Capto Iugulum: 1920 - 1939

[EQandcivfanatic]

Just realized I forgot to include the new order deadline on the front page. FYI, it's Friday, but there will be a traditional 24-hour (at least) period of leniency for stragglers before the no more orders at all cutoff.

 

[SouthernKing]

OOC: is there a PADA social group? If so, could whoever runs it please invite me? Thanks.

 

[BILLSIF]

The government of Egypt joins her brethren in recognizing the independence of Tunis. Furthermore, Egypt will see to it that the liberation & freedom of the people of Tunis is secured against Imperial Sardinian rule.

 

[Nuka-sama]

The government of Jacksonia hereby recognizes the nation of Tunis, and encourages all forward thinking nations to do the same. The end of colonialism is at hand. March on, free men, March on!

 

[Luckymoose]

TO: Sardinia
FROM: Brazil
CC: World

Brazil believes this situation must be handled swiftly and peacefully in order to prevent unneeded bloodshed. Sardinia should consider the consequences of holding on to these foreign territories with the people in mind. Do the moral thing.

 

[Nuka-sama]

A speech by Liam Tuff to PADA

In regards to the situation in Nicaragua, it is quite clear that the people of Nicaragua did NOT support the disbanding of their Congress, rather, it was the decision of the military, and under the protection of the Catholic Church and Brazil, it is quite clear a tyranny has been formed in Nicaragua, similar to that found in Chile.

It is because of this that we are hereby withdrawing our ambassadors from Nicaragua and Chile in protest of the religious tyranny's that have been established there. Further more, we will be offering citizens of Nicaragua and Chile political asylum in Jacksonia while their nations are under the boot heel of a brutal dictator.

Nations of PADA, we must say the time for action is now. Our former member Nicaragua was a proud democracy and a good friend and ally. Are we to sit idly by while a dictator takes the civil liberties and freedom that we, and at one time the Nicaraguan people, take for granted? If we cannot help one of our own in their hour of need, we question the purpose of this organization to continue existing.

 

[Jehoshua]

To: The Government of Jacksonia
CC: PADA
From: The Holy See

-

The Holy See demands that your president Liam Tuff retract his calumnious statement that the dissolution of the congress of Nicaragua was done under the "protection of the Catholic Church" immediately, and makes a formal apology to the Church.

Neither the Holy See or the Nicaraguan bishops had foreknowledge whatsoever of the President of Nicaragua's intent, and in no way were we or they involved in its planning or execution. The President of Nicaragua and his supporters are free agents, and their actions were and are entirely their own. All actions taken with regards to the situation in Nicaragua by the Holy See have been post-fact, and aimed at ensuring that the sovereign rights of Nicaragua are not trampled in order that a peaceful return to stability may be achieved by Nicaraguans, for Nicaraguans, without foreign impositions on the free people of the said nation. Considering this, the "coup' can hardly be said to have been taken under the "Church's protection"

At any rate, this latest crass and unsubstantiated outburst from Liam Tuff merely reinforces the conclusion that the Jacksonian state is fanatically anti-Catholic and indeed anti-religious in its philosophy, and that PADA's policies have become directed by a rabid, intolerant, and fundamentalist anti-clerical anti-Catholicism.

~Sec. For Relations with States.

 

[Jehoshua]

Against the Response of Prof. Nouveau

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by Fr Oullet

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Spoiler :

Professor Nouveau displays a fundamental error in his thinking in this discussion. Namely in his arrogance he upholds that all teaching, namely Catholic, must be questioned, yet then immediately declares freedom of religion a self-evident right he needn't defend from criticism. This needless to say is a direct contradiction to the humanists claim to be questioning, and is an utterly absurd assumption to make considering an absence of any supporting rationale from the professor to support his point. It appears that the humanists are just as "dogmatic" as they say the Catholic Church and the moralists are, save that the moralists and the Catholic Church are willing to defend their teachings and their self evident truth to all who would question them.

To answer therefore Nouveaus criticisms. His statements regarding Brazil an freedom of religion vis a vis moralism are extraneous with regards to moralist philosophy (regarding as I mentioned before, its rejection of freedom of religion as an absolute right) because Brazils claim (and actual effectual commitment) to uphold freedom of religion proceeds from its constitution, which is not a moralist document. Moralist governments have in almost all instances preferred to act through existing channels to promote their positions in accordance with moralisms respect for law, and thus in Brazil the moralists uphold the constitutional law, precisely because of that respect, as compared to say the proletarists who actively promote revolution against the state.

