Frederick the Great ( I )

Frederick's character was extraordinary, even more remarkable perhaps than his military and other talents. He maintained his self restraint and firm judgement  throughout his several wars, despite defeats as well as victories, and when the whole  burden of the State and the wars rested with him alone. So his upbringing is of central interest, and indeed many studies have examined the years before his marriage (when he might be regarded as having to an extent settled down,  even though it was a marriage of convenience).  But despite a number of enquiries not one of the experts in this area of history that I have contacted has noted any link to his Great Uncle, the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg (1677 - 1734)

Christian Ludwig's name is familiar to music lovers as the man to whom Bach sent in 1723 the music we know as the Brandenburg Concertos. The two had met in Berlin  during a visit by Bach, and perhaps when later sending the Concertos Bach hoped for a job in Berlin. But the Margrave  was a younger son and  not a ruling prince. The revenues of Prussia where in the hands of his nephew, King Frederick William I,  Frederick's father.  Christian Ludwig maintained a small orchestra, it is thought without the necessary range of instrumental players to perform the Concertos. But my point is that from 1712 when Frederick was born,  until his marriage in 1733, and during the years when he was in adolescent revolt against his father the King, Christian Ludwig was around, not dying till 1734.

Were they in contact? Frederick was intensely musical - he played  and  later wrote for the flute, and his compositions were said by Mozart to have content. He had a small musical band. But this and his other cultural activities were not appreciated by his father Frederick William, who preferred building up his army (which Frederick would later make use of) and smoking with his cronies.  It seems impossible that the two musical enthusiasts - Frederick and his Great Uncle - did not meet and discuss the things that Frederick could not discuss with his father, or the Court, who were careful of the King's wrath. And Frederick could discuss music with his band only as a Prince. With Christian Ludwig he could talk freely to someone of his own rank, who could be a mentor, and a kind of confessor. Indeed what a release for him if it happened  -  this is a factor very relevant to the development  of Frederick's  character. And if it did not happen why not? Did the King prevent it?

The Kingdom of America

It is surprising that the Founding Fathers, breaking away form the British semi-constitutional monarchy, should have put together a constitution for America which follows the plan of a medieval and non-constitutional monarchy, albeit an elective monarchy.

The King (the President) sits in his palace (the White House) surrounded by his court.....he chooses  them, so that within the Administration his power is very great and in a sense absolute.

But he is constrained by the great territorial Earls and Lords ( the Senate)....he has to take account of their power when he frames and executes policies

And he cannot ignore the more widespread views of the population at large led by the lesser lords  ( the House of Representatives)

Nor can he ignore the Church (the Supreme Court) which examines ancient  and authoritative scripts to see how far they are relevant today

This seems to me an inefficient way to run a country. The President is too powerful in the Administration........in a real cabinet, he would have colleagues with  power bases of their own so the evolution of policy would not be centered in one mind. On the other hand the President is not powerful enough in the system as a whole, because of the role of Congress. But Congress is separated from government, and any tendency in the Senate or the House to see the path to good governance is constrained by too frequent re-elections. As for the Supreme Court,  if the terms of a constitution written in the 18th Century are confirmed, one has to ask why such a ancient text can be useful today,  whereas if the Court updates the Constitution then  it - the Court - becomes a part of the governmental structure - as it clearly is - created in a peculiar way

It needs a political genius of the highest order as President to run this system, who is also right minded in his or her aims. Franklin D Roosevelt was such a man, and one can only be astonished at the skill he showed in the New Deal,  and in the war both before and after Pearl Harbour. But a constitution should not depend on the emergence of a political genius of that order, especially as the President is elected by the public at large, who cannot know how the talents and minds of the candidates are balanced. I do not think that Frau Merkel or Mrs Thatcher would have won in a presidential type election. But some candidates appealing to the simplistic prejudices of the electorate can garner votes, as with Mr Corbyn in Britain or Mr Trump in the States

Too late, of course,  to do anything about this now, especially as US citizens are trained from birth to see the Constitution as the best possible instrument. I was however once at a dinner in Washington  with several Americans who without any prompting from me suddenly agreed about cabinet government as above. I felt an almost physical shock

Vegans - choose the possible

I would like to propose a political but positive point to vegans. You have no hope of persuading more than a tiny minority to give up eating meat, and as nations such as China become richer the people eat more meat. But the methods by which animals are prepared for eating are in many and perhaps most cases horrible. They are often raised in terrible conditions (pigs spending all their lives trapped in a narrow cage) and killed in  ways at which we can only shudder.

 It is also the case that many if not most people (even meat eaters)  are in principle animal lovers and enhanced campaigns against the methods of raising and killing animals would have the effect of  changing things for the better,  though the campaigns would have to be determined and continuous. Indeed there have been some successes in this direction......in the cases of how chickens are kept, and in the production of veal. This is the way forward, and to argue against eating meat in principle will weaken the impact - those that eat meat will dismiss the whole matter as the views of a minority of special pleaders

I would add that it is only vegans and vegetarians who can legitimately campaign against traditional fox hunting. The cruelty to the fox is marginal to the cruelty involved in fattening and killing animals for food. And as for the moral fault in killing animals for pleasure, one has to say that any campaigner against hunting who takes pleasure in eating meat without considering how it is brought to the table is even more morally at fault