Tea at Trianon: The Great Liberal Experiment Is Dying

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, September 17, 2018

The Great Liberal Experiment Is Dying

From Return to Order:

Conservatives are frustrated by the present state of affairs. The politicians we have brought to power time and time again cannot get things done. Gridlock reigns in the halls of Congress, and it is not going away anytime soon. There is plenty of blame to spread around. Blame the political establishment that must be cleaned out and something else must be established (another establishment) in its place. Blame moneyed interests of the financial sector that are only looking after themselves. Blame military strategists are putting America into conflicts not in the nation’s interest. Blame immoral players supporting abortion, same-sex “marriage” and now transgenderism that subvert the value voters’ platform. Blame irreligious players that ignore God and His law.

All of them deserve some of the blame. But that is no reason to join the liberal media in declaring (once more!) that the conservative movement is dead. Never mind the fact that the same liberal media will never declare the death of its progressive movement—even after one of its greatest defeats in generations. Yet it is hard not to be cynical in face of the evidence. We are tempted to think that politics is an exercise in futility. The whole system is rotten and cannot be fixed. There are even those who say America herself is evil and should be opposed. In a post-Christian America, we are told there is no sense in carrying on. It is every man for himself. Such thinking is wrong. The scenario mentioned above undeniably has elements of truth. The conservative movement is indeed in crisis, as is the progressive movement. The various factions are pulling everything apart. (Read more.)