As to Freedom of Religion itself in the moralist and Catholic view. Freedom of religion is not an absolute precisely because men are morally obliged towards the truth. It is not morally equivalent to choose to uphold error over the truth, or the wrong from the right. This principle informs in the secular world to use an example, courts of law, where men are bound to state the truth precisely because men are morally obliged to the truth. If men had equal right to error as truth then there would be no reason to uphold this principle, and indeed some would see it overthrown under "freedom of speech". Considering this therefore, moralism considers it incorrect to consider freedom of religion as an absolute right, precisely because men have no right to error, only to rights intrinsic to the human person. Thus they contain no right to practice an erroneous religion or preach erroneous teachings if they commit harm to society, even as they are entitled to freedom to belief in such doctrines.

Nouveau then proceeds to question my statement on Catholic doctrine regarding original sin, but stating that saying humans tend to evil is the same as if they were essentially evil. This is philosophically absurd. Firstly to say men tend to evil is to say that men are wounded, that is although they are essentially good they are bound to err due to their imperfections. To say on the contrary that man is essentially evil in nature (as Nouveau is accusing the Church of teaching) is to state that man is to his core evil, and thus incapable of good and entirely unable to be redeemed. This is clearly not the Church's doctrine, and it is philosophical dishonesty to state that tending to evil, and being essentially evil, are the same thing.

Thus turning to original sin, the Professor calls this doctrine unscientific, when in fact it is a most scientific of doctrines. The reality of original sin is clearly evident in human behaviour and psychology. Men, although good in nature are known through the sciences (and common sense) to be tempted to favour self-interest over a greater good, and to cheat, steal and yes decieve when it suits them instead of choosing the moral good. As these are individual vices that occur even at the lowest level, Nouveau simply cannot attribute them to structural errors in society (and indeed that reasoning is itself erroneous, for man creates his own society, not the other way around.).Thomas Hobbes, a secular philsopher put it well when he gives the metaphor of the stag hunt, which displays the fundamental tension between greed and the greater good as an example to support his view of a life without society as nasty, brutish and short.

Considering this, the moralist emphasis on the imperative to charity as an individual and collective duty is completely consistent and understandable. If man is fallen (and so the society he creates) an increase in holiness and the propagation of good in man, promoted through the prism of charity, is more effective at improving men than treating injustice and poverty as a structural weakness, and the afflicted as mere produts of the same, Likewise, I must stress here that Nouveau, perhaps due to his atheistic proletarist beliefs, appears to totally misunderstand christian charity as the mere giving of alms. This is a false conception, for charity is holistic in that it aims at the improvement of the lot of the poor in addition to their subsistence. As in the parable of the good samaritan where the namesake bandaged and assisted the wounded man, so too does moralism imitate him in doing so, and in also leaving him to the inn (the Church and charitable care) for his continued recovery in order that he may look after himself in the future.

The Professor then proceeds to discuss Thacker. Here if I may correct him again, Thacker was engaged in subversive activity in Chile as a foreign citizen. As such, as is customary in all nations with regards to foreigners who sow dissent against the state, he was declared persona non grata and expelled. It is incongrous therefore for Nouveau to attest that the Thacker incident was fundamentally different from any other such explusion and accuse the Chilean government of expelling him for his political views as compared to active promotion of disobedience to the law, since expulsions on these lines are not unique to moralism, and as he attests himself, had nothing to do with Thackers religious beliefs.

