More on obedience - and its limits (debate)

Between myself and one FSSPX faithful. His screen name is anonymous. It is about the matter already alluded to in comments section of previous post.And he is one of the two faithful I answered in it. His attitude was such that I found it indicated to ask him about a French connexion of his, named as on FB in our correspondence, but here referred to as NN:

If NN is in St Nicolas du Chardonnet (I seem to recognise the face), you may ask her for confirmation about what the priests there say about me and about my blogs.

Taken from the Catechism of St. Pius X:

1 Q: What does the Fourth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother, command?
A: The Fourth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother, commands us to respect our parents, obey them in all that is not sinful, and assist them in their temporal and spiritual needs.
2 Q: What does the Fourth Commandment forbid?
A: The Fourth Commandment forbids us to offend our parents by word or by deed or in any other way.
3 Q: What other persons does this Commandment include under the names of father and mother?
A: Under the names of father and mother this Commandment also includes all our superiors, both ecclesiastical and lay, whom we must consequently obey and respect. Pax Christi Regis.

"obey them in all that is not sinful" - should be taken as:

• all that is neither
  sinful for oneself to do
  
• nor
  sinful for them to ask

see thereon Summa Theologica, II-II, whatever the Question is that is about Obedience [I found it and added:]
http://newadvent.org/summa/3104.htm#article5*
=============================
(a parallel is adduced for illustration in beginning of corpus, read it if you like):

On like manner there are two reasons, for which a subject may not be bound to obey his superior in all things. First on account of the command of a higher power. For as a gloss says on Romans 13:2, "They that resist [Vulgate: 'He that resisteth'] the power, resist the ordinance of God" (cf. St. Augustine, De Verb. Dom. viii). "If a commissioner issue an order, are you to comply, if it is contrary to the bidding of the proconsul? Again if the proconsul command one thing, and the emperor another, will you hesitate, to disregard the former and serve the latter? Therefore if the emperor commands one thing and God another, you must disregard the former and obey God." Secondly, a subject is not bound to obey his superior if the latter command him to do something wherein he is not subject to him. For Seneca says (De Beneficiis iii): "It is wrong to suppose that slavery falls upon the whole man: for the better part of him is excepted." His body is subjected and assigned to his master but his soul is his own. Consequently in matters touching the internal movement of the will man is not bound to obey his fellow-man, but God alone.

Nevertheless man is bound to obey his fellow-man in things that have to be done externally by means of the body: and yet, since by nature all men are equal, he is not bound to obey another man in matters touching the nature of the body, for instance in those relating to the support of his body or the begetting of his children. Wherefore servants are not bound to obey their masters, nor children their parents, in the question of contracting marriage or of remaining in the state of virginity or the like. But in matters concerning the disposal of actions and human affairs, a subject is bound to obey his superior within the sphere of his authority; for instance a soldier must obey his general in matters relating to war, a servant his master in matters touching the execution of the duties of his service, a son his father in matters relating to the conduct of his life and the care of the household; and so forth.

=============================

Now, will or won't you ask her? I am not ordering it as your superior, for if so, I would have nothing to back that up with, I am just asking it, as a personal favour from you to someone who feels wronged and may be so. Not that all charity is absent in every respect - indeed I was given a larger sum of money today - but that does not make the kind of backbiting I suspect any less wrong if it occurs. And if not, I find it a bit funny no one has been printing my blogs and paying me a voluntary sum for it.

I do not want to hear any slanderous talk against holy priests.

I do want to hear, from other parishioners, via you, if these priests have been holy or if they have been slandering me and my blogs.

So, do ask her.

Pride is a denial of God, an invention of the devil, contempt for men. It is the mother of condemnation, the offspring of praise, a sign of barrenness. It is a flight from God's help, the precursor of madness, the cause of downfall. It is the cause of satanic possession, the source of anger, the gateway of hypocrisy. It is the fortress of demons, the guardian of sins, the source of hardheartedness. It is the denial of compassion, a bitter Pharisee, a cruel judge. It is the foe of God. It is the root of blasphemy. Pax Christi Regis.

Thank you very much. Then it is up to God who is proud in St Nicolas du Chardonnet, if anyone is ... I still want to know if your friend is a parishioner there and what has been being said about me, if that is the case. That I am proud, perhaps?

Demons once heaped praise on one of the most discerning of the brothers. They even appeared to him in visible form. But this very wise man spoke to them as follows, "If you cease to praise me by way of the thoughts of my heart, I shall consider myself to be great and outstanding because of the fact that you have left me. But if you continue to praise me, I must deduce from such praise that I am very impure indeed, since every proudhearted man is unclean before the Lord (cf. Prov. 16:5). So leave me, and I shall become great, or else praise me, and with your help I shall earn more humility." Struck by this dilemma, they vanished. Pax Christi Regis.

Wonderful. A beautiful story. But what I ask of St Nicolas du Chardonnet is not praise, it is cooperation with my project for my life and - in case of my blogs - livelihood. When young Marcel Lefèbvre met a watchmaker out of work, he did not tell the watchmaker "you are proud if you want to remain a watchmaker, why don't you offer your services to Swatch, they might have a cleaning job and if you do it well they might even let you advance to something related to watchmaking" - instead, he made sure that people of Tourcoing who needed watches repaired got his adress so he got his livelihood made through mending and maybe amking watches on his own again. Now, when it comes to this writer - yes WRITER - up to yesterday I have not been very much encouraged to find readers. And for this composer I have not had my pieces played. And for this prospective family man, girls who might have been in love with me and whom I was in love with have been turned away from meeting me, one after another. That is not warning a man against pride, it is ruining a man by pride.

Oh, one more thing: my writing IS not an apostolate. It INCLUDES Apologetics. As did CSL's, as did Chesterton's. It includes phlilogy, as did CSL's, it includes citizenship in face of tyrannous abuses of public power, as did Chesterton's. I am more than fed up with being measured in this respect by standards of pure spirituality, as if I had renounced all earthly things and had no earthly or rational motive for what I am doing.

And if they happen to think my Apologetics bad, I can see why they would not want to help me get that printed, but hardly why they would also want to stop me from getting my guitar sonatas (really guitar sonatinas, but "sonatina" is not Latin) played for money!

Or my string Quartet. Or my poems printed. Or ... do you get the point?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mansionibus
St Andrew's Day of
the Y o o L 2011

*SUMMA THEOLOGICA: Obedience (Secunda Secundae Partis, Q. 104) is being quoted, not my correspondent, between the lines of = signs.

On obedience having limits. Answering two faithful from the flocks of the FSSPX.

a child born to wicked parents owes them every bit of respect due to parents...including a broad modicum of obedience...excepting commands that ...contradict divine positive law"

- or the law of the land (human positive law) or the law of human nature. Or commands that exceed the natural authority of parents. For instance, if I were to marry a fourty year old maid (to take an instance which is not the case), I might be obeying my father, who might have a kind of modern hysteria about pedophilia, but I would be doing so against my inclinations to marry in a way that gives hope for children, and in ordering me to do so, he would exceed his rights according to divine, natural or positive, or human positive law.

[Main subject of the discussion, but digressive here:]So, Abe Lincoln had no right to impose on anyone to celebrate the arrival of the Mayflower (and as Chesterton said, English would have the right to celebrate its departure), but Catholic Bishops having with Leo XIII (condemner of Americanism) ruled that Thanksgiving is not equivalent to "Mayflower Day" - a day to be shunned if ever it were so named - it is quiet licit to celebrate Thanksgiving, and I think one should. It is also a reminder to Prots that if even the state can institute a day of public Thanksgiving, year after year, the Christian Church can do so which preceded the US of A.

‎"the child born in a Roman province was born under roman law"

- not quite, he was certainly born under Roman Administration, but not automatically under Roman Law. Or rather a mere provincial was born under the administration but not the law, a citizen under the law but not the administration. Our Lord was thus under Roman Administration, as his fosterfather showed when registering for taxes in Bethlehem, but St Paul was under Roman law and could not be crucified, only beheaded.

"The base of your studies should be the encyclicals of the Popes and also the books of Archbishop Lefebvre, which are very precise summaries and explanations of the Popes' teaching. Be careful of all theories which may distract you or lead you away from this teaching, and look to the priests for guidance and help in understanding; formation is their direct responsibility."

- No, formation of intellect is the intellectual's direct responsibility. The one formation which is the direct responsibility of priests is formation of conscience, in admonitions in confession, and formation of faith and conscience in sermons and catechism. But asking your priest to direct your studies is up to you, no priest has any right to class you as an heretic or to refuse you the sacraments because you study on your own and do your own formation.

Also, the priest could be, and the priests in St Nicolas du Chardonnet are in ascertained fact deficient in parts of social morality. There is a field where they have done great deeds, reminding of Mirari Vos, but when it comes to the rights of the poor, they are sometimes simply led by their noses by modernist administrators. And, quite obviously, they are impoverishing this here writer by treating my blogs as forming part of those "all theories which may distract you or lead you away from this teaching". Their attitude seems to be: if Hans-Georg agrees with us, he is superfluous, and we have expressed it better, if he does not, he is not Catholic and should not be read. As a result my blogs are not read by the one public that might appreciate them.

Because Modernist Catholics are against them due to my Creationism and Geocentrism, Jews have again and again been given access and obviously "forgotten" - because I am a Christian and on top of that a Catholic, claiming there is a visible Church succeeding the older Israel and they are not its visible successors, Muslims are put off by the fact that I compare Mahomet to Joseph Smith, Mormons are not quite thrilled by my comparing Joseph Smith to Mahomet, Orthodox dislike my defense of filioque and my defense of St Robert Bellarmine against the calumnies of a Paul Ballaster - ex-Franciscan, defrocked, died stabbed by a Catholic as Greek Orthodox archbishop of Mexico city and both Americas - nor are they too fond of my defending Cardinal Stepinac, besides they are cosntantly asking themselves whether it is proper "for a monk" - I am not a monk - or "a prophet" - I am not a prophet - to ask for money.

