Tea at Trianon: Election Day in Happy Valley

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

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Election Day in Happy Valley

It is Election Day in Happy Valley. In a few hours it will all be over; the fate of millions will be decided. I hope that people will vote according to principle rather than raw emotion, but that may be asking too much. All I know is that the local members of the party whose presidential candidate advocates CHANGE have shown no respect for private property. They have stolen our yard signs twice and vandalized them three times. Such champions of liberty have little scruple about violating our family's right to freedom of speech, just as they do not hesitate to unlawfully enter our yard in order to destroy or steal their opponent's signs. It is not the signs which bother me, but the trespassing on private property, and the determination to keep us from expressing our opinion, at all costs. It does not bode well for the future of this country.

Meanwhile, John Zmirak in his article "It Can Happen Here" makes some timely points.
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