To continue with Nouveaus objections regarding my statements on free will and individual morality. He is showing simple foolishness when he states that the actions of an individual have no affect on society. On the contrary they do, precisely because the actions of each person affect all those around him, with this only being increased in magnitude by similar actions of others. The widespread use of tobacco and alcohol for example has a dramatic impact on society precisely due to the choices of numbers of individuals in choosing to engage in such activity. This furthermore does not negate that even a single individual being drunk on the streets affects all those who come in contact to him. As the Professor is incomprehending here, so too is he failing to understand the points with regards to contraception, he places a false divchotomy between sex as an expression of love, and its fundamental biological, God-Ordained purpose of procreation. In order for one to be truly realised both must be respected. To seek procreation only for its own sake would indeed be degrading the act and a dehumanisation of the family, but so too would considering it merely an "act of love" (his use of the term love is severely circumscribed to Eros, passion) be degrading the act, in that it would reduce it to as I said a mere exercise in mutual masturbation, denying the ultimate self-giving love and its results, which is to say children. I would also add here that his assumption that this kind of "sex solely for pleasure" activity is loving in any substantial way, as compared to the reality of men taking advantage of women for their own pleasure (something empirically known to be, through the continued social evil of prostitution, and the existence of crimes of a sexual nature that occur when passions [which Nouveau would exult] are divorced from the objective ends of the sexual act) Thus sex, to be a true manifestation of love must be open to its natural purpose, being an exercise of self-giving, and be exercised in a truly profound relationship between its participants. This is why the Church ordains sexual relations solely in the sacrament of marriage and forbids contraception.

Finally, to address his last points, his accusation of a "dictatorship of duty to the truth" is divorced entirely from moral reasoning. Men are bound to moral obligations, truth amongst them in law and in nature. To say then, as Nouveau is, that such obligations are a "dictatorship" and illegitimate, is entirely to deny the duty to law, which would indicate that Nouveau is an anarchist and denies absolutely that men are bound to anything other than their own ego's and their own desires. He then of course questions the Church's claim to truth noting false religions adherents fervent belief in the truth of their own faiths. Here human reason is sufficient to comprehend the truth of Catholic doctrine, for where the Protestants have their sola scriptura fallacy (ooc: they claim scripture contains all that is necessary for salvation, and yet the bible does not claim that, or even state which books are scripture, how then can men know where to find his salvation if he doesn;'t know the books, and how does the protestant know this is true if his scripture which contains all that is necessary to know on this subject is silent?) and historically clear, man made faith. Islam has its Quran which claims it is a perfect and impeccable revelation despite numerous factual errors and inconsistencies ( was man created from A blood clot [96:1-2], water [21:30, 24:45, 25:54], "sounding" (i.e. burned) clay [15:26], dust [3:59, 30:20, 35:11] or nothing [19:67]?), and Hinduism has its rational absurdity of polytheism and the worship of created things. Only Catholicism, the religion of reason (which has never fallen to the bibliolatry and hyperliteralism of certain protestant sects), is reconcilable to the knowledge that can be gained from reason and to sublime faith. For indeed Christ himself is the Logos, the font of divine creative reason, and so being God his doctrines contain the fullness of truth, both of matters divine and unknowable to men save by revelation, and to things that can be known. Thus through reason, men can comprehend the self-evident truth of the Catholic religion and its superiority to all other religions, confirmed doubly so through the miracles that even now remain for all to see (see eucharistic miracle of lanciano). This truth naturally being known to men, becomes a moral obligation to teach and proclaim to those who have not recieved it, and morally binding for the state to support it over that which is erroneous.

To conclude my argument, I must reattest that human nature is known by reason, and that this nature is self-evident to anyone with commonsense and a right mind. So too truth, being as it is true is a moral duty to uphold, and so too moral behaviour since man is not beholden solely to himself but to society and the common good of all. In this understanding we can see the great error of atheistic secularism at its core finds its roots in a denial of the concept of truth itself, in a radical individualism that rejects personal responsibility for action and the duty of all men to their community and peers. This taken to its rational conclusion woudl result in a totalitarian society, where none have the right to contest the behaviour of others and the powerfuls "freedom' takes priority over charity and duty to the collective. Thus it woudl come to pass that christian liberty, would not be admitted, and that all who would uphold would see no tyrannical law, no matter how outrageous that they were not bound to agree and submit too in the name of "Freedom" in violation of the true human right of conscience.

Seeing this, I must encourage all to make every effort to oppose secular humanism and illuminate its seriously misguided adherents that they may see the philosophical absurdity of their philosophy, and so that the idea of man as unbound to the common good of the community and his fellows may continue to hold as it does at present pride of place in law and civil understanding precisely to prevent tyranny and oppression.

