Tea at Trianon: Observations From an Indignant Millennial

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, June 27, 2019

Observations From an Indignant Millennial

From The Patriot Post:

Having read my recent column, “Courage Is the Missing Millennial Link,” our long-time Patriot Post friend Foster Friess, a national advocate for policies that are important to all Americans, sent me a copy of an essay that was penned by a young millennial. But it was not an essay from a typical millennial.

Given that I am away with national board obligations this week — ironically with a company that is the nation’s largest distributor of character education curriculums for young people — I thought this essay about the values of young people would be a good subject for this column in my absence. It was written by Alyssa Ahlgren, a self-described “millennial/hipster” who’s earning an MBA while working as an analyst in corporate finance. In other words, she doesn’t have time to join the useful idiots among her age group who spend their time denouncing the United States and perpetrating political violence.

To the contrary, Alyssa is among those bold young women who have departed the lockstep leftist orthodoxy of her peers, particularly her female peers, who blindly subscribe to the Demo-Party group think. She offers a timely perspective on her generation, and their lack of appreciation for the Liberty and privilege they have inherited from previous generations. (Read more.)