Civilizational state – America must become one

Three months ago your editor discussed the concept of a civilizational state and whether America could become one. To some, the concept civilizational state inspires fear, for such a state would have no part of one-world government. But American patriots should rally to the concept. For America faces a crisis, of which things like inflation, famine, and depression are only parts. The American crisis goes deeper than any of these three. Quite simply, America must become a civilizational state, or die. And that in turn means re-embracing Christianity explicitly and recognizing the Christian foundations of America.

What is a civilizational state?

A civilizational state is any state that calls itself a civilization in its own right. Such a state seeks to preserve for itself and its citizens (or subjects) integrity not only of territory but also of values. Those values address virtually everything about a civilization and how to live in it:

• How does the society govern itself and its people?
• Are the regular residents of the civilizational state true citizens, or are they subjects?
• Who does, and who does not, rate inclusion in and admission to the civilization and the state that embodies it?
• What exceptional qualities set the state and its members apart from other states and non-nationals?
• Does the civilizational state welcome immigration, alien residency, and/or trade, or does it not?

The Wikipedia entry

Don’t rely on Wikipedia to tell you what a civilizational state is. Their entry (“Civilization State”), as of this writing, advances the thesis that China is a civilizational state. In fact an edit war has broken out on Wikipedia, with people who can’t agree on the concept.

The entry cites China, Egypt (trying to tie in with ancient Egypt), India, and Russia as current examples. But it also offers this criticism, which offers a clue to the civilizational state and how it works. To be specific, it

1. Rejects any concept of universality of human rights, and
2. Excludes minority groups who do not share the defining characteristics of the members of the civilization.

Therefore a civiliizational state judges itself on its own terms and rejects out-of-hand any attempt by others to judge it.

Where CNAV differs with Wikipedia (and with other conservative voices) is whether China really is a civilizational state. It might instead be an empire, seeking to rule the world. Which brings us to the next question:

What other kinds of state exist?

Besides the civilizational state, the world knows two other kinds of state, or arguably three. The nation-state is the most common, and one of the oldest. In the days of the Roman Republic, the Mediterranean world called such a state a kingdom. The word in the common Greek of the region, that translates as nation in the writings of Paul of Tarsus, Matthew, John Mark, Luke, John of Jerusalem, and their colleagues, is ethnos. This means a group to which all members relate by blood or marriage. In short, it is a group into which one is born. Hence nation, which derives from the Latin verb meaning to be born.

The best definer of the modern nation-state was Emmerich de Vattel, author of Le Droit des Gens – the Law of Nations. He defined not only the concept country but the concept citizen or native.

A nation-state maintains a discreet border and insist that one ask permission to cross. If you can cross a border without permission, that border does not enclose a nation-state. Thus the United States is a nation-state, but the States within it are not nation-states.

In contrast stands the empire, which seeks to control the world. Its leaders do not know where to stop. Alexander the Great did not, and neither did Julius Caesar. An empire expands to the limits of its communications network, supply chain, and ability to project military power. Rome was an empire. Britain had an Empire.

The third kind of state

If a third alternative to the civilizational state exist, then the city-state qualifies. Today only one modern example of the city-state exists: Singapore. Vatican City does not count, for not only is it not sovereign, but some would call it a city-empire. But in the ancient Greek world, city-states were the rule. The most famous of these included Athens, Mycenae – and Troy. Rome began as a city-state and transformed itself into an empire.

Discussion of the civilizational state

The earliest possible discussion of either the concept civilizational state or any country that could qualify as one, appeared in Foreign Affairs in its fall 1990 edition. But first to use the term civilizational state was Martin Jacques, in 2011. More modern scholars who have used that term include Adrian Pabst (The New Statesman) and the staff of the Financial Times. Both these articles appeared in 2019.

These scholars all discuss China, which they view with varying degrees of bemusement or, at the extreme, horror. Yes, they shudder to think of this big country refusing to conform to their ideals of human liberty. But one cannot believe any judgment they make. Why not? Because they are all shills for the new empire that is trying to replace the Roman Empire.

