all that now matters is what the base (lower appetites, not voting demographic) wants. Free college, free food, and free contraception, either in a liberty obsessed, “right wing” form (it’s none of the government’s business), or from that which we have seen since Franklin Roosevelt, Big Daddy Government. As long as the benefits keep rolling, so will the votes. This is what “democracy” has been reduced to.

The disenchanted said that both were essentially the same candidates, and just shills for those who pulled the strings. All of this considered, I felt a certain disappointment upon hearing that Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, one by one, all went to Obama, dooming any chance Romney had. McCain stood absolutely no chance to President Obama in 2008, but this time, Romney, the guy everyone would want as a father-in-law, did.

All of the predictions calling for any kind of close race grossly erred. None of us, though, should really be surprised, because what we see and have seen since the 1960s (see this and this) were bound to happened. Once the framers placed legal and ethical decisions into the hands of “the people,” the country’s fate was sealed. A common understanding between most people held everything together until the 1960s, when liberalism finally destroyed this quasi-religious and moral ethos.

In short, we reaped what the founders sowed. As America and the West drifts further towards the abyss, society will continue to decay. That which was unthinkable soon becomes the norm, despite reassurances against the slippery slope.

What then is a Catholic or anyone of good will to do? Choosing between the lesser evil ultimately fails, just as picking one’s poison does. The solution, then, is simple. First worry not about the debt cliff or the direction of the foreign policy, but about one’s own spiritual and temporal well being, then the same for those charged under his care. Make sure the soul is well fed, for it matters not how healthy the mind and body is about the soul. Ultimately, we shall not see results until the country and the world once more embraces the sweet yoke of Christ. Our ancestors in Rome faced the same challenges. They were strangers in a land that ignored that most dear to them, but after a brutal period of persecution, Rome, Europe, and much of the world turned on its head and, for a short, embraced Catholicism. It is bittersweet to see how much has been lost, but we must strive for the same thing. Keep running the race, keep fighting the good fight. Christ will have to be King of this land in order for Truth to prevail.

Introduction and Inspiration

“Fix your whole heart upon God, and love Him with all your strength, for without this no one can be saved or be of any worth…Love all good, and hate all evil, in whomsoever it may be.” – Saint Louis IX, King of France (1226-1270), Confessor, from Letter of Advice to the future Philip III.

Few saints capture the mind as does Saint Louis. King of France during the 13th Century, he reigned over the Eldest Daughter as Christendom, the Middle Ages, and the Church peaked in influence, importance, and power. Born to Blanche of Castille (who once told the Dauphin she would rather see him dead at her feet than had he commit a mortal sin, advice he certainly took seriously), and Louis VIII, the only French king ever canonized had Alphonse, Count of Toulose and Charles, King of Sicily, as brothers. His sister Isabelle, founded an abbey which lasted until the Revolution. She was also a saint.

Apart from unquestionable holiness (Boniface VIII canonized him a mere 27 years after his death), excellent administration and rule of his realm (a trait many, though not all, of the Capetians shared), some will be surprised to know that this man, who’s fame and importance would be akin to that of the president of the United States, went on a crusade twice, and died during the second of these travels. Both crusades achieved little and proved to be disastrous for Louis and the kingdom, with the first resulting in his kidnapping and ransom.

It is from Louis IX that this blog finds its inspiration. Times have certainly changed, but good Catholics can find some aspect of Louis’ life most invigorating.

As an undergraduate, I read Jean de Joinville’s Chronicles of the Crusades, without knowing much about medieval history nor Louis IX. Knowing a little bit about the Crusades, this blog draws it’s title from this work. Everyone should read it, if only for the small glimpse it gives us of Louis’ life.

A Catholic has always been in the world, not of it. In these times, as society has become so far removed, perhaps the most removed, from any kind of Christian standard, I seek to establish a contemporary chronicle of a Crusader simply trying to do what all Catholics ultimately seek, the salvation of his immortal soul. In the mean time, enjoy reading about that which occurs in this world.