Tea at Trianon: The Left and Guns

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

Thursday, August 31, 2017

The Left and Guns

From American Thinker:

Have you noticed the multiple calls recently for increased gun control, despite the fact that all of the harm being done presently at leftist riots does not (yet) involve guns? A car was used in Charlottesville, as vehicles have been used before, yet, as if unaware of the public facts, leftist politicians and activists have increased their calls for greater gun control. A car was used in Spain, and in Britain before that, and in Paris before that, and each time, American leftists called for greater gun control in the United States. Paul Ryan mentioned increased gun control at a public forum recently in response to a question asked of him by someone he knew. Despite the utter lack of a connection with guns in anything to do with Charlottesville, he linked the event to gun ownership in the U.S. and concurred that more control is needed. Weird, right?

What if they know something we don't? This sounds a little "out there," but we live in a time when what is going on beneath the surface dwarfs what we see as the end result of someone's planning. So what if the discordant calls for gun control are because those politicians, anarchists, and activists (though I repeat myself) have foreknowledge of some kind of planned escalation of their brand of "protest" and are setting the stage for disingenuous "I told you sos'? What if they have something of a timeline along which they either believe that things will happen or will make things happen, to escalate the blitzkrieg of media and hysteria by which they effect "change" – meaning a coup?

What if they and the media are in bed together on this, too, and have prepared their stories and narratives ahead of time? In Charlottesville, Trump was caught flat-footed but still gave an accurate response regarding hate on many sides, but Terry McAuliffe had a complete speech ready to go, condemning the left's shadowy enemies while omitting any mention of the Marxist combatants who came to do actual, physical harm. No one in the media batted an eye. (Read more.)