So, St Nicolas du Chardonnet and similar advising formation only under a priest's advice and priests disadvising from my blogs, that is a bad stab in the back to my livelihood as a writer and essayist. If they condemned part of its contents, they would have to do so publically, and therefore publically acknowledge, if not my doctrine, at least the fact that I expressed it. They do not want that. They prefer, up to now, backstabbing. And if they told you what you say, they are erecting a principle which is not true. Of course, priests may have indirect responsibility for formation, like Cardinal Newman said in his "Idea of a Catholic University". That is another thing.

A typical example of their attitude to me, in St Nicolas du Chardonnet is the way they pray for me. Now, a few months ago, I was writing to Mgr. Williamson saying "I am a writer, I want to be paid for my writing, do not block me, do not pray for God's providence to block me" and he obviously took it as meaning "I want to be a writer in the future" since next hour, day or week I found on the internet a course of writing. Or on how to improve writing.

Now, the past weeks I had the pleasure to read the Chardonnet. One thing that Fr. Chautard said was that jobs are getting more and more tied up to large companies, so getting a real meaningful job is less and less possible and therefore less important as a consideration for finding your work. He also stated that being an internet technician - "informaticien" - is a not very noble calling. I wrote him a letter in which I stated, again, that I am writing on the internet, and reminded him of fact that as much as a text can go from paid format on paper to free format on internet (like Bibles online), likewise can they go the other way, from the free form on internet to the payable form on paper. He must have taken that as an obstination in wnating to be an internet technician, for if not, and if he did not pray for that, how do you explain I found right today this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY&feature=topvideos_education
Lecture 1A | MIT 6.001 Structure and Interpretation, 1986

That was, however, not a complete waste of my time. The thing about black box abstraction is that there is no such thing as an algorithm for turning electronic or chemic processes into understanding or for that matter any other kind of experience. There is an algorithm for turning simple understandings into chains of complex understaning so that the result is as sure as the simple understandings themselves, and that algorithm is called logic. But there is no such thing as an algorithm for turning non-experience into experience or non-understanding into understanding, non-cognitive into cognitive. A good thing to know. A good thing to write about.
Of course, "computer logic" is making an algorithm for signs to echo the algorithms of logic. It is in no wise any thing that makes computers understand anything whatsoever.

And that includes language. That is the profound reason why computer translations suck.

But sometimes having people pray for you according to their misunderstandings can be painful. I guess that week when I was thinking time after time of sodomitic acts that disgusted me was Fr Beauvais praying that I might get duly disgusted at sodomy. As if I were a homosexual. Which I am not. I am neither homosexual, nor homoliberal. But in St Nicolas I can be passed off as either, or could till recently, due to priests refusing to take direct note of what I write them or same priests insisting on reinterpreting it, as if I were unable to express my real needs and intentions correctly in a text not needing reinterpretation.

I suppose such praying for me instead of talking to me is a result of taking Mgr Williamsons advice "some people you can not discuss with, only love and pray for". For a man who was habitually naked and dirty and throwing imself in fire and water, I would agree. But for a man trying to have his blog articles reprinted as essay collections or his music scores played before paying audience, I think that is not an applicable advice. Any more than for 12 guys not washing their hands before every meal or picking wheat ears on saturdays.

Not that I compare myself to the Apostles in holiness of vocation, of course.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Georges Pompidou library
of Beaubourg*/Paris
26-XI-2011

*It is in the gay district, but I go to the library to write on computers, not to make trysts with gay men. Actually the library would probably not be the best place in all Beaubourg to do so. It is much more a studentish, even to some extent a young Muslim and Immigrant studentish thing.

When CSL was wrong, Charles Gore was wrong before him, I think. Pt 1

by Hans-Georg Lundahl on Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 5:10pm

C. S. Lewis died, one hour later John F Kennedy was shot, Aldous died even later When CSL was wrong, Charles Gore was wrong before him, I think. Pt 1 Where C. S. Lewis was Wrong (One Item) - Charles Gore Probably was Wrong Before him (part 2)

In Georges Pompidou library of Paris, I found exactly one work by Charles Gore. It is in its present edition from 1963 - the year that CSL died. So going down to look for it, I was afraid it might be only a namesake. I was wrong in that fear. Everyman's Library No. 924 is indeed from 1963, but as other Everyman's Library, it is a re-edition of an older work. The Philosophy of the Good Life is a series of 12 Gifford Lectures held by Bishop Charles Gore - as Anglicans style him - in 1929-1930, and modified before print by his personal contact with the lecture hearers, which was one part of the conditions prescribed for lecturers.

A Bibliography reveals that he 1889 wrote Roman Catholic Claims - presumably a rebuttal of them - and 1930 a small tract, Lambeth on Contraceptives - I fear it was an acceptance of the Lambeth Conference of that year, a first of Christian Confessions accepting contraceptives. Neohimerite Orthodox took another forty years before accepting them, and Roman Catholics fortunately have not accepted them. Not Trads, nor Vatican loyalists at any rate.

Now, equally from 1889, there is, in Lux Mundi, The Holy Spirit and Inspiration. I fear it was less traditional even than Divino Afflante Spiritu by Pius XII from 1943, passages of which shocked me as modernist at the time I rejected that pope.

I do not have that work, but I do have his words on Zarathustra (not an inspired author) and on Moses (an inspired author) in this work. And he is not right.

With Zarathustra, he claims that Zoroastrian priesthood under Sassanides drew their prophet closer in time, ch II p. 32:

"The gulf which separates the religious thought and social outlook of these hymns from the rest of the Avesta, or from Persian religion as wehear of it in the sixth century B.C. and later, must represent a great interval of time."

Why? What if Zarathustra was simply before as other parts after conquest of Babylon? He seems to accept the kind of topsy turvy arguments that his disciple CSL so clearly refuted in Fernseeds and Elephants. A gulf in content or outlook not perceived by the adherents of a tradition but clear to a XIXth C professor? Using that as an argument in dating? Uh uh!

One of our authorities, Dr. J. H. Moulton, is content to postulate a date not later than the eighth century B.C. But Ed. Meyer and others--with reason as it seems to me--require us to go back to some date not earlier than 1000 B.C. Let us be content to leave the date in uncertainty.

So professors are not certain of the real date, but they can still be certain that the ancients were wrong about it? As if ancients were no authorities and XIXth C. critics were! For, here we come to the footnote on bottom of this same page:

The later Parsi priesthood, perhaps infuenced by their desire to bring the now mythical and divinized Zarathustra nearer to their own time, put him in the seventh century B.C. ...

Thus one century later than the latest date Gore is willing to accept. The century before Cyrus and all that. Now, it is quite plain that the Zoroastrian religion as accepted later under Sassanides is more at variance with the Hebrew religion than Cyrus needs have been. The book of Esther too is explicable as relating an early conflict between Jewish and Zoroastrian religion, ending in a temporary setback for the Zoroastrian one. And influencing later Zoroastrianism, so that it appears allied to later Judaism (also against Christianity, as we find when Chosroes III invades Palestine). But neither this consideration, nor the fact that Zoroastrians claim 700-600 B.C. as the dates stands up to the XIXth C. "authorities" of Gore. Neither do they respect the alternative tradition very much (continuing footnote):

But the Greeks, relying on earlier tradition, assigned to him a very remote antiquity--6000 years before Alexander or 5000 years before the Trojan War (Plutarch).

What if Plutarch found Zoroastrians worthier of respect than Isis worship and set an early date to rival Egyptian remote dates? The Chronological Snobbery back then was all for Remote Antiquity (this chronological snobbery still exists, but only if dates are pre-Biblical, older than Creation according to the Bible). I even checked wikipedia, which in its present shape indicates that Plutarch compared Zarathustra to Osiris and Isis mythology. It seems that the Avestas about his life assign to him duels with demons - part Gandalf in Khazad Dûm, part Jesus refusing Satans temptation (like Luther, Zarathustra seems to have regarded second thoughts about his personal illumination as temptations from the evil one). But nothing supernatural about his death, Avesta does not mention it, Shahnahme says he died murdered at the altar. And recent research is more prone to accept the traditional dates, half a century to a century before Cyrus. My sources are Qui était Zarathoustra?, also (following link from previous): Fr-Wiki-Zoroastre and its English counterpart (click "English" button in left margin).

Now, here come we to Moses, a thoroughly bad piece of XIXth C. philology if ever there was one (p. 128):

I will confess myself to be a conservative critic. I mean, for instance, that, while recognising to the full that in the Pentateuch a great deal is attributed to Moses, the great founder of Jewish nationality, which was in fact elaborated in a gradual historic process, the stages of which we can trace more or less clearly in the literature, yet I find it difficult to doubt that the fundamentally ethical character of Israel's worship of Jehovah must be traced back to its Founder ...

Sorry, Gore. That is not Christian. That is applying to the Pentateuch the same method which your disciple CSL so rightly rejected in Fernseeds and Elephants. Pope Pius IX was so right to say - by implication condemning the opposite thesis in the syllabus - that Protestantism is not quite just another form of the same Christian faith, in which it is equally possible to please God. If Pusey might have proven him wrong, you as succeeding Pusey proved him right.* Intellectually speaking, this is not Christianity. It is academolatria. And as we get to Church Fathers, let us quote them rightly. Here is Gore (next page):

Again, we cannot doubt that St. Chrysostom was right when he described the material of Jewish religious rites--'the sacrifices, the cleansings, the new-moons, the ark, and the temple itself,' as derived from their pagan background.

The footnote goes to Hom. in Matt. vi. 3 (P. G. lvii, col. 66) - do please note that the words "derived from their pagan background" are not in Gore's quote. I have read St. John Chrysostom's against the Jews, on internet, and I know that his thought is not that they were simply pagan customs without divine correction, but rather they were divine concessions to their pagan attitude, which they had when coming out of Egypt.

Indeed, if we accept that thought, and accept that God brought Israel out of Egypt, as Christians are bound to, we must accord that the ritual descriptions are from Moses' own time. How so? We know that the Israelites, coming out of Egypt, were not quite content with a merely ethical core of religion, without any ritual. St. Chrysostom describes them as addicts to ritual of a pagan type. So too did they show themselves before Moses, when adoring the Golden Calf.

