Tea at Trianon: Women of the Right

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

Friday, December 21, 2018

Women of the Right

From The Federalist:

The women of the Right are allowed to believe things that the women of the Left are not. They are allowed to believe there is a difference between women and men, female and male, and that those differences are real, not a false cultural construct imposed by a self-interested, manipulative patriarchy. Unlike Gloria Steinem, they can express their femininity in any way they choose to, without fear of being accused of a calumnization of the sisterhood.

Even more, women of the Right are allowed to accept obvious things rather than engage in exhausting psychic gymnastics to get to a place that is politically correct, while preposterous. If a thug murders a pregnant woman, he should be charged with two murders, not just one, and women of the Right feel no compulsion to weary themselves by filing amicus briefs on behalf of the murderer to nullify the second killing because the unborn baby does not qualify as human life.

Even further, they have no difficulty with the notion that the woman in question had every right to effectuate her own protection, if she chose, with whatever weapon she preferred to use, for the easily understood and non-controversial purpose of blowing the thug away before he could murder her and her baby. It’s not tiring to get to that conclusion; it’s tiring to get to the opposite one.

They are allowed to love their gay friends and want all good things for them, but still believe it’s a bad idea to start redefining marriage without being labeled a bigot by those same friends, and that, too, removes a burden. They are allowed to go through life treating people—all people—with dignity, respect, and friendship, and not be concerned about being called racist, even if they are called racist, because they know they are not. (Read more.)