In fact, John of Jerusalem – and earlier than that, Daniel Belteshazzar, senior adviser to Nebuchadnezzar the Great – warned specifically about this new empire. Daniel called it the “feet of iron mixed with clay” of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. John called it the “beast that was, and is not,” in his vision of the Harlot (or Madam) of Babylon. This new empire is the World Economic Forum, that has Klaus Schwab as its current chairman. (Klaus Schwab – what an apt name! “Conqueror of the people!” That is what the name Nicholas means – and Nicholas and Klaus are the same name.)

And those same people hate any country trying to be a civilizational state in apparent imitation of China.

What states qualify today?

Today, CNAV recognizes only three true civilizational states: the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, and the People’s Republic of China. CNAV has more to say about China below.

Apparently, modern Egypt seeks to qualify as a civilizational state. Perhaps some of its leaders always did, starting with Jamal abd al-Nasr (“Gamal Abdel Nasser”). The problem with that, is that those who live in Egypt today have nothing in common with those who lived there in the days of the Pharaohs, or even in the days of the Prolemies and the Cleopatras. The Copts are the exception – and those who run Egypt today, actively discriminate against them.

Furthermore, Islam is incompatible with civilizational state behavior. Islam is pan-Arab imperialism in religious dress. The concept jihad is the worst disqualifier, for it means armed conflict to expand the faith. The concept taquiyya is another – for it says it is OK to lie, so long as one knows the truth and the lie will benefit the faith.

But Russia definitely is a civilizational state – or at least, Vladimir Putin wants to make it one. The leaders of India want the same thing. Russia, India, and China now are building a financial-exchange network among themselves, after the World Economic Forum shut them out.

Is China really a civilizational state?

We have to ask ourselves whether China really is a civilizational state, or an empire. Dr. Stephen Turley cites the apparent influence of Confucianism on President Xi Jinping as evidence that China is a civilizational state. But Xi is still a Communist, and a Communist, by definition, is an empire builder. Communism seeks to extend itself to all people, to avoid the pesky need to pay real money for trade goods.

The China Belt and Road Initiative, and their outright buying of ports outside its territory, all suggest empire-building. So does the spectacle of China trying to build reefs into islands to extend their territorial claims. Moreover, China steals the intellectual property of others. A true civilizational state does not practice thievery.

So more likely, China sees itself as The Middle Kingdom to Rule the World. Empire building can be dangerous – to the empire builder and to his targets.

But again: though Americans would have reason to fear any foreign empire, they ignore the real empire right under their noses. This is the World Economic Forum. The shills for that empire will naturally throw off on China, which has rejected their overtures. Or perhaps it takes one empire builder to know one.

Can America become a civilizational state?

Dr. Stephen Turley, one of the best “America First” commentators today, is not ready to say Yes. Before we can even answer the question, we must answer another: what would it take? Again, to be a civilizational state is to forbear, forswear, and forgo any notion of building an empire.

A civilizational state is self-sufficient. It grows everything, makes everything, builds everything within its own borders. (That’s why the State of Israel cannot qualify – they lack the industry.) Imports are rare – and immigration is rarer still. Membership in the civilizational state is by invitation only. Remember: the civilizational state promotes core values that everyone except. If you cannot accept them, leave. This follows logically from forswearing empire: part of having borders is respecting the borders of others.

Why America must become a civilizational state

America faces severe problems, that only civilizational thinking can cure. The visionary inventor Elon Musk warned us, nearly a month ago, of the worst problem. Which is: Americans have not been replacing themselves for fifty years. Indeed “baby bust” was a common headline in the early Seventies. To show the problem, Musk supplied this graph:

It shows the Total Fertility Rate plunging below the replacement level of 2.1 and staying there. In 1989 and again in 2000 or 2007 it came close. But in 2020 it fell lower than ever, to about 1.6.

What has caused this low rate? Abortion – which lately has ticked up, now that Roussel-UCLAF’s dread drug, mifepristone, is widely available – is one reason. But the main reason is that modern women simply don’t want to become mothers.

Dr. Turley insists that conservative women are outperforming liberal women in having and raising children. That might be true – in fact Justice Amy Coney Barrett lays a claim to fame for having seven children. (That includes two she and her husband adopted.) But America cannot endure unless and until it sees a generation having more than the replacement level of children. Only a civilizational state can preserve the values that foster childbearing and childrearing.

