Tea at Trianon: My Trump Sign

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

Monday, June 20, 2016

My Trump Sign

It has been stolen twice now, so here is a letter I wrote to the local paper:

I wish to inform the person or persons who keep stealing my Trump sign that there are more intelligent ways of championing your candidate than stealing a sign out of my yard. You can (1) volunteer at the local DNC headquarters where you will be able to (2) make phone calls and mail out flyers on behalf of Hillary or Bernie. (3) Instead of stealing Trump signs, you can put up Hillary or Bernie signs in your own yard and around the county. (4) There are such things as Twitter or Facebook which are the latest and greatest means of promoting a candidate. (5) You can write letters to the editor, start a blog, host a rally, and call popular talk radio shows. These are more effective ways of promoting Hillary or Bernie than breaking the law, trespassing, and stealing my yard sign. All that will do is encourage me to call the sheriff (which I have already done), and replace each sign stolen with twenty more signs, placed all over the county. Plus it encourages me to more actively support Trump, as I already do daily, on Twitter and Facebook. So by stealing my Trump sign, you are helping the Trump movement, not hindering it. Also, as there will soon be hidden video cameras in my yard, I will send your picture to Hillary Clinton so she will know you are willing to break the law on her behalf.