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ooc: and this shall conclude this little philosophical debate, I haven't finished and posted the second part of the first response yet (I will make it known when I have), but as per what you said there is no need for you to respond, particularly when we can presume ipso facto that academic discourse is ongoing between scholars (with these as mere examples)

 

[theDright]

To: Pope Pius X
From: Argentine Old Church

While the taxation reform in the Papal States is to be mostly admired, the full adoption of usurious banking practices by the Church and the protection of the privacy of those engaging in it is sickening.

 

[ChineseWarlord]

Croatia-Germany defensive pact

1.In the event that either Germany or Croatia is attacked, the other nation agrees to enter the war as well.

2. This treaty does not apply in the event that either Germany or Croatia is an aggressor in a war.

Signed, King Mirko Hrvatinić

If this isn't good, feel free to give suggestions or edit it Nintz.

 

[Nintz]

Croatia-Germany defensive pact

1.In the event that either Germany or Croatia is attacked, the other nation agrees to enter the war as well in the interest of mutual defense.

2. This treaty does not apply in the event that either Germany or Croatia is an aggressor in a war.

Signed, King Mirko Hrvatinić

If this isn't good, feel free to give suggestions or edit it Nintz.

OOC: Simple and straightforward. I was under the impression that we had this regardless, but confirming anyway.

Singed, President Anton Drexler

 

[Luckymoose]

TO: Jacksonia
FROM: Brazil

Such statements against the Catholic Church and Brazil will be withdrawn, and no further insults will be delivered by your proletarist president. Any threats made to Chile or Nicaragua will have Brazil to answer to, you have been warned.

 

[Azale]

Embassy of the Grand Republic of Florida
Jefferson, The Bear Flag Republic Jacksonia

February, 1931


In persuance of the rules of gentlemanly conduct between brothers and in the name of the Sovereign state of the Grand Republic of Florida, Her Sovereign Legislature, and President Matthias Jedidiah Lockwood IV, I present this document bearing the following news:

A state of WAR now exists between our nations.

Representative Clayton Charles​

 

[Terrance888]

Let me at'em!-Joseph Johnston

 

[Luckymoose]

Embassy of the Grand Republic of Florida
Jefferson, The Bear Flag Republic Jacksonia

February, 1931


In persuance of the rules of gentlemanly conduct between brothers and in the name of the Sovereign state of the Grand Republic of Florida, Her Sovereign Legislature, and President Matthias Jedidiah Lockwood IV, I present this document bearing the following news:

A state of WAR now exists between our nations.

Representative Clayton Charles​

TO: World
FROM: Brazil

It is imperative that we do not allow the UPRA to invade the Grand Republic of Florida during this conflict between itself and Jacksonia, and again that we do not allow this conflict to expand at all beyond the current participants. Brazil believes that the containment of the Proles is paramount to the safety of the Americas, and urges the United States of America and others to defend the Grand Republic of Florida if they attack.

 

[Crezth]

The United States of America declares a state of High Emergency Watch on all her southern borders and announces that any act of aggression partaken by proles or prolish sympathizers shall be met with swift reaction.

 

[Nuka-sama]

A speech to the Jacksonian Congress, broadcast to the entirety of the Jacksonian nation

"Citizens of Jacksonia! I address you as a fellow citizen of our dear Republic with the grave misfortune that the Grand Republic of Florida has entered a state of war with the Bear Flag Republic of Jacksonia. While we had hoped, while we had worked towards a solution, it is with great sadness that a war once more will be fought among the nations of the Americas.

However, to this war, we will not flinch. That is why I must ask each and every Jacksonian to prepare for this war. From the oldest grandfather to the youngest child, each and every Jacksonian is a SOLDIER. We will stand strong like the mighty Sequoias, unbent and unbroken through thousands of years of torment and destruction. We will fight them in the forests, we will fight them in the mountains, we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the cities, and we will fight them until every the last Jacksonian cannot fight any longer!

To our allies in PADA, we call you to arms! The Floridans have broken the sacred tenets of our alliance, to use peace, not violence, to engage in diplomacy, not warfare! We must stand united, for if Florida is allowed to attack us unrestrained, then there will be no more meaning to peace and democracy in the Americas when tyrants can do as they please.

