Tea at Trianon: We Must Defend the Innocent

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, July 19, 2015

We Must Defend the Innocent

From Rebecca Hamilton:

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, issued a video statement concerning her organization's selling of aborted-baby body parts.

Pro-life people know that these body parts came from babies who were murdered by Planned Parenthood. They watch the video of one of the doctors who does this murdering, chomping on her salad and swilling down her wine as she discusses the best way to kill the child while preserving its organs for sale.

This is ghastly, grisly business. It is grotesque.

Pro-life people, who understand that this is an innocent child whose murder the doctor is discussing, almost have the oxygen sucked out of their lungs by the cavalier manner in which she describes what she does. It's as if someone had unearthed a video of Mengele at a dinner party, talking about his experiments on twins.

Pro-life people approach Cecile Richards' video in that context. They experience a gut-level flash of rage when they watch her explain that the doc was merely "insensitive" and she apologizes for this "insensitivity" while at the same time she excuses the selling of baby body parts. It's like a punch to the gut to hear her calmly admit that Planned Parenthood does sell body parts and that it will continue in this practice. Her insistence that Planned Parenthood does much good and that those who are appalled by the video are merely following the lead of an organization that wants to push women back past the 19th century layers outrage upon outrage.

Pro-life people know that what she says about their feelings toward women are not true. They know that what she is discussing is the cold-blooded murder of a child and then marketing its organs for sale. They know these things, and they go off. They can't help it. (Read more.)