Beyond that, America has problems with crime and lack of respect for the rule of law. Without the rule of law, America will tear itself apart.

How America stacks up

America has the territory, and most of the resources. What resources America lacks, America can make up for. It might require asteroid and meteoroid mining, or mining the slopes of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Such things might be beyond current technology but not beyond the laws of physics. So what we don’t know how to do, we can figure out.

But! Can American values prevail? Too many people, especially in certain areas of the country, don’t want any set of American values. “American exceptionalism” became a dirty phrase to them in the Elections of 2016 and 2020. Many of these people want to live under the Klaus Schwab empire, because Schwab promises “tolerance” to things that in fact defy nature. (Schwab might in fact be perfectly copacetic with this, because he and his friends think the earth has too many people on it, anyway.)

Have a look at current events in this regard. Texas, of course, passed its Heartbeat Act. Florida passed a bill forbidding the teaching of “alternative lifestyles” to the youngest children. Texas leaders even want to prosecute as child abusers anyone who sends their children to doctors for surgical mutilation and hormonal poisoning. Idaho came close to passing such a law three months ago.

But Washington State forbids anything like a Texas Heartbeat Act. California declares itself a refuge for people who want to mutilate and hormonally poison their children. And Walt Disney Enterprises is in a crisis of staff conscience over the new Florida law.

The key: explicit embrace of Christianity

Christianity offers the best hope for America, as a civilizational state and as a country. President John Adams recognized this.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.John Adams, addressing officers of 1^st brigade, 3^rd division, Militia of Massachusetts

Americans are not a race apart from other humans. Judaism and Christianity both teach that there is but one race: the human race. So a religious tradition, and the moral code that goes with it, constitutes our civilizational identity.

That tradition is the Judeo-Christian tradition. Its standard of value is human life. That tradition also teaches respect for liberty and property, which are essential to life. But the liberty in view here is an ordered liberty. Anyone’s liberty ends where another’s body and property begin.

In the Constitution

The Constitution of the United States remains today the best framework to serve these core values. Yet it is far from perfect. For it sometimes contradicts itself, thus leaving these core values vulnerable to abandonment. For example: it mandates trial by jury in civil cases

when the value in question shall exceed twenty dollars.

Yet nowhere does it define a dollar. More to the point, nowhere does it define a person.

Furthermore, the First Amendment begins,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.…

But in modern times, the Supreme Court has construed any attempt to codify morality into law as establishment of religion.

The Supreme Court, in fact, has for too long treated the Constitution as

a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.Thomas Jefferson, letter to Spencer Roane, 6 September 1819.

In that same letter, Jefferson said why: no one seems willing to bring Articles of Impeachment against judges or Justices on the grounds of infidelity to the Constitution. Therefore, those seeking to guard and promote the core values of civilizational America must codify them in the Constitution. Then let the Supreme Court dare try to declare the Constitution unconstitutional!

Will the Supreme Court redeem itself?

Perhaps. We still await a decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Justice Sam Alito stands ready to reverse a forty-nine-year-old mistake: the ruling in Roe v. Wade. Already the revelation of that tantalizing possibility has the country in an uproar. Crisis pregnancy centers – which provide what a young and frightened woman really needs, which is not the “easy out” of abortion – have become targets, if not battlegrounds. A new terrorist group calls them “you who masquerade as health-care providers.” As if the essence of medicine is to destroy inconvenient life!

But of course the entire medical profession must redeem itself. It has coarsened itself over the past forty-nine years, with the availability of abortion. Programs in obstetrics and gynecology often require postgraduate trainees to “rotate” through “the abortion service,” as a condition of certification. This must stop.

Here the church can and should help. America as a civilizational state would restore the baccalaureate service as a common rite of graduation. This would include a medical baccalaureate, in which a physician-to-be would recognize the role of God in creation, and his own role in a profession where Christianity created the institution we call hospital today. Also, new physicians would swear a new Oath – the Oath of Saint Luke – putting all this into a wholesome perspective.

The Oath of Saint Luke

I swear by the memory of Luke the physician, and take the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this contract:

• To honor God as the Author of Life and the True Patron of the physician’s art, and
• To practice this art for the benefit of my patients, in keeping with the commandments of God to respect all human life.