But even if we stand alone, even if all the world stands against us, we will not rest. We will not give up, we will always fight on. For there is something greater than a nation, it is our citizens. But there is something greater than an individual life. It is the concept of a free society. The freedom to say or do or be whatever you want, without reprecussion, without the government saying 'NO!'. It is about fighting so that your children, and your children's children can grow up happy in the land of the free. Now this nation that we love has fallen under attack, but we will not allow these Floridan brutes to attack us. We will fight on! To the people of Florida, we have no desire to fight you. If you send us your sons, we will send them back to you. Do not do this. Rise up! Protest this crime against peace and democracy! For know that if you do not, there will be no quarter. We will not allow an enemy combatant to leave our nation alive.

For that, that is the way of the Bear"

 

[Milarqui]

A letter to the world of balompié, its players, coaches and enthusiasts.​

Gentlemen,

With this message, I wish to make an statement of great importance for the future of this, our most beautiful sport, that we call balompié.

Much has been done and spoken about the greater importance sports are starting to have in our society. The Olympic Games are slowly becoming important to international relations, for athletes have slowly become unofficial ambassadors to their nations, and those that represent their countries become heroes and role models to their compatriots.

In many nations, balompié has become an important sport, whose games are attended by thousands of people that wish to enjoy some time to get away from their lives and spend time with others that like the same. Teams offer each city a symbol that they can feel reflected on, and proud of, and national teams provide the same for each country.

Spain, as the birthplace of balompié, has been always a great power in the sport, having participated in every time the Olympic Games have featured balompié as a sport, and having earned several medals. Even after the loss of many of our best players after Spain's territorial losses and the betrayals of others during wars, we still feature great teams, and our national team is among the best in the world.

However, balompié does not have the expansion we would like it to have in the world, and as such we feel more of an effort has to be done.

Thus, we propose the revival of the Balompié World Championship, played by the best national teams of the world, to compete for the glory of being proclaimed the Balompié World Champion. In order to not coincide with the Olympic Games, this Championship would take place in the intermediate even years between each of the Games.

The first edition of the revived Balompié World Championship (BWC) will take place in the year 1934, and Spain will be organizing it, holding games in the cities of Madrid, Valencia, Valladolid and Córdoba to determine which is to become the first nation to achieve the glory of becoming the first World Champion. 15 nations will be invited to participate in this first tournament. If the number of nations willing to play surpasses this number, the participants will be chosen depending on their past achievements in the field and other factors. If this first Balompié World Championship proves to be a success, the IBA will be put in charge of deciding where new tournaments will be held, as well as the means to determine how nations will be able to apply to play in the BWC.

I do hope that this letter finds you well, and that you will soon reply to it, hopefully with an affirmative answer to my petition for your national associations to join the IBA and to participate in both the 1934 BWC and future iterations of this wondrous event.

Yours faithfully,
José Zamora Aranzadi, President of the Asociación Española de Balompié

 

[Jehoshua]

To: Pope Pius X
From: Argentine Old Church

While the taxation reform in the Papal States is to be mostly admired, the full adoption of usurious banking practices by the Church and the protection of the privacy of those engaging in it is sickening.

To the Argentine Schismatics
From: Pope Pius X

As has already been explained, the tax reforms in the papal states consists solely of tax cuts to encourage investment, and the establishment of privacy rules to encourage use of financial facilities. There is no acceptance of usury (which is the practice of making unethical monetary loans), or practice of it, and indeed the Papal States has in place financial authorities precisely to combat it and ensure that our financial system provides a christian alternative to the usurious financial regimes of the secular world.

Needless to say, the liberality with the truth, and lack of comprehension of what usury is, is dissapointing.

 

[spryllino]

OOC: I feel I ought to write this to shed some more light on Septembrism and liberalism in our world, especially seeing as I neglected this sort of thing a bit when I was playing the Confederation. I hope it interests you. If not, bury it under the carpet; it is, after all, written by an aged diplomat of an age gone by, I suppose. Most importantly, though, I think you ought to keep it in mind as a kind of notion of the world of the ideas with which most people in the ex-Confederation will have been surrounded as they were brought up, and I hope it will give some sort of better understanding of the culture of the Confederate area.


