A Response to The Idea of a Catholic Monarch

So yeah the title is kinda shitty and boring because i wasn't in the mood to be clever.  life goes on.


Anyway, i was honestly quite fascinated and surprised to find out that, beyond the dull and same-old bickering between Catholic Conservatives and Catholic Socialists (Yes i just called them that), there has actually been what appears to be a reviving of the idea of just saying "screw this" and actually going back to having a Catholic monarchial government like we did back in the middle ages.

They present such a proposition due to what they consider to be the inevitable failure of democracies and republics, including the United States.

Unfortunately, i have found just about everything said by such advocates to be logically problematic in one way or another.

First and foremost is simply the claim that modern governments that consist of some sort of direct or indirect democracy have outright failed.
Despite the fact that yes, the United States as well as the European countries are rapidly going up in debt and probably eventually will have to suffer the same fate as Greece, These countries are actually still doing alright.

I think what's more important to point out is that there doesn't seem to be any reason conclude that the problems that modern countries ARE facing are simply due to the fact that they are more or less democratic. It seems to me rather foolish to simply rule out other sensible causes of our societal problems, such as culture and/or economic, political or monetary policies. The way i see it, many modern countries are on the highway to hell because they are increasingly adopting socialist policies driven by the increasing cultural acceptance of socialism.

In line with this, i've heard that the Monarchists' main reason for rejecting varying forms of democracy is because it is "ruled by the mob majority" as they say. In other words; the selfish, evil-inclined average Joes (And Joanns, because we're totally not patriarchs) human beings vote in a way that serves the selfish interest of the majority of themselves. More over, most of them are ill-informed of what the hell's even going on and how to handle it.

Interestingly enough, as a libertarian, myself, I totally agree with their criticism of the "mob rule."

In which case, my objection won't be towards that idea, but to two other things.

The first being that, after Catholic monarchists say that because of the concupiscence of the average human and that he is unfit to make important political decisions, they immediately seem to forget this when they follow up by essentially saying that one among these humans ought to have significant and unchallenged rule over all the rest of them.

But it makes no sense whatsoever to first say that human beings are corrupted by sin (which is true) and that they can't be politically responsible or take care of themselves, then IMMEDIATELY turn around and say that one of these corrupt humans can totally rule over the rest and take care of all of them. This is a plain and simple inconsistency.

Secondly, after they object to our current system of voting, the don't appear to provide any better alternative to determining the who and what of a nation. In the end, as bad as this so called "mob rule" could potentially be, this really seems to be as good as it gets when we're stuck in a world riddled with a fallen human nature. At least with voting we have some degree of political accountability, unlike the typical monarchies that we had in the middle ages.

On the side, i've heard many of these monarchists also object to our modern beloved economic system we know as capitalism; saying it is an evil enlightenment system that has rejected human dignity and brought about exploitation and the like.

First off, when they object to capitalism by virtue of the fact that it supposedly originated from the enlightenment, they are simply committing the genetic fallacy.

In other words, they are judging an idea or system simply based off of it's origin, rather than actually assessing the idea or system itself. This is a clear and easy misstep in logic. Just because something "came from the enlightenment era" doesn't automatically, magically mean that that said idea is either good or bad. Like every other period, the enlightenment also has it's ups and downs.

Now some monarchists do go past this logically fallacy and actually do fire direct shots at the system itself, based of of it's content. However, these objections prove to be oblivious at best.

I think what's important to keep in mind on top of all that is that their really is no fundamental alternative to capitalism other than socialism, despite that many traditionalist Catholics inaccurately attempt to condemn both capitalism and socialism simultaneously. (i spelled that word correctly on the first try. You should be proud of me)

There is much much more i could say on this topic and the ones adjacent to it, but i'll conclude here.

I think my final point simply ought to be that the state, by it's very nature, is in fact an intrinsic evil. Now, that doesn't mean we should get rid of it, for we recognize that it is a necessary evil. Another good example of a necessary evil is killing another person as an act of self-defense. Even though it is totally okay to kill someone in that particular, serious context, you would never stop to say that it is a good thing. Likewise with the state, whose existence is fundamentally predicated upon humans assuming coercive control over other dignified humans, is also a necessary evil.

The important moral distinction between a good and a necessary evil is this: Often we should strive to maximize goods. By contrast, we should always strive to minimize necessary evils, and the state is no exception. THIS is ultimately why small and weak government is better.

Out of this comes my ultimate moral and philosophical objection to a monarchy: we are obliged to minimize the power of the state because it is evil by it's nature. by contrast, a monarchy does precisely the opposite; putting all the power in the hands of a single individual without establishing any opposition or counterbalancing force. Thus the power of the state is maximized, which can only lead to a horrid amount of corruption.