Tea at Trianon: Build the Wall

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, August 5, 2018

Build the Wall

From The Stream:

We must face facts. Mexico is quickly becoming a failed state, like Libya or Somalia. It has just elected a president for whom the best case scenario is that he will use brutal, Castro-style means to gain control of the country. The more likely outcome is that he will fail. That the cartels will continue to run the place — perhaps in a de facto coalition with Obrador. They’ll unite to fight their common enemy: the U.S. Border Patrol. With leftists leaking the names and addresses of these brave professionals — and a Homeland Security official in D.C. finding a decapitated animal burned on his front doorstep — expect more Border Patrol agents to die. Along with their families. That’s how the cartels roll.

What does all of this mean? That building a wall on our southern border will soon be a military emergency. President Trump should bypass the Swamp on Capitol Hill. He should declare a state of emergency on the border, and plant military bases at the main crossing points into the U.S. Then use Defense Department funding, eminent domain, and whatever else it takes, to cut off illegal entry into the U.S. from the south. (Read more.)