A manifesto for the Septembrist Party of the Confederation, 1912, Summary
Penned by the Comte de Crolles, Emissary of the Confederation to the LCN, Vice-Chairman Emeritus of the Septembrist Party of Dauphiné
Reprinted by the Press of the Sorbonne for historical purposes

Prefatory remarks to the reprint, by the author, the Comte de Crolles, now Chair Emeritus in Latin at the Sorbonne

It seems to us today and to many of our colleagues, past and present, that the ideas that we thought so good in 1912, while very specific to the problems the Confederation had at the time of writing, namely rampant discontent among certain groups, a lost war, and inability to extract ourselves from a losing fight to the death with the German Federation, are still ideals that while often forgotten today are ever more necessary just because of that. There are, perhaps, four main strands of political thought in the world, the Russian Absolutism that we destroyed long ago in our rather restrained and unique French Enlightenment, the German Drexlerism that stands high as a paradigm of exaggerated nationalism dominating every other concern and trumping the rights of man, the Moralism that seems to be everywhere today, and Proletarism. The excesses of each of these are nearly as obvious in each case. In Absolutism we have genocide; from Drexlerism came our own destruction, and what conscientious man could vote for an ideology that destroyed our wealth and unity? In Proletarism we have ingrained violence, rule by force, revolutionary action, and the suppression of all forms of individual liberty. Surely no-one in his right mind could support such opinions.

To-day, perhaps, though, Moralism is on the rise above all. It seems to dominate the academic and political discourse at times. This is, in the present author's view because half of what they say is obvious, and half of what they say is unfounded nonsense, as, I think, most of my colleagues at the Sorbonne tend to agree irrespective of religious opinions. I myself am the rarity of a Catholic noble from Dauphiné, but long experience has taught me the insanity of much of what seems to be coming from the Curia in the present day. Perhaps the most salutary purpose of reprinting this is in view of the new tendency towards Moralism, and as such I compare some of the ideas held in the past by Septembrists with the encyclical Doctrina Moralitas in Vita Politica issued by Pope Paul VI, which has been taken by many recently as the most accepted summary of Moralism available.

I would like to address briefly the confused and inadequate idea expressed occasionally by ill-informed people that no Catholic can disagree with the Pope's opinions on political matters. This is not the idea of papal infallibility, which only applies in any case to certain statements which are designated prior to the making of the statement as infallible, and in any case is completely absurd. If the Pope says that the sky is green, the sky is still just as blue-grey as it ever was, and it is and has been the case for the last century and a half in the area covered by the Confederation, at very least, that there have been clergymen with very much more liberal opinions than the Pope.

In this encyclical (a summary of which can be found in Appendix A of this booklet) the first few articles state ideas that any Catholic must surely wholly endorse. No Catholic seriously doubts that "the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth" and that man is fallen and that truth is objective - which seem to us attacks aimed not at moderate liberals to-day who believe in the just rights of man, but at an artificial concept of what was believed by some of the most extreme liberals and proletarists of the 19th century. So obvious are the first two articles as to barely deserve the saying.

So, then we have that government should be at the lowest possible level. This is also uncontroversial: of course, this is a principle that Proletarists violate egregiously, but is one that liberals have always, in actual historical terms, endorsed, especially in the Confederation, where all domestic policy was in the hands of the member-states' governments.

Then we have the notion that the State should not interfere with the Church and usurp its place. What have liberals across the world done to disrupt families? and the Church is protected, in a liberal state, by the very rights it would subdue, such as universal freedom of religion. The Church can educate and distribute charity and healthcare, and the rights of man in a liberal state safeguard its prerogative to do so. Perhaps not in to-day's Scandinavia; but scarcely anywhere does the state attempt to impede the Church's benevolent actions.

Then we have the notion that the State should not interfere in religious matters and the Church should not, generally speaking, interfere in political matters. Are we to disagree? Of course not. This is just as obvious as the rest, and, of course, the Church is welcome to say what it likes about political matters, safeguarded by the freedom of religion that we would have to-day exactly nowhere if it were not for the efforts of liberals across the world; and a liberal State - unlike, forsooth, a Moralist state! - has nothing to say about religious matters at all, seeing as it accords total freedom to all to exercise their religion how they will.