I will prescribe dietary, medicinal, and other regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment. In so doing I will do no harm or injustice to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan. Furthermore I will not give a woman food or supplement, nor perform on her any procedure, to cause an abortion.

In purity and according to God’s Commandments will I carry out my life and my art.

I will perform no procedure I am not qualified to perform, but will leave this to those so trained.

Forbidding of abuse or breach of confidentiality

Into whatever homes I go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick. I will avoid any voluntary act of impropriety or corruption, including the seduction of women or men, free or inmate.

Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private.

So long as I maintain this Oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of all for all time. However, should I transgress this Oath and violate it, may the opposite be my lot.

Would a civilizational state require a national divorce?

Perhaps we should revisit Marjorie Taylor Greene’s national divorce proposal. Briefly, she proposed that current “red” and “blue” States agree to have different leaders and different sets of laws. The major difficulty with that scenario is that the red-State and blue-State areas are non-contiguous. Alaska and Hawaii don’t count here. If you can cross from one part of your territory to another through international waters and airspace only, that’s as good as being able to drive overland or over a bridge. That goes double when you have the most powerful Navy in the world.

The best information on where to draw the boundaries of a new United States are the county-by-county maps from the Elections of 2016 and 2020. Even then, a definitive statement might have to wait for Midterms. The reason: voter’s remorse, even more than the new election-integrity laws in half the States.

Massachusetts, Vermont, (sadly) New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, (maybe) New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, and Calfornia are lost causes. (For New Jersey, wait until Midterms.) Virginia redeemed itself in its Pre-Midterm. New Mexico and Arizona become toss-ups. Texas might become the new capital State if America gives up Washington, D.C. Alaska is a toss-up, given the RINO problem. (Their RINO At-large Representative died recently, but Lisa Murkowski might squeeze in through a jungle primary with ranked-choice voting.) Hawaii might as well become an independent Kingdom under a House of Hirono – or Obama. New York would have to divide.

How to redraw the map

The new map of North America would define the Civilizational United States and a North American Polity or “New Aztlán” loyal to Emperor Klaus (Schwab). exclude the western or coastal regions of Washington State, Oregon, and California. Everyone east of the San Andreas Fault would join the new Civilizational United States. Nevada might give up Las Vegas – or might not. Surprisingly, Texas would have no trouble keeping its southern border. (Voter’s remorse again.) The Twin Cities might become a dual city-state. Megalopolis USA, which runs from Boston to Washington, would become the center of New Aztlán. So might Richmond, Virginia and most of its television market – but not Hanover or Western Chesterfield County.

Alaska might join the Civilizational United States for another reason. The “Woke Crowd” might leave Alaska after a last-gasp effort to force a vote to surrender it to the Inuit. Those that remain, would want the protection of the United States Army and Navy. This after Member of Duma Oleg Matveychyev demanded Alaska back. Alaska’s governor replied:

Good luck with that!

If Hawaii wants to become a Kingdom again, let it. Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) actually proposed something that would smooth the trail for that. Senator Maisie Hirono (D-Hawaii) now holds his seat. But let’s not neglect Barack Obama. A battle royal between “Queen Maisie” and “King Barack” might be very interesting to watch.

Wither New Aztlán? Possibly joining a Woke Canada – as Alberta and Saskatchewan (and eastern British Columbia) join the United States.

Conclusion

Here, then, is the resolution of the existential crisis of America: that America become a civilizational state. If not everyone wants to join, let them have the “Left Coast” and the northern half of the East Coast, as above. Mass migration is already taking place. California has so many people moving out that U-Haul must take heavy losses on one-way rentals going into California to have trucks to serve those moving out. The Great Sortation might accelerate, especially after the Dobbs decision comes down.

And what of companies who disdain American civilizational state values, and move out? Well, America can then do what Russia is now doing: nationalize certain of their properties. Walt Disney World would be an obvious candidate. It might happen anyway—through bankruptcy.

Nor would this necessarily end the matter. Because the United States, as a civilizational state, would reverse its population decline. New Aztlán, or a Canada after territorial swaps, would go into demographic winter. Eventually the United States would reclaim its lost territory by default – if the survivors didn’t apply for re-admission.