Therefore it was not quite safe for God to leave their ritual sense empty for later accretions, he had to give them a very detailed ritual of the right sort - in a sense - in order to preserve them from what was a detailed ritual of the wrong sort - in every sense. And, as the fulness of revelation had not yet come, the detailed ritual could not yet be that of the New Law, nor of the Holy Mass, it had to be a shadow and a makeshift. But it had to come at the beginning of Aaronite priesthood because Aaron himself had bowed down to that Golden Calf.

Actually, I did post a link to St John Chrysostom's Adversus Iudaeos on the MSN Group Antimodernism which was closed down in February 2009.** Maybe that was construed as "unacceptable antisemitism" and part of the reason the group was closed down (if my group was the real target, since all groups were closed down, in a fashion that did in actual fact not admit saving all messages from one group to the new kind of groups that MSN lanced - I tried on a much smaller side issue group).

BBL/Hans-Georg Lundahl

*The Gorham case had done so even in a worse way: The case of the Rev. M. Gorham against the Bishop, of Exeter, considered. - Adress to the Clergy of the Diocese of Vermont, by John H. Hopkings, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese. (1849) J. H. Hopkins said therein:

The second opinion, held by some, extends the benefits of infant regeneration, in all cases where the Sacrament is rightly administered, to a complete spiritual renovation of nature: the child being made, in the very act, a living temple of the Holy Ghost, and becoming a new creature in so excellent a sense, that the future aim of the Christian life is chiefly to be directed to the maintenance or recovery of baptismal purity. This notion, to my mind, seems quite untenable.

**Confer history at What was MSN Group Antimodernism? and history of close down at Help for safeguarding messages and Handicapped by a freemason.

Over 500 views, excluding mere index pages:

Most read of my blog posts, only those over 500 readers
par Hans-Georg Lundahl, samedi 15 octobre 2011, 19:41

paidophilos? ego? - 1094
Sects, Historical Critical Method, Post-Confessional Christianity - 822
Sonata Nemetodurica - 608
... - 555
Aus Chromosome/Wiki/de (Koredaktion) - 507

I have excluded mere index pages./HGL

Comments:

Hans-Georg Lundahl do click links ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl Oh, I forgot one French message as I was considering it mainly as index page, but there is also text on it:

Hans-Georg Lundahl deretour: Oui, oui, non, non

Hans-Georg Lundahl The text on the page itself is in French ...

478 Hebrews liberated today in the Orient.

Gilad Shalit and 477 from Hamas. Best of luck to all of them, I'd like to celebrate with Falafel, Kebab and half a bottle (or a whole bottle with company) of either Yarden or Adom Atic.

It is also the feast of St Luke evangelist. http://o-x.fr/rrxn

Be my Unwin or Hooper if you like.

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, mardi 20 septembre 2011, 14:26

Unwin was the publisher of JRRT, Walter Hooper publishes what CSL left behind.

In other words, I ask any reader of these lines, who ever dreamt of publishing books, to consider publishing my blogs.

Here are the conditions: link.

Here is a bit about the method, materially: link about page positions and link about using them.

Here is an example, nearly ready made, only print out, copy in double sided, fold, bookbinder's deal or homemade, cut up pages on top, in French: link to first eight pages, the rest of the 64 being on previous links, except the very first.

Here is why: blogs are a part of internet. If and if so when internet shuts down, blogs as such are lost. The texts on them or images on them need not be. Copy from net to word or open office, then print out then position pages, then make originals for double sided copies, then make double sided copies as many or few as suits your purse (initial investment) and taste for openness or discretion (do you want to make a business or just a homey very secondary income or just gifts to friends?) - and the texts are saved, on paper, even if the blogs close down.

Of course this presupposes bloggers that allow this. Do not do this if the blogger does not expressly allow this. I am one (see conditions above), maybe the first. You may be the next. Anyway, if you have a home, you are better suited than I right now to storing the books you make than I was when I made them.


Best of luck:

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Clermont s Oise
20 sept 2011

À l'Abbé Guy Pagès

La nature est constante dans son essence - croyez vous alors que, au moins depuis le déluge et l'abréviation de la vie humaine, la limite naturelle et biologique réproductive et mentale a été constante là où St Thomas d'Aquin la trouvait (12 pour la fille et 14 pour le garçon, en moyenne) ou ne le croyez-vous pas?

On peut s'améliorer ou s'empirer, mais ça concerne la morale, pas le naturel. Même une société peut s'améliorer ou s'empirer en devenant par exemple plus catholique ou moins catholique.

La société où une fille de treize ayant couché avec un garçon était censée se marier avec lui bien avant la naissance de leur enfant ou la société moderne où une fille de treize ayant couché avec un garçon est censée avorter le plus vite possible - quelle société trouvez-vous la meilleure? Pour moi, la décision est faite il y a bien longtemps, dans un village où les avortements étaient un fléau et en lisant St Thomas, notemment ses propos sur le mariage.

Si vous voulez me retirer de vos amis, c'est votre liberté.

Quote about Our Lady vs Abortion

"Pregnant to someone other than her husband when she was engaged to be married and hounded by people determined to kill her child because He threatened to bring down the established order, Our Lady could give lessons to every teen rebel out there about surviving the odds."

Bloqué de Blogger sur les Bibliothèques Municipales de Paris

J'ai donc écrit le message sur un document google:

Lien - URL abrégé o-x.fr/m9zd - ou sur shrt.st/11mh

Did Gauß deserve this?

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, lundi 14 mars 2011, 11:56

Enough admonishment—it's time for the warning. A word of caution, children, before we discuss the arcane contents of this stygian course: some mathematics were not meant for man to understand. This is Cartesian devilry of a black and necromantic sort, dreamed up by the twisted designs of sinister scholastic gods, existing purely to tempt and destroy mankind with its elusive secrets. Topics to be covered include: non-Euclidean geometry, dividing by zero, Cthulu's Principle of Inverse Sanity, approaching and surpassing asymptotes, Fermat's Next-to-Last Theorem, gazing into the depths of a parabola, and the dreaded unit circle. There will be a midterm approximately halfway through the semester, a final exam, and a group project in which you will be made to calculate the precise time of your own death using an abacus made of haunted rosary beads. (source here, do not read it)

I think it might be better to improve one's state when dying by making a rosary of non-haunted abacus beads, but apart from that, is modern mathematics as bad as this?

Well, when his famous curve is put into such asocial purposes as making school grades relative (middle quality grades always being the most and high and low quality having equal minorities, one starts to wonder.

THEN there is the famous "3 i" times "3 i" equals "minus nine", in other words, the assumption that "minus nine" is one number and needs a square root.

And that comes from "if plus nine is a number nine more than zero, there must be a number minus nine which is nine below zero". Which is rubbish. It is rubbish, but it has some conventional uses, like reading thermometres, and such where "zero" means something other than "nothing". But going from "3i * 3i = -9" to an application would get you into trouble. Even for a "numbers' field" a X-axis and a Y-axis would maybe multiply by each other, but hardly each land on the "minus side" of the other while multiplying by itself.

I advocate a return to Greco-Roman, Classico-Mediæval concepts in mathematics. What Euclid and Boëthius hold in common would hardly deserve things like this persiflage, preparing for mathematical studies as if preparing to study black magic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

A Week in London (12 - 19 sept 1665) - of interest in Medical History

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, lundi 21 mars 2011, 20:57

Of 8297 buried, 7165 of plague.

309 of feaver, 134 of consumptioon, 121 of teeth (bad teeth gone too long to cure by extraction?), 101 of spotted feaver.

64 of convulsion, 51 of griping in the guts, 49 of surfeit, 43 as aged, 42 in childbed, 33 of dropsie, 18 of chrisomes.

17 each of rickets and as stillborn.

16 as infants, 15 of wormes.

11 each imposthume, rising of lights (accident?), tiffick.

9 stopping in the stomach.

5 each abortive, flox and smallpox, jaundies, scowring and thrush.

3 each frighted, of grief, vomiting and of winde.

2 each of ague, bleeding, cough, kingsevil, scurvy and stone.

1 each apoplexie, burnt in his bed by a candle at St Giles, Canker, Gowt, Killed by a fall from the Belfrey at Alhallowes the Great, Lethargy, Palsie, Spleen, Strangury, Suddenly, Timpany.

For the rest, if I jave counted not correctly, no medical or accidental reason is given.

Christned: Males 95, Females 81, In All 176.

Buried: Males 4095, Females 4202, In All 8297.

Plague: 7165.

Increased in the Burials this Week: 607.

Parishes Clear of the Plague: 4

Parishes Infected: 126.

The Aßizes of Bread set forth by order of the Lord Maior and Court of Aldermen:

A penny Wheaten Loaf to contain Nine Ounces and a half, and three Half-Penny White Loaves the Like Weight.

"la fin d'une utopie meurtrière" ... parce que Ben Laden est mort?

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, samedi 7 mai 2011, 17:42

Ça me paraît très et peut-être trop naïf.

Cheik Ahmed Yassin s'était prononcé avec modération et bon sens dans un interview de BT (Borås Tidning) en 1998. La Mossad l'a tué quelques ans après, et ni leur utopien'est finie - ils détiennent entre-temps Gaza, pas tout à fait dans l'avantage des Palestiniens Chrétiens - ni elle n'est devenue moins outrée, au contraire le successeur du cheik s'est exprimé dans le sens du Jihad mondial.

Rappelons ce qu'avait dit le cheik dans cet interview. En traduisant du suédois, d'après mémoire:

BT: Est-ce que vous promettez le paradis aux kamikazes?

AY: Non, seulement Dieu peut le promettre. D'ailleurs je ne suis pas sur qu'ils vont au paradis. (pause) Mais c'est de la défense [légitime]*

...

et:

AY: Le fonds du problème est religieux. La solution doit l'être aussi.

Comment ne puis-je pas être d'accord? St Pie X avait reçu Theodor Herzl, et refusé de bénir le zionisme. Bon, le successeur de cet ex-professeur invalidisé par les zionistes dans une attaque est un homme qui rêve d'introduire la chariate partout.

Et je serais soulagé parce que Ben Laden est mort? Hamas a bien pu se passer de Ahmed Yassin, Al-Qaïda se passera peut-être un peu trop bien sans Ben Laden aussi.

