Tea at Trianon: Anti-Christian Bigotry, Plain And Simple

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 16, 2018

Anti-Christian Bigotry, Plain And Simple

From The Federalist:

Pence is really no different than your run-of-the-mill evangelical, like millions of Americans. He believes that God governs the affairs of men, that prayer is effectual and worth doing, that marriage and family are best when built upon a married mother and father, that life is sacred and abortion destroys life, and that God appoints our government’s leaders, even those who are hostile to Him. Bruni adds that Pence is a greater threat to the universe than Trump because he holds, “…the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity.”

Besides sliming the Blues Brothers, he fails to appreciate that he has done so to millions of simple middle-Americans who believe that seeking to serve God in one’s life and work is a profound virtue and desirable life trait. Bruni continues on this remarkable trail: Trade Trump for Pence “and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy.”

How does one even respond to such meteoric hyperbole masquerading as thoughtfulness? Every person in government who’s possessed any measure of traditional Christian conviction and has the temerity to live by it has been accused of wanting to start a theocracy. The charge has grown quite thin and it has never even come close to happening. Chicken Little again.

Bruni fails to see — as do most of his peers — that it is precisely this kind of elitist bigotry that fueled Trump’s ascendency. But they keep topping off that tank with tanker-truck after tanker-truck of high-test vitriol. Bruni knows Pence is guilty of all of this and it disqualifies him, not only as a leader of our nation, but as a sane person, because there’s a new book coming out that says so. Bruni says the book “presents an entirely damning portrait of Pence,” but rest assured, it does so in a “mostly measured tone.” Yes, he actually modifies the phrase “entirely damning portrait” with the reassuring phrase “measured tone.”

In the book’s 300-plus mostly measured pages, the author cannot come up with one salutary thing to say about our nation’s vice-president? A book that only offers sentence after sentence from first page to last of how bad a person is is called “not worth reading,” because it’s hard to take seriously. However, Bruni and the book’s author believe the book is a must-read and serves an essential national interest because, as the author explains, “People don’t understand what Pence is: a religious zealot.”

A religious zealot, in the parlance of Christian antagonists, is merely a person who strongly believes things of faith that you disagree with. It’s a very subjective word and thus makes it easy to throw around with equal parts casualness and moral superiority. But it is likely true that most people do understand that Pence is a man of serious faith, and they like him for it. (Read more.)