Tea at Trianon: “Abuses, Torture, and Killing”

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, March 22, 2020

“Abuses, Torture, and Killing”

From Marco Respinti at Bitter Winter:

On March 11, the US State Department, led by Secretary Mike Pompeo, issued the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2019. This is an American tradition, now in its 44^th year, whose main motivation has been stated by Secretary Pompeo upon the release of the document: “As our founding documents remind us, nothing is more fundamental to our national identity than our belief in the rights and dignity of every single human being. It’s in our Declaration of Independence.”

Based on facts gathered by team members in Washington, D.C., and US embassies throughout the world working with and through experts, the 2019 Report virtually covers the whole world. Publicly, Secretary Pompeo singled out four countries to exemplify what violation of human rights means today, out of which three are run by socialist regimes (only the first in the following list isn’t): Iran. Venezuela, Cuba, and of course China.

The report’s section on “China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet,” as its title reads, offers an effective “cold list” of trespasses committed by the CC-led regime in its executive summary: arbitrary or unlawful killings, forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention, harsh and life-threatening prison and detention conditions, arbitrary interference with privacy, physical attacks on and criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others as well as their family members; censorship and site blocking; interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association including overly restrictive laws that apply to foreign and domestic NGOs, severe restrictions of religious freedom; substantial restrictions on freedom of travel within the country and overseas; refoulement of asylum seekers to North Korea (where they have a well-founded fear of persecution). The Report notes substantial problems with the independence of the judiciary, totally dominated by the CCP, which controls the appointment of all judges and even sometimes directly dictates courts’ rulings, and the widespread corruption that plagues the country. It also underlines the coercive birth-limitation policy that in some cases included forced sterilization or abortion, trafficking in persons, severe restrictions on labor rights, and child labor. (Read more.)