Entre 2001 et 2011 - quel changement des mentalités y a-t-il eu dans les sociétés occidentaux? A-t-on une vue plus musulmane ou de culture musulmane des choses? Est on plus sécuritaire, plus bossiste, plus méfiant envers chaque chose qui semble un peu dévier, plus exigeant de virilité chez les hommes? Alors, si Ben Laden n'a pas gagné sa guerre, nous n'avons pas gagné la défense du Christianisme et de l'Église, et de la société occidentale auparavant surtout connue et reconnue comme Chrétienté non plus.

L'optimisme d'avoir vaincu l'islamisme aggressif avec la mort de Ben Laden me paraît postiche. Il n'était pas Sultan, on n'a pas à attendre qu'il soit succédé par un autre Sultan moins violent comme Soliman le Magnifique (coupable du premier siège des Turcs à Vienne) par Selim II. Il était dirigent charismatique d'un mouvement, et des choses comme ça peuvent parfois trouver plutôt quelqu'un de pareil même s'il n'est pas proche que quelqu'un de proche mais pas très pareil.

Donc, je ne crois pas qu'il s'agisse forcément de la fin "d'une utopie meurtrière". Quid alors de ce mot "utopie"? Tandis que l'Occident se veut mieux défendu qu'en 2004 contre les attentats, entre temps les Chrétiens d'Orient sont persécutés et l'Occident ne les défend pas malgré une présence militaire. Les gardiens de sécurité en Occident sont aussi, entre-temps, plus souvent Musulmans qu'avant, au moins parce qu'il y en a davantage en total. Ils font d'autres choses que de juste garder les Occidentaux contre les attentats. La vue sur l'alcool et sur le travail et l'oisivité, et sur la polémique chrétienne contre l'Islam ou d'autres fausses religions- je viens de voir un site salafiste qui attaque Benoît XVI pour ses mots en Regensburg, mots qui ont, en média français été traduits selon les préjugés musulmans plutôt qu'après leur signification grammatical dans l'original - au moins en France la vue sur ces choses s'est islamisée. Donc, même mort, Oussama peut être fier d'avoir changé, au moins pour ce temps, la société Occidentale.

Meurtrière? Oui. On peut respecter les kamikazes, on ne nie pourtant pas que Ahmed Yassin avait raison de ne pas être trop sûr de leur entré au paradis. Oui, il y avait une mot dans la phrase "fin d'une utopie meurtrière" qui, effectivement, convient assez bien. Un mot sur trois, c'est pas mal pour un média conventionnel, trouvez-vous?

Mais hélas, la façon dont on en s'est débarassé était aussi un peu meurtrière. Comme Pizarro qui ne laissait pas Atahuallpa paraître devant Charles V pour être jugé, un peu. Et la court internationale de La Haye, aurait-elle bien jugé?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Beauvais

7-V-2011

*Le suédois "sjelfförsvar", modernement "självförsvar" peut se traduire défense ou défense légitime, litéralement c'est "défense de soi-même". En quelle que ça soit la langue que le journaliste et le cheik ont utilisé - arabe, anglais ou français, je n'ai lu que la traduction suédoise.

1947 et 1976

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, lundi 18 avril 2011, 20:10

• Dans ma famille: naissance de ma mère, décès de mon grand-père.
  
• Dans les catéchismes francophones: le dernier catéchisme préconciliaire, Pierres Vivantes.

Dieu sait si je suis ou si je ne suis pas prédestiné à la gloire éternelle. Je puis déjà dire que je ne suis pas prédestiné à préférer Pierres Vivantes au dernier catéchisme (dont j'ignore le tître) préconciliaire.

Est-ce que je me fais comprendre?

Soyons sérieux, laissons les choses personnelles.

Pierres Vivantes - selon ce que j'ai compris - dit que l'église est le peuple de Dieu. En cela ce n'est pas une œuvre condamnable. Elle semble avoir oublié et laissé tomber en oubli la distinction entre Clergé et Laïcs. En cela elle n'est pas louable. Car l'Ancien peuple de Dieu faisait une différence très nette entre le tribu de Lévi et les autres tribus. Le Nouveau peuple de Dieu le fait entre clercs et laïcs.

Est-ce que je me fais comprendre?

Il y a des gens qui me posent des questions à propos mon attitude sur tel ou tel sujet, et qui semblent consternés quand ils entendent ce que je pense. Il y en a parmi les gens qui me reçoivent comme volontaires, moi sdf. Et il savent que mon projet est d'écrire. S'ils pensent que j'écrirais autre chose, plus favorable à Pierres Vivantes, moins au catéchismes préconciliaires, au cas qu'ils me laissent en pauvreté et dépendance à eux, et demandent aux autres de le faire aussi, alors ils se trompent.

Est-ce que je me fais comprendre?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
18-IV-2011, Lundi de la
Semaine Sainte
Paris/Beaubourg

Pour anglophones: http://o-x.fr/rrxn

Creationism and Geocentrism are sometimes used as metaphors for "outdated because disproven inexact science"

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, samedi 16 avril 2011, 17:33

I was just today reading The Missing Spanish Creoles by John McWhorter, and found a chapter heading or subchapter heading entitled "creationist at the cocktail party", which I did not read, and then this passage:

We do not imagine scientists supporting Ptolemaic astronomy while courteously "not denying" that Copernicus' ideas might have "some validity." The earth cannot "kind of" revolve around the sun--heliocentrism cannot be "considered as a possible aspect of" geocentrism. The evidence simply does not allow this.

Very good rhetoric ... but ... let us take it piece by piece, once again:

We do not imagine scientists supporting Ptolemaic astronomy while courteously "not denying" that Copernicus' ideas might have "some validity."

Guess what Tycho Brahe did? Oh, for introductions, he was an astronomer in Scania and Hven, back then belonging to Denmark. My compatriot, so to speak. He was also teacher of John Kepler. One more thing, though his system is referred to as Tychonian, his surname is Brahe, a noble family. Tycho or Tychon is a Greek given name meaning chancy.

The earth cannot "kind of" revolve around the sun ...

True enough, good logic says it either does or does not.

...heliocentrism cannot be "considered as a possible aspect of" geocentrism.

Now, that depends on what aspect is considered. Sphere of fixed stars, sun, moon, earth may well form a geocentric system, whereas in the meantime sun, mercury, venus - not earth but - mars, jupiter and saturn form a heliocentric one. Which is precisely what Tycho thought and taught.

The evidence simply does not allow this.

By evidence I suppose is meant logic. Earth either does or does not revolve around sun. But when we consider that Tychonian and Modern Astronomy as far as logic is concerned are both valid, the question of evidence becomes interesting.


There is the evidence of accuracy. Aristotle thought Mars somehow revolved directly around earth. Ptolemy that it revolved around and eccentric that revolved around earth. Tycho that it revolved around the sun that revolved around earth. That is in itself a series of growing precision. Next logical step would be for a geocentric to add that revolutions are elliptic rather than circular. But this step was done by a heliocentric, who hankered back to another heliocentric coming between Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe. So the series of growing accuracy reads Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, John Kepler. Copernicus was as heliocentric surrounded by a less and a more accurate geocentric, by Ptolemy and Tycho. Tycho Brahe as a geocentric was surrounded by a less and a more accurate heliocentric, by Copernicus and his disciple John Kepler. Would seem as if chosing geocentrism or heliocentrism had nothing to do with accuracy.


Except that, after Newton giving heliocentrics a physics, refined by Laplace, Titus-Bodes came more accurate still. And after Einstein gave heliocentrism another physics, he came still more accurate. Well, if it had just been one physics, and if there had been no alternative physics even thinkable or ever thunk, that might have settled it. We are talking about the physics of "earth is always drawn inwards towards the sun by gravity and always missing it by previous movement's inertia." AND the physics of "gravity is a geodesic in space" and of "light bends to gravity of great masses, so optics are just nearly optics now".


Now, before we do any problematising of these physics, were there other physics before them? Yes, indeed: "Mind rules bodies: in human mind's case it is only through own human body that it rules other bodies, in case of angels and demons and of God, there is no 'proper body' involved as condition for ruling bodies other than self" - a physics that was inherited from antiquity and not radically altered - at least not as radically as the "Scientific Revolution" - by Christianity. Meaning, stars as fiery matter and planets as reflecting matter are movable by some kind of spirit or other. Meaning the masses and gravities would not be the decisive factors or only decisive factors for observed orbits. Meaning daily motion of universe attributable to God.*


Now, there is no real parallel observable on earth itself proving the physics of millions of revolutions by continually readjusted equilibrium of earth's velocity and earth's pull inwards, sunwards, a possibility. If two forces are to balance in resulting in several revolutions, earth's gravitational pull on things down here is not one of these forces. Any movement where it is involved will be stopped by that gravitational pull (if such be the physics of falling) long before getting anywhere close to even an arc degree or two of a revolution about earth. Stones on strings are not obvious illustrations of an equal inward pulling force, since the string obviously is an object with a superior in-holding stability than the centrifugal force. Motor bicycles or cars rolling around weels to inside of a wall also illustrate that the wall as such is not an equal inward pulling or inward pushing force, but a superior inward holding stability. If the string is of rubber, we at least have the option whether at any point the ball is held back it is a case of equal inholding stability or equal inpulling force. Because in the rubber string there is a kind of sense in which inholding and inpulling is the same thing - but which of them is determinating in the case of the stone on an ordinary string? Modern physics says "the inpulling". Can we know it? Also, the onward motion - which keeps the object from getting in to centre - is not really upheld for many revolutions without added propulsion, whether it be string and stone, rubber string and ball or motor vehicle inside walls of a big tub. Even if a balance between a clearly inpulling force like gravity and an on- and outpushing force like inertia is possible, can the balance be maintained over revolution after revolution for centuries without any personal will and wisdom to guide it?**


But even so, I would like to see an experiment where the one force is clearly inpulling and not an inholding stability and where the other is inertia. Maintained for more than one revolution. If a strong magnet can do the centripetal thing and skating can reduce friction to maximise effect of inertia as centrifugal thing, that might illustrate what I am looking after. So, we have satellites, supposedly also illustrating this - but are they there because of gravity or because angels are kind to well meaning technicians?