As for "The Economy, the Worker, and the Welfare of the Unfortunate", adequate pay for workers is what has been among the good things brought about in liberal states, and completely neglected in places such as Russia where liberalism has been wholeheartedly neglected. Equality of the Law, of the type that Liberals support and always have supported, protects exactly the state of affairs that the Pope himself advocates, and this very equality entails that, as the Pope notes should be the case, there is no internal strife - in a liberal state there is not only the greatest possible concord between classes, but also between separate national groups (as we saw in the fact that hardly a single life was shed without foreign involvement through nationalistic strife in the Confederation) and between religious groups (as again can be seen from the fact that not a single religious issue has sprung up in the liberal Confederation, or indeed in Germany, whereas wherever Moralism intrudes itself they cause religious strife galore).

Then we have "morality in civil life". Most of these things that the Pope proscribes, everyone would agree with him in proscribing, because they do harm to others; again we have an uncontroversial statement of universal truth in that theft, murder, pederasty, and such things are completely wrong.

Then finally we have this rejection of teleology. There is no earthly paradise; who believes that there is? No-one is perfect or perfectible; whoever believes or ever has believed that anyone is? What we can do, however, is avoid the retrograde directions the Pope talks about and embrace the beneficial ones, and we do this not by suppression but by providing each man with the liberty to do as he desires, as long as he hurts no-one else in the process.

The Pope's words are words that say at once that he rejects liberalism, and at the same time espouse all the principles that have been held and were brought in by liberals at least a century ago. Few can find anything to disagree with the Pope on because his words are about as original as the concept of eating bread; and as the Pope reinvents the wheel, those who follow him use his influence to impose censorship, to suppress the practitioners of other religions and their free speech.

I myself, as I write this, and, I think, joined by many friends and colleagues of high standing, call on the Pope to see that the principles he is advocating can only be achieved by freedom and liberty; and as he speaks words hostile to the ideology of liberalism, may he see with his blessed eyes that by calling down imprecations on the ideology that spawned liberties, he destroys the liberties themselves, and risks giving states cover under which they may oppress their people and strip them of freedoms, creating just the sort of large state he deplores, and undermining his "principle of subsidiarity".

Paris, April 1931


INTRODUCTION TO THE MANIFESTO:

1. The Septembrist Party welcomes all who are committed to the preservation of the Confederation in peace and good order.

2. The Septembrist Party welcomes liberals, including those inclined to support progressive measures such as nationalisation of heathcare and pensions as we have seen recently in neighbouring nations, and also welcomes moderates and conservatives.

3. The Septembrist Party intends to maintain internal harmony by shunning the use of force to avoid problems; by having full equality under the law for all citizens; by avoiding change for the sake of change. The Party will continue to disband the remnants of the former secret police force. The Party holds that armed force should never be used against those not employing armed force against the Confederation.

4. The Septembrist Party, in line with all parties in the Confederation, wholly rejects the notion of nationalism and urges that all who pursue it are mistaken; the Septembrist Party moreover considers nationalism to be the very greatest evil and causer of destruction that the world has seen, bringing untold misery to Germans, Italians, Russians, Poles, Pomeranians and almost every other nation in existence. The Party holds that people should work for a state where they live in peaceful harmony and mutual tolerance alongside whatsoever people otherwise live in that state, according each other equal rights, and working for the benefit not of the people of their so-called 'nation', but of all the people inside the state in which they reside.

5. The Septembrist Party believes that those who would separate parts of the Confederation are positively and downright wrong, and therefore must not have their ideas taken account of, and are acting against their all of our interests in suggesting irredentist ideas. Strength and freedom from nationalistic struggles lie only in the disavowal of nationalism and our collective unity.

5. The Septembrist Party embraces Catholic and Protestant members alike, and does not prefer either faith to the other. Christianity has an impact on our decisions through the collective exercise of morality by the members of the Party; it is granted no further disproportionate influence beyond that, and in this regard our policy could rightly be called secular.

6. The Septembrist Party continues the policies pursued in previous years by the Party of Order regarding the military, in that it is necessary to maintain a large military for the preservation of the Confederation's integrity against those who would subvert it.

7. The Septembrist Party advocates electoral reform to make those parts of the government that are representative more representative of the actual proportions of voters; the Party believes that all voters should have an equal vote; the Party believes that the members of the parliaments nominated by the Kings are too great in number and intends to reduce their number.

8. The Septembrist Party believes that certain rights must be preserved unalienably for the people of the Confederation, particularly freedom of speech, freedom of religion and thought, freedom of the press, and equality under the law and in the eye of the authorities for all men.