Tea at Trianon: A Nation of Dunces

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

Saturday, April 27, 2019

A Nation of Dunces

From The Washington Times:

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” So wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1789. But if Jefferson were to read the results of the latest survey from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, he might seriously doubt modern America’s capacity for self-governance. It shows that most Americans would fail even a basic citizenship test.

Today, 60% of college graduates cannot name a single step necessary to ratify a constitutional amendment; half don’t know how long the terms are for representatives or senators. Two out of five don’t know that Congress has the power to declare war. The First Amendment prohibits an “establishment of religion” and guarantees the “free exercise of religion,” yet a majority of Americans believe that the Constitution established a Christian nation. One in 10 think Congress could actually “outlaw atheism because the United States is one country under God.” (Read more.)