So, then there is the optical evidence. Before we go on, we realise first that we are talking about space, and about space we have not seen from anywhere else than our own position or pretty close ones. What could there be as a kind of end to it? Stars clustering near outer edge, forming a sphere? Or just the end of stars clustering all over the inside? Or no end at all, even that involves stars clustering all through the inisde, if you can bring yourself to hold that as a possibility. Now, if stars form a sphere, are they all fixed in relation to each other or do they move? Obviously, one thing is settled by optical evidence, long before this controversy, long before the telescope: that moon, venus, mercury, sun, mars, jupiter and saturn do not belong to an outer sphere of stars, since they cover stars and move along the zodiak. We are now only considering stars in the zodiak and similar ones north of it to Ursa Maior and south of it to Southern Cross. As far as could be seen before telescope, the stars in that seeming sphere (real or true) do not move in relation to each other. When Galileo and St Robert Bellarmine argued - a bit unequal arguing, since between suspect and judge - about heliocentrism and geocentrism, St Robert who was out there to find out whether Galileo had proof or not, concluded he had none, and even counterproof: the Virgo and the Pisces, opposing each other - I am taking this example to clarify what I personally guess they were talking about - look the same whether earth is closest to it or whether sun is closest to it, meaning earth stays same distance to them. Meaning earth is proven immobile as the sphere of fixed stars, except that one moves on a daily basis, though Galileo would have it it was only earth that moved. Or that the annual movement in relation to the zodiak is done by the sun rather than by the earth. Galileo answered that the reason was that the change was too small because the stars are too distant for this phenomenon to be seen. A perfectly reasonable explanation, but a lack of proof in his own time, none the less.


Now, has heliocentrism been vindicated by optic proof after better telescopes or not? With a sphere of stars equidistant or an elliptoid of stars with a continuity of change of distance to the centre of cosmos, and none of the stars moving in relation to the others, we could very well have seen whether centre of cosmos was earth or not. If it was earth, Pisces and Virgo would stay exactly same angular sizes on opposite seasons and between, but if it was sun that was centre and earth that moved, Pisces would have exactly as much greater angles in September as Virgo in March. Now, modern cosmology is not this kind of heliocentrism any more than this kind of geocentrism. Both of them were, as far as optical evidence is concerned, refuted by the phenomenon of 1838. Actually I think both were extinct among astronomers long before that date. Except among Catholic ones, as a theoretic possibility of proving St Robert right or wrong.


What was discovered in 1838 can be explained two ways, as far as optics are concerned: if the stars form a sphere, some of them move in relation to others. In time with the sun. Now, with angelic explanation, there is no problem with that interpretation. Atheism favours and basic Christian tenets (leaving out the specific questions about Joshua that landed Galileo before trial) allows the other interpretation, the current paradigm in cosmology. Earth moves annually, and the reason why not all stars move annually, why Pisces is no bigger in September in same way as Virgo in March (dates when earth is between sun and zodiakal sign, opposite of when sun is between earth and them, obviously), is the difference of the distances to the stars. Not all stars in same constellation are even equidistant to us, to our solar system and to earth and sun. Possible. But not finally proven.


As said, there is no problem with the angelic explanation.


Even as a complement to masses and gravitations explanation, angels are not to be ruled out.**

Now, if there had been a telescope close to Saturn on board Cassini watching proxima Centauri, there might have been proof for or against modern cosmology, at least if not in its excludion of God and angels, insofar as it says the cluster of stars is spread all through cosmos and sun a star with earth as annually revolving satellite.


Hypothesis 1: Proxima Centauri seems to move annually because it moves in time with sun. Corrollary: should be seen as moving annually from Saturn too.


Hypothesis 2: Proxima Centauri seems to move annually because, angelic or not, earth moves annually and star stands still. Corrollary, since Saturn revolves non-annually and very much slower around sun, a very different parallax, larger than the 0.76 arc seconds we see from here, and some 90 times slower would be the expected outcome. If this is true, using parallax - stars' visible movements in other direction from moving earth - as measure of distance is feasible, since inversely proportional to distance. Not so in Hyp. 1.

Problem: the Cassini sond, which is on Saturn, or rather one of its moons, is not equipped with big telescopes.

So, there is no optic proof for modern cosmology either. Not where it differs from Tycho Brahe's cosmology, such as it would be if correcting circles to ellipses. Because one hypothesis has simple been ignored over centuries by "serious "scholarship". Same centuries as have seen "serious scholarship" grow and grow in funding and societal importance. Last of these, centuries in which Geocentrism becomes a metaphor - to be used freely in every other science, including linguistics and discussions of whether Atlantic English Creoles share a grammar because the black slaves made a grammar from scratch when hearing words and commands but little real speech with English, or whether they share the grammar they learnt at St Kitts, influenced by Castle of Cormantin, by the language of Igbo Akan***. Yes, there are a few decades now, to judge from my own experience, in which a Christian envisaging hypothesis 1 (Tycho Brahe and St Robert modified rather than Kepler + Einstein) may get a feedback not easily distinguishable from the one for people backbiting me and regarding me as a fool or a liar about my convictions.



Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibl. Audoux, Paris
16-IV-2011, St Lazarus Saturday


*[23607] Contra Gentiles, lib. 1 cap. 13 n. 27 Nec est contra hanc rationem quod motores inferiorum orbium movent motum sempiternum, et tamen dicuntur moveri per accidens. Quia dicuntur moveri per accidens non ratione sui ipsorum, sed ratione suorum mobilium, quae sequuntur motum superioris orbis.


**[23615] Contra Gentiles, lib. 1 cap. 13 n. 35 Ad hoc etiam inducitur a Damasceno alia ratio sumpta ex rerum gubernatione: quam etiam innuit Commentator in II physicorum. Et est talis. Impossibile est aliqua contraria et dissonantia in unum ordinem concordare semper vel pluries nisi alicuius gubernatione, ex qua omnibus et singulis tribuitur ut ad certum finem tendant. Sed in mundo videmus res diversarum naturarum in unum ordinem concordare, non ut raro et a casu, sed ut semper vel in maiori parte. Oportet ergo esse aliquem cuius providentia mundus gubernetur. Et hunc dicimus Deum.

source: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg1010.html

***The Linguistic Question is of course the main thing about McWhorter's book, I deal with it here:
Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Atlantic English based Creoles - born in Cormantin
http://filolohika.blogspot.fr/2013/01/atlantic-english-based-creoles-born-in.html

Quand je laisse un panneau avec l'adresse d'un blog, comme aujourd'hui dans la cage d'escalier de Bibl. Buffon ...

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, mercredi 13 avril 2011, 16:27

... je prends biensûr le risque que quelqu'un le prenne, soit quelqu'un du personnel soit un des visiteurs.

Comme aujourd'hui dans la cage d'escalier de la Bibliothèque Buffon.

Bon, il y aura cet article sur ce blog, je l'écris ici d'abord, puisque c'est le blog de mes écritures FB:

http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/

Que quiconque le soit qui l'ait pris comprenne, que j'ai fait le panneau pour qu'il soit annoncé, soit quand je fais la manche, par moi-même, soit comme je viens de le faire, dans le bâtiment. Qu'il le prenne où qu'il le veule (si c'est un bibliothécaire, il n'a pas le droit de le réexposer dans le cage d'escalier, je crains), mais qu'il l'expose!

Je veux des lecteurs sur internet, je veux biensûr aussi des lecteurs qui achètent mes articles sur papier, donc j'ai donné aux lecteurs, à tous, le droit de les imprimer ou copier autrement pour d'argent, et le droit - devoir parfois moral, mais pas devoir opposable juridique - de m'en verser un peu.

Voici le lien vers mes dispositions, il est abrégé, donc facile à retenir:

http://shrt.st/ui1

Mais si c'est un marxiste ou musulman - ou maçon ou rotarien ou féministe - ou même un chrétien (ou juif, ils semlent me vouloir bien dans ma personne, mais pas dans mon projet) qui l'a enlevé pour m'empêcher de faire connaître mes écrit, qu'il comprenne que j'ai marre de chez marre des salopards qui me font ça, et qui, derrière mon dos probablment prétendent en plus me rendre service, comme si je n'avais pas sû ce que j'étais en train de faire.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Buffon*
13-IV-2011

Oui, la Bibliothèque Buffon à Paris, pas un autre!

A modest proposal refused by intrigues, time after other ...

Correspondence with the husband of the woman who writes under pen name Elena Maria Vidal.

Excuse me, did your wife, formerly my friend, block me? And if so, why is she still following my blogs?

The one important thing where I did bother her was about "shrt (dot) st (slash) ujx" (a link that has been signalled as abusive, which I still cannot post as a link, abusively enough!) and asking her to either do an edition herself or spreading the word. I wonder because I saw, under Christine Niles' status, comments directed at [initials and first names of Elena Maria Vidal].

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Hans-Georg, I honestly have no idea. I'm sorry that I can't be of more help.

I take it you are married to [Elena Maria], and if you have no idea, you would be in a better position to ask her than I whom it seems she has blocked.

[later:]

Christine Niles just unfriended me. [see below]
a) she attacked the Catholic blogosphere as including Calumny and Detraction
b) when I tried to tell her this anti-internet campaign in certain Church quarters blocked me from my living, she unfriended me. Would your wife possibly have had similar motives? Or is that guess too wild?

Mr. Lundahl, I am currently focused entirely on securing full-time employment, so I haven't been following either [Elena Maria's] or Mrs. Niles' posts closely.

You are focussed on securing full time employment?

• a) do you totally rule out entrepreneurship on your own?
  
• b) if not, would you take a try at printing as books or booklets and selling my work, as explained in the conditions on link I could not post as such? And it is blatantly irrelevant if you had followed your [your wife's] FB postings closely or not. My first missive here started with a request to simply ask her, even leaving her free to do the answering.

Mr. Lundahl, your cause would be better served if you took a far less antagonistic and demanding tone with people you've never met. If you have written works of merit that you would like to publish, I would strongly recommend you consider Lulu.com or one of the numerous other, new self-publication solutions available. Many new authors are experiencing success well beyond what they could otherwise expect via traditional publishers: http://is.gd/dtnTB3 I must now conclude this dialogue. Good luck and Godspeed to you, sir.

