I thought that Americans were generally opposed to aristocracy and the concept of nobility. We even had the sentiment written into our Constitution!
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Some of us have that principle imbedded in our generally held principles, but to be real about it, there have always been Americans who desire and envy the label of an unearned title. They’re generally conservative and rich, but those snobs are honestly American. They’re just wrong.
So what kind of person would happily accept a title of nobility from a foreign organization? Would you believe it would be arch-“originalist”, worshipper of their interpretation of the Constitution, Founding Father cultist, and Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito?
The Intelligencer has a story today that actually happened several years ago but — not unlike Alito’s Upside-Down Flag nonsense — didn’t register with the public at the time. As we noted last week, Alito has been taking expensive gifts — as the conservative Supreme Court justices are wont to do! — from a right-wing German princess, but it turns out he’s been cultivating more ties to the European aristocracy.
It turns out the last time Donald Trump was president, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, author of the Dobbs decision setting women’s health care back a few centuries, added a knighthood to his own résumé, pledging an oath to the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George. The knighthood, bestowed in 2017, wasn’t widely reported at the time, but the order’s website was updated in July with Alito’s investiture on the front page.
Cool. I can see where Alito would find the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George appealing — it’s an extremely Catholic organization that fawns over the Papacy. It has only 3000 members and seems to be mainly about grandiloquent cosplaying with elaborate symbols and rituals (they also have a charitable angle of providing food aid to stricken communities in Europe, to their credit). It’s mostly harmless and just a kind of stupid posturing, but sheesh, a Supreme Court justice ought to avoid flagrantly violating the letter of the Constitution…
Oh. Wait. Our current crop of Supreme Court justices are all about partisan bias and shredding the egalitarian principles of the Constitution.
Never mind.
Not seeing it myself. Despite all the rituals and silly costumes, it isn’t any sort of aristocracy, any more than the Knights of Columbus are. Even “real” (i.e., granted by royalty, which this isn’t) knighthoods aren’t hereditary. Silly but harmless, unlike the flag incidents.
John Harshmsn:
Want to rethink your position?
Well, from a woman who has the family name “Prinzessin von Thurn und Taxis”. There are no actual noble titles in Germany.
My guess is that the “Constantinian Order” perhaps doesn’t count as a “King, Prince, or foreign State”. Though according to the website “Since 1759, the position of Constantinian Grand Master has passed by strict male primogeniture to each successive senior male descendant of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies” and that the current head is “His Royal Highness Prince Pedro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria”.
Also who actually heads the order is disputed since there is another “Constantinian Order” headed by Prince Carlo of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Castro; its website is at https://constantinianorder.net/ Both orders have snarfed Roman Catholic clerics as officials, the former had José Manuel Estepa Llaurens who had also been Military Archbishop of Spain and a cardinal and has Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services, USA and the latter Cardinal Marcello Semeraro.
I guess the question is whether the head of the former counts as a “Prince” in the sense of the US Constitution given that he doesn’t actually rule any land (and his ancestors haven’t since 1861 when they were deposed by Garibaldi and their kingdom incorporated into modern Italy).
@3. lasius : Not even the noblest title of highest eats steam DonOld Von Schtizenpants?
( https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-von-shitzinpantz-has-formally-been-entered-into-the-record-2024-5 )
I blame the founder-dudes for being too naive: putting “rules” and “prohibitions” & stuff in the Constitution without strong “enforcement provisions”.
As The Supremely Deplorable Six has pointed out with their trashing of the 14th Amendment disqualification of insurrectionists: Congress didn’t bother passing ‘enforcement’, so no effect.
They also didn’t pass ‘enforcement’ of ‘natural born citizen’, ’35 and over’, ‘lived in the US long enough’, ‘already had two terms’.
Really, the Founder-dudes should have included: “violaters may be killed without penalty by any citizen”. Anything less would just get waved away.