Tea at Trianon: The Screeching of the Privileged

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, January 24, 2017

The Screeching of the Privileged

From Chronicles:

Donald Trump's inaugural address was a powerful, straightforward articulation of American nationalism: "At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens. . . . From this day forward, a new vision will govern this land. From this moment on, it's going to be America First. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families."

These words did not go down well with those who have come to think that America exists to be the dumping ground for surplus Mexican labor and artificially devalued Chinese imports. They especially did not go down well with those who have profited from the current arrangement that drives down wages for those who need to compete against immigrant labor and foreign goods but rewards those insulated from such competition, including all the politicians who go to Washington and never leave, all the media personalities used to telling Americans what they are allowed to think, all the professors used to indoctrinating their students in cultural Marxism, and all the denizens of the vast federal bureaucracy. The screech of the privileged could be heard in virtually all the reporting on Trump's speech. There are many examples of such screeching, but I will limit myself to two, the Washington Post's petulant fact-checking of Trump's speech and the even more petulant comments of the Post's pet conservative, George Will. (Read more.)