My dear, I would not be taking an antagonistic tone if there had not been loads of people who could well have used my self-publishing scheme for their own and - if they gain sufficiently - my profit, who nevertheless prefer foisting on me schemes incompatible with it.

• The electronic version of my essays can be read for free, and I do not think they are inferior to an e-book. There are, however, people who will not touch internet, there are also people who like reading on paper on occasions when internet is inavailable. That is one area where my proposal - already made, I do not intend to withdraw it - comes in. For others and for me, financially. = 1
  
• 2) Another would be people who do themselves only read me online, but who think I merit support for being readable for free (Maecenas, et c). For me, financially.
• 3) A third would be people printing me and gaining money, but being themselves too poor to send me money. For them financially. That case would be morally incating for second category.

Point is, I have accomodated all three by the conditions I have given, I have been doing this for long - years, actually, and people who take your attitude have been less than supportive with getting categories 1 and 3 going, less than generous as category 2. Thus, I think one can by now have some sympathy for an attitude you brand as "antagonistic" and "demanding".

Especially as your position "securing time employment" seems to put you potentially in categories 1 or 3 rather than 2.

HGL

Oh, by category 1, I was rather describing their potential customer base than themselves, but smart as you are, I hope you got it.

And, no, what I ask has NOTHING, NADA to do with affirmative action of some kind because I am in the street. But I think the suspicion of your being guilty of such, if helping me to publish outside editing professionals, may have something to do with your rejection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ84b-KdTV8

John H. McWhorter, who is speaking against affirmative action as it is now applied, is one of my black heroes. Since in 2005 I read his The Missing Spanish Creoles. I wrote both your wife and Christine Niles not to hesitate to comment about something that sucks - saying it sucks - by using comments section under the blogposts.

Christine Niles, when challenged if she thought me guilty of calumny, detraction or rash judgement assured me she had read none of my blogs - but she did not explicit which ones in Catholic blogosphere (in which there are hundreds) she thought failed her moral standards. And my problem when trying to spread word about my project is precisely people who have read nothing on my blogs. And still think them worth avoiding to read.

Mr. Lundahl, as stated in my previous message, I am unable to continue and must now conclude this dialogue. I wish you luck in your endevours.

I get the feeling - btw, since this is internet, take your time! Take up the concluded dialogue today or tomorrow or next week or after easter as you wish! - that your "disability" to answer is a question of being privy to either some info about me, that you are afraid would offend me, or some intrigue against my project, that you do not wish me to speak up against.

Funnily enough, this morning among the personnel of a homeless guys' coffee club, I met an informatician who wanted very much to know the obvious facts I have told over and over - that I have been a teacher but much longer either student or out-of-work before getting out-of-home, and, that I do my blogging from libraries. Usually I even sign each post with the name of the library where I wrote or finished it. Networking related to the fact that I contacted you?


I did not quote above letter to expose Elena Maria Vidal - I take her pen name, and the letter was to her husband - or him (I here post only the fact he is her husband) BUT to show a kind of attitude I have been having to deal with year after year since it became known in France that I write on internet.

Christine Niles has no pen name, she is known under her own name at her university. The status on which the unfriending was done was about "calumny, detraction, rash judgement" which according to her there was plenty of in the Catholic Blogsphere.

Since in St Nicolas de Chardonnet it had been unfairly preached against FB after it became known I am on it, I suspected she or the priest who had prompted her to post the status, had similar motives: to counteract me getting known.

So, I challenged her basically to check my blogs, see if there was any calumny on it, if yes, to condemn it in comments under the blog post in question, if no to clear me of suspicions.

Since she unfriended me I have no access to my own comments, her original status included a link to a passage of catechism, here are her other ones:

• Christine a écrit :
  
  « Hans, I have no earthly idea what you're talking about. »
  
  [presumably I tried to explain]
  
  
• Christine a écrit :
  
  « Hans--There are hundreds of Catholic bloggers, and I have never read a single post from any of your blogs, so why you think I was targeting you in particular is beyond me. I didn't even have you remotely in mind. »
  
  [As occurred to me: I the most obvious suspect of calumny in blogging - obvious suspect since my writings are obviously calumnied - anyway, Moslems would consider it calumny to compare Mohammed to Joseph Smith, as I have done or to raise obvious questions about Moslems actually hunting slaves themselves among black and Europeans and considering it righteous jihad: and Catholic clergy in France would be very eager to listen to them and not so eager to tell them they find no fault in my writings, especially since I do not join their attacks on the Ayesha marriage of Mohammed and advocate, to anger of secularists and feminists, a marital age lowered back to 14/12 from 18/18 limit current all over most of Europe. Even so, if she has not read me, whom has she read to tick her off on that note? My feeling is, she was passing on a message from some priest, and he did not care to either comment or clear me either, but went through her, as knowing we were friends on FB - yes, that info is public to all of her and all of mine friends, or was till she unfriended me. And us having been friends so long and her having read no single post of my blogs? It is not for lack of invitations, really!]
  
  
• Christine a écrit :
  « Time to revise my FB friends list... »

Which is where I lost access to my part of the conversation. Her parts came not only on her wall, but also as e-mail notification.

I take this again:

http://o-x.fr/s006 - short link to my profile, linking to my blogs;
http://shrt.st/ujx - --- to English version of proposal made
http://shrt.st/ui1 - --- to French version of proposal made.

As to "why not e-book?" see my answer above to husband of Elena Maria Vidal.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque de Mouffetard
Paris V^e Arrondissement
April 9^th YooL 2011.

Holy Roman Empire explained for US, but we are heading back for Rome now, Pt III

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, jeudi 7 avril 2011, 17:53


1)Explaining Holy Roman Empire in terms of comparing to US. - Pt I, 2 a) Part II, more on Guilds than on Holy Roman Empire, 2 b) Guilds and Distributism, Defined, Defended, 2 c) What Did Social Aid Look like in the Middle Ages? (Link, Quotes and Comment) Or was it sth else?, 3) Holy Roman Empire explained for US, but we are heading back for Rome now, Pt III

Part I is previous note, and in case you missed it, part II is on a status - it is a debate - but also safegurded on my blog of FB writings here:

http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/04/part-ii-more-on-guilds-than-on-holy.html

Now, in part I, I used the word Reichsunmittelbar, the noun of which is Reichsunmittelbarkeit, which - I used wikipedia - translates as Imperial Immediacy.

Historians have queried about how such a thing could make sense, I gather from the article. Nuremberg and Munich are both in Bavaria. Munich is capital of the Duchy, later Kingdom. Nuremberg is not capital of the Duchy or Kingdom. Guess which of them was, under the HRE (before the Duchy became a Kingdom), Reichsunmittelbare Stadt or Reichsstadt? If you answer Munich, supposing it makes sense that Munich is directly under Empire but Nuremberg under Munich, you have got it all wrong. Of course, in a sense, Bavaria being directly under the Empire and Munich being capital of Bavaria, Munich was directly under the Empire too, but only as part of Bavaria. Nuremberg was Immediately under the Empire in its own right. Taking the Washington D.C. parallel will serve us again, I will briefly quote from Wikipedia:

The District is no longer 100 square miles (260 km2) due to the retrocession of the southern portion of the District back to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1846. The District's current area consists only of territory ceded by the state of Maryland. Washington is therefore surrounded by the states of Maryland to the southeast, northeast, and northwest and Virginia to the southwest.

Territory ceded is one key-word. So is territory retroceded. Nuremberg was made imperially immediate by cession from Duchy of Bavaria, finalised in 1219, by Frederick II the Stauffer (what an omen for its XXth C. history: as I was arguing with an anti-Monarchist, for each Frederick the Stauffer or Vlad the Impaler or similar, there is one dozen or at least half a dozen good Habsburgs or Wittenbergs - you know Vlad's hoby, Frederick's was making condemned criminals eat like some ten or twenty together and then cutting one or two up each half hour to study digestion like a "why can't they serve science, since they couldn't serve society" kind of cynicism: but in the XIX^th C. there were people among German professors of History whothought him a cool guy and who regarded the Habsburgs as backward or well-meaning retards or something). It was retroceded Sept 8 1806. When I say the cession was finalised in 1219, I mean emperors had already been looking well at it since XI^th C. - archeologists think the royal court buildings of St Egidius and St James are early, and in 1065 it is a district of its own, by decree of Emperor Henry IV. Conrad III gives it as a fief to the family of Nether Austrian nobles Raabs, and when the last of them dies withoutmale heirs ... anyway, the point is that the Emperor made Bavaria cede Nuremberg because he wanted his palace in Nuremberg. It was part time Imperial Residence. There were pretty many of them. And that was true of late Roman era too. Constantinople, Ravenna, Vienna (yes, for Marcus Aurelius, and yes, Vienna is that old: it might have become a Roman oppidum about the same year Our Lady was born) ... in the Holy Roman Empire of Germanic nation this was systematic. Magdeburg had been an imperial palace under Otto I, back in the Xth C. And Emperors enjoying such power over states - at least when possessing a part of it personally - was a sign that the Empire was very really an Empire.

Its retrocession to Bavaria was as said during the Napoleonic wars. The newfounded Kingdom of Bavaria - former Duchy, added on to Palatinate (as you may guess it was called that originally due to another Imperial Residence, and Regensburg was where Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia took submission of Bohemian royal heirs in person) and parts of Swabia and Franconia - paid a debt. During Middle Ages a man could not lose his freedom due to a debt of money, neither could a country, but Napoleonic era was pretty obviously more capitalistic or commercial in ethos.

This brings us to another change made during Napolenic wars: Salzburg was no longer a Bishopric and Quedlinburg no longer a nunnery immediately under the Empire. How come there ever where such? They are as absent from US, as Chicago was from HRE! Could it have Roman precedents?

Actually yes. There was a time when Legions were drawing back to Rome from the periphery, when stranded troops, so to speak, had to manage on their own. In Britain we talk of Sub-Roman Britain, where King Arthur was not yet by any means English. In France we have Syagrius, last man in place stranded between Visigoths and Burgundians, facing Atilla with Huns and their Ostrogoth allies, himself allied to the Bretons of Bretagne, who fled from Britain (- because Arthur had already failed, perhaps? - Arthurian Chronology is not very clear!) but when he died, his successor was no officer, but a bishop. Even when he was around, St Genevieve had been as good as a one woman garrison of Paris, now St Remigius took over. He did not hand over Paris to Clovis until he could baptise him in Reims first. Paris resisting a Pagan takeover was the foundingstone of the future HRE.

A city now called Mautern was in Roman timas Favianis. Its non-military garrison chief was St Severin. He was the greatest defender of Rhaetia Secunda, as long as it could be defended.

So, yes, this was a Roman thing too. I was going to cite the status of Athens as a free city under Trajan when talking about Nuremberg, but somehow it feels more apposite to mention it with Spiritual Principalities of the Empire, which the not holy Empire of Napoleon did away with. After all, philosophy and arts are some kind of spirituality even in themselves, when Pagans do not attach them to the true religion. And they were Trajan's motives.

Some Orthodox have made some heavy weather about Catholic bishops of Rome and Salzburg not being content with humility of purely spiritual power, but they too have had rulers over territories who were spiritual men. Can one mention Mount Athos? At least one ought to mention Montenegro. But here endeth part III/HGL

Part II, more on Guilds than on Holy Roman Empire

1)Explaining Holy Roman Empire in terms of comparing to US. - Pt I, 2 a) Part II, more on Guilds than on Holy Roman Empire, 2 b) Guilds and Distributism, Defined, Defended, 2 c) What Did Social Aid Look like in the Middle Ages? (Link, Quotes and Comment) Or was it sth else?, 3) Holy Roman Empire explained for US, but we are heading back for Rome now, Pt III

PFH (status and comment):

reminds everyone, Rousseau was the first distributism, if that is not so, tell me how he differed or how distributism is not anti-God

don't bother, we all know it is

Distributism is FOR boundaries between properties, Rousseau is AGAINST them. If you had not said "reminds everyone", ... wait - is this an April Fools joke? [not so, unfortunately]

CWK:

Distributism doesn't benefit people, it just puts price controls on the cost of labor, and that's nothing more than socialism. Inmho.

"price controls on the cost of labor"?

Well, Catholic states have been all for price controls, both for this and for other costs.

"different people have work skills that allow them to work at jobs that pay a lot higher wage than a person who is a low wage worker working for minimin wage at Mc Donald's."

Distributism might consider forbidding McDonald restaurants. = Oblige local owners (yes, franchising is a pretty distributist thing as far as it goes) to better working conditions and wages. Anyway, it is not the absolute skills that allow McDo workers no better job than at McDo, but someone's estimation of relative skills.

But that would not be like seizing the McDo restaurants for government, it would be like obliging them to do a decent thing for employees and for customers. The franchising central entity might also be forbidden to tax restaurants for use of McDo insignia.

BUT, a goldmsmith should be better paid than a blacksmith. A blacksmith better than a cobbler. And a cobbler handsewing shoes should be better paid than people using the McKay machine marketed by a Yankee during War between the States.

Not meaning any of the three should be employees, primarily. This is not utopia in the sense of has never been, will never be. This is backward, and some of us are proud of it.

CWK:

Hans-Georg Lundahl "Well, Catholic states have been all for price controls, both for this and for other costs." Prove it

[commenting on sth said by codebater on my side:] ‎"Do not get me wrong, I do not think you would agree, but I take a certain pride in unity of the comparison.
As for the second part, if we are using the same definition and idea of “price control,” than I humbly submit that your definition of socialism is too broad. Would you consider price control by regulatory guilds, as found in Medieval Christendom, to socialistic?" There's a difference between collective negotiations and price controls, although Guilds can price themselves so high that they're no longer usable, when that happens, people start to think about how they can do without or circumvent whatever service the guilds offer.

"Guilds can price themselves so high that they're no longer usable, when that happens, people start to think about how they can do without or circumvent whatever service the guilds offer." - When that happened the city state considered the guild to have broken contract and itself free to allow free masters (masters outside the guild) to trade in the city. Same thing if quality was lowered or otherwise considered insufficient. Which is proof of the proposition you wanted proven.

How is it proof? By the fact that according to contract between guild and city state normally - contrasting with the case in point - only the masters of the guild were allowed to establish themselves in the city. Goods from outside were taxed by tolls, in order to protect work opportunities / enterprise opportunities within each city.

In my answer to C[WK], above, I mentioned "city-states". I felt this calls for clarification. So I wrote this note (on my other profile): (link to FB here replaced by link to Pt I)

http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/04/explaining-holy-roman-empire-in-terms.html

PFH:

"catholics states have always had price controls" [sic!]
rubbish!

restraints on trade are in direct violation of the magna carta.

about the boundaries around property issue; in the first place, i was comparing the two in their phi...losophy, not so much in their politics. The philosophy, in ether case is, "we were all pretty much good, with some exceptions, then some institution came out and now we are mostly selfish and everything is bad". In the one case, that institution was private property, in the other case, that institution was the illusive "capitalism" never defined of coarse, as definitions are pre-romanticism and therefore not traditionalist or groovy enough for distributists who are all about feelings, never doctrine.

That said, you have yet to give an argument for that arrangement other then that it is not communism and people used to do something like it....

About a "society of small owners" why should people be made to own who would rather not?

Because you put proffits ahead of human welfare

P[FH], on April 3 I wrote - and now I copy-paste: "Well, Catholic states have been all for price controls, both for this and for other costs." ‎5 hours ago you quoted me as saying - now it is your quote that I copy-paste: "catholics states have always had price controls" [sic!]

Lesson, when you quote on internet, use copy-paste to ensure exact quote. The quote supposedly from me that you wrote is indeed rubbish, but it is as quoted by you, not from me. I never use the phrase "have always been for", I used the phrase "have been all for"="not at all against".

On his comparison between Rousseau and Chesterton: ‎"The philosophy, in ether case is, 'we were all pretty much good, with some exceptions, then some institution came out and now we are mostly selfish and everything is bad'."

Not so. Not only is there a vast philosophical leap between positing a pre-property society destroyed by private property and recording a pre-Capitalist society destroyed by Capitalism, Chesterton is not saying that "now we are mostly selfish", but that selfish people by owning too much are empowered to destroy too much for more decent people.

"restraints on trade are in direct violation of the magna carta."

• ‎1) It remained in function as law for a very short period of time, a Pope absolved King John Lackland from the oath and signature thereof.
  
• ‎2) You have not quoted the exact phrase in which "restraints on trade" are forbidden by it.
  
• ‎3) Even if they were, I very much doubt if people back then would have regarded price control as you regard it, i e as "restraints on trade".

You are as bad when attributing positions to Chesterton as when attributing them to me. "In the one case, that institution was private property, in the other case, that institution was the illusive 'capitalism' never defined of coarse," - But he DID define it. He defined it as the kind of economy in which most of the capital is owned by a minority of the population and handed out to the rest mainly as wages to people who cannot dream of owning the company themselves.

Contrast Guilds, in which regulations limited number of employees, in which therefore each company being small the needs of the community of each branch was served by a pretty big number of companies, meaning that a pretty large part of the population were owning their companies. And since, under the guilds, they had previously been employees, known back then as journeymen, that meant employees had a hope of becoming owners if getting really good at the work.

You may argue that some branches are not capitalist but guild system in this distinction: I agree, so did Chesterton. And what is more, he never said everything was bad. He said inns were still good, but were better before brewery got big capitalist. He wanted to keep inns and return brewing to the guild system. Any microbrewery that opens is a boon to Chesterton.

"as definitions are pre-romanticism and therefore not traditionalist or groovy enough for distributists who are all about feelings, never doctrine." - Sorry, but your rudeness beats your own record of ignorance! First of all, if anything is about feelings and not about doctrine, it is not romanticism but enlightenment. Voltaire beats Ruskin any day in sentimental meandering without worrying about facts - and so do you.

As a second I was going to say it was wrong to put Ruskin in the same bag as .... Coleridge? .... because both are labelled Romantics. But by naming Ruskin I already said it.

‎"About a 'society of small owners' why should people be made to own who would rather not?" - Why indeed? And why do you presume that most non-owners would rather not own? Indeed, the kind of stress owners are put through in debts incurred before getting owners (inheritance duty does something to keep indebtment alive among owners), and by competition about the bankers' good-will and confidence, is discouraging enough, but that is one reason Distributists hate usury - which is clearly a very long-standing Church Teaching! - and no indication they would also hate being owners if that were feasible without mortgages. As was the case under guild system.

"The capitalist believes a firm's purpose is to serve the customer and that alone ought keep him afloat. The distributist believes the firms should be made to stay afloat for its own profits." - The Distributist believes that the fewer firms there are, the fewer people are in a real position to be customers. How many non-owning customers now are so only through dole from state or from consummation loans?

Yes, any one branch, a reduction of firms with a cheapening of production by use of machinery will serve the customers who are owners or employees in all the other branches, but if it happens in branch after branch, the mathematics are a bit different for that. Since it lowers considerably the number of real owners of productive property.

If Capitalism were so convenient for a Catholic life, how come so many of them donate to PP? See second quote on FB collected on this blog of mine:

http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-have-posted-quotes-on-fb.html

Here closeth part II, the debate on guilds. As far as blog message is concerned. Further comments on same status will go to comment parts of this blog post. God willing and wheather permitting./HGL

Explaining Holy Roman Empire in terms of comparing to US. - Pt I

par Hans-Georg Lundahl, jeudi 7 avril 2011, 13:19

1)Explaining Holy Roman Empire in terms of comparing to US. - Pt I, 2 a) Part II, more on Guilds than on Holy Roman Empire, 2 b) Guilds and Distributism, Defined, Defended, 2 c) What Did Social Aid Look like in the Middle Ages? (Link, Quotes and Comment) Or was it sth else?, 3) Holy Roman Empire explained for US, but we are heading back for Rome now, Pt III

I used the word "city-states" about the local authorities who dealt with guilds and who could put some kinds of pressure on them for, say, price regulation. And it occurred, who ever in the US thinks of Munich or of Lubeck as city-states? When you read in your school manuals that these were important German cities, what does this suggest? NY? LA? Chicago?

No Chicago in Holy Roman Empire.

One thing is for sure, you can rule Chicago out. In 1806 Napoleon ended the traditional form of the HRE of Germanic nation. Austrian Empire is one immediate legitimate successor state, German Union was pretty soon another, but changes were made. HRE of Germanic Nation properly known so in history was the era between Charlemagne and 1806. And in Germany that was before the Industrial Revolution. A city where bulls arrive from all over the place on trainloads, and leave as corned beef in Tin Cans every day to all over the world was basically unthinkable in HRE.

More than one Washington D.C.

But there is another big difference between Chicago and a city that was Reichsunmittelbar - which nearly all important and many less important cities were. Chicago is local authorities in the sense it is a local department of Illinois which is a state of US. Whether or not Illinois can be considered a sovereign state is beside the point, it has at least a legislature, and therefore a legislation other than neighbouring states. So had Lubeck. So had Cologne or Francfurt. They had a status like the one City State of US: Washington DC. It is not part of a State but directly under the Union. The phrase word Reichsunmittelbar means "directly under the empire" or "directly under the realm".(Translated as Imperial Immediacy).

Magdeburg and Lübeck

Magdeburg long had this status too, but lost it. Before that, the Constitution of Magdeburg - Magdeburger Stadtrechte - was model for city states all over the North East, outside the Empire, where German cities connected to mission were protected, originally, against Pagan sackers and captive hunters (for slavery or some places even human sacrifice) by Ensiferi and Teutonic Knights (Riga was at one time sacked by them - when they were in conflict with its Archbishop and the Pope and posing obstacles to the baptism of Gedimynas of Lithuania). For Hanseatic league, it is more often the Constitution of Lübeck - Lübsches Recht - that stands model. And Riga, Reval and Memel, though in the land of the Teutonic and Ensifer Orders followed Lübsches Recht.

I think this means you see a certain point about calling "local authorities" in Lübeck or Cologne or Nuremberg (Munich was not Reichsunmittelbar, but under Duchy of Bavaria) "local authorities": in US this gets you another notion than back then and there.

States developing out of states.

The United States also has states like Virginia or Kentucky and Tennessee or Maryland. Now, Kentucky and West Virginia were originally parts of Province of Virginia, Tennessee of North Carolina. Similarily, both Palatinate and Austria were originally parts of Bavaria, and Savoy of Burgundian Kingdom which came to the HRE in 1032. When Dauphiné of this Kingdom came under France in 1349, Emperor Karl IV made the Savoy Reichsunmittelbar in 1361, and its Count was named Reichsvikar for the old Burgundian territory - a kind of steward for the Kings of Germany/Roman Emperors between death of one and lection of next over all of the Kingdom of Arelate (such stewards were only over large territories, not over the Empire as a whole), even if the loss of Dauphiné restricted the practical authority to Savoy, and some added counties like Geneva county excepting the city (1401) and Nice County including the city (1388). The relations between France and Germany in the Middle Ages and up to Louis XIV even further over three wars started or backed by Germans no longer in the old Empire (1870, when Bismarck tricked his Prussian King into a war by forging the contents of a telegram, 1914, when Berlin flouted Belgian neutrality, possibly 1939 if the Polish soldiers attacking Danzig were really Germans in disguise, but even if not, Hitler had shown bad faith in Austria and Bohemia in 1938) - these German French Relations were a bit like the differends between US and Mexico over 19th C. Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California la Alta ... but Alsace/Elsass and Lorraine/Lothringen changed hands more than once. Over centuries one or other of the two could not keep the upper hand permanently.

Bavaria, Palatinate, Austria

The Duke of Bavaria - very early a Wittenberg - was an elector, one of the men entitled to chose a new King of Germany and Roman Emperor at the death of previous one: but at Reformation a part called Palatinate (Pfalz) was divided from it and became a Protestant elector, also of Wittenberg family. The Palatinate counts gave rise to two royal families: the Pfalz dynasty in Sweden with Charles X Gustavus (who beat the Poles and the Polish Wasas renounced their claim to the Swedish throne, plus lands previously under Ensifer order taken by Wasas), his son Charles XI, his grandchildren Charles XII (our last great warrior king, except Charles XIV John, a k a Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, but he succeeded an usurper)and reigning queen Ulrika Eleonora whose husband Frederick I have occasion to the quip about the Swedish clock moving from 12 to 1; and their relatives who reconverted to Catholicism when becoming Dukes, later, after 1806 Kings of Bavaria.

Another county had been cut off Bavaria much earlier, when Magyars were still heathen, the Ostmark, which later was raised to a status of Duchy of Austria - not all of today's Austria but Vienna with surrounding Nether Austria and neighbouring Upper Austria. Its best rulers were perhaps the Babenbergs - mostly called Leopold, one of which was a saint, after them came the King of Bohemia, and when he rebelled about not being elected when a poor count of Habsburg was, this Habsburg who was a very pious man and had never dreamt about being elected got both Bohemia and Austria as damages for rebellion of Ottokar.

Bohemia and Hawaii

There is a striking feature of the HRE that one could have a position in it and at same time rule people outside it. But the Kingdom of Bohemia was not a real example of this. Back in the Tenth Century both Bohemia and Moravia though already existing as states, applied for membership so to speak. That is, like Hawaii for the US, their rulers submitted to the larger state that spoke another and larger language and were incorporated. This did not mean, in either case that the old language was abandnoned, but in both cases the larger language was imported. There were German speakers in Prague and Sudeten from Tenth Century to the Twentieth. How is that for fairness in Woodrow Wilson, who supported Czech nationalists who said only Czech must be spoken there? Hitler may have been a jerk for upsetting the peace of Woodrow Wilson, and he certainly was breaking promises made to the allies when he did so. But the situation of these Germans makes it understandable that some looked at Hitler as a hero in 1938. Imagine Hawaian nationalists claiming to expel everyone from Hawaii who speaks no Hawaian and confiscate his property? Or Welsh nationalists wanting to expel all whose mother tongue is English, unless they learn Welsh? That is about the absurdity these men were submitted to. Not because all Czechs are jerks, not because U S Americans voting for Woodrow Wilson were jerks, but Woodrow Wilson himself was a jerk. He was a freemason. And his citizens knew too little of Europe to protest against it. I do sympathise with Americans who do not want to make as bad a show with the Muslims, but when I read an American writing about Sarah Palin - who has at least decent family values and is decent in US matters where US will be setting an example one way or the other - that she knows nothing about Foreign Policy who thereupon implies he knows sufficiently about European History between Wilson and Franco to sum up all fascists in this or that fad Mussolini embraced for some while, I feel knowing little about Old Continents is pretty endemic in US. I will return to this, when asking why HRE and later Austrian Empires were wiped off the map.

Constitution of member states monarchic in HRE

Typically, unlike US, member states so to speak of the HRE were hereditary monarchies. Republics typically were city-states as the Reichsunmittelbare Städte we started this discussion with.

Other states typically were Duchies, Counties, and in one case one Kingdom, Bohemia. Bavaria and Saxony only became Kingdoms after 1806. Prussia was a self-proclaimed Kingdom but outside borders of HRE. As Hungaria for the other great dynasty, for the Habsburgs: but Hungary got its royal status from a Pope giving it to St Stephen. And counties were more like states than like shires. Difference between a duchy and a county? When summoned to war, the army of a duchy was led by a duke, roughly corresponding to a general, but the army of a county by a count (graf), roughly equivalent to a vice-general.

Rural republics featuring Secession: Switzerland, CSA

So, what about rural Republics? Yes, there were. Obwalden, Nidwalden, Uri and Schwyz were such. But none of them were Reichsunmittelbar. They were under Habsburgs, and if the Habsburg in Vienna was no bad guy, his representative over there, a certain Gessler was. William Tell led a rising against him after he had toyed around too much with his Christian conscience. These four Waldstätte - literally forest shires, thus smaller than what counties were in HRE - were the first secessionist states of what in 1648 became Confederatio Helvetica. Yes, the CSA in relation to the Union was a blueprint of Switzerland in relation to the Empire. Except that CSA was beaten, CF was not. Actually these very four cantons were to secede once again in 1847, attempting not full sovereignty but more autonomy than CF Protestant anticlericals in Bern and Zurich wanted to allow them. The Sonderbund of 1847 failed. I was discussing HRE yestarday with a man who claimed monarchy was mostly corrupt - among other things he said most Kings in OT were idolaters or tolerant of Idolatry, which was true enough or Jeroboam, Ahab, Jehu and others in the North Kingdom, but false in the Kingdom of Judah, where only three Kings were bad enough not to figure on the kosher version of Our Lord's genealogy (the one in Saint Matthew, according to principle "unjust ancestor does not count as ancestor"). He also asked whether "accountability to the people" existed there. Obviously the people of Schwyz, Uri, Obwalden and Nidwalden could demand more accountability from the power when William Tell rose against Gessler in full HRE, than when Sonderbund of 1847 failed to rise against anticlericals in central government of Bern, Confederatio Helvetica. And as obviously the lessened real accountability to the people had something to do with Bern Government having better arms than Gessler had. As to formalised "non-violent accountability to the people", as on same discussion I said, has not saved people from school compulsion, from psychiatry, from abortion and contraception funded by the fisc, or - as the example of 1847 shows - from anticlerical outbreaks of persecution against Jesuits and Franciscans.

Did rural republics exist elsewhere? Depends a bit on what era and what level. Under Charlemagne all Empire - France too - was divided into Counties led by Counts nominated by the Emperor, but under the counts you had rural republics comprising all free-men. Know what, here is another parallel: under Charlemagne and under George Washington there were slaves. Under Franz 1806 there were no longer slaves nor are there under present administration of US. Unless you count the victims of Child Welfare, of Psychiatry, of School Compulsion, or the employees of Industrial Corporations. Which were non-extant under Emperor Franz in 1806.

Know what - this is long, I will try to publish this as the first part. A second part will be quotes from a discussion./HGL

PS: And yes, one reason for breaking off is that I am as yet not sure of extent how much the rural republics under Charlemagne survived outside the Waldstätte/wood cantons.