Tea at Trianon: Love for "The People"

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, July 20, 2019

Love for "The People"

How socialism works. From The American Spectator:

Obama loved Vladimir Putin, whispering that he had great things in store for him after his reelection. When Mitt Romney warned during the 2012 presidential debates of the dangers of Putin’s Russia, Obama mocked and sneered. Obama got along famously with Hugo Chavez. Great with the Castros. Bill Clinton hosted Yasser Arafat in his White House more than he did any other visiting leader. Love is a many-splendored thing.

It does sound so sweet. One of these days someone in a Democratic presidential debate is going to end her evening with a pledge to turn all problems around with that great secret weapon: love. And love is all around us. Bernie Sanders sees bread lines in Communist Russia, and he waxes poetic: Bread lines are “a good thing.” Kamala Harris has a wowzer of a slogan: “For the People.” Why didn’t anyone think of that earlier?

When you are for “The People,” the great faceless humanity called “The People,” one might well ask: “Uh, are all ‘The People’ the same?” So, like, which “The People” is she for? I am a member of “The People,” dues paid through 2020. Is Kamala for me? No? So for which “The People” is she for? The “The People” in her state who are homeless in tents on the sidewalks, living in urine and feces amid typhus? Or the “The People” trying to clean up those streets, get them mental care and addiction treatment, and restore the streets to the First World? Which “The People”?

On its face, socialism sounds so fair, especially in its latest iteration, the “Green New Deal”: To each according to his or her need — and why not? Equality of results. Equality of incomes. Equality of The People. Medicare for all. A guaranteed wage to everyone, even if they do not work. For the People. And it will come from a mighty economy that operates on the principle “From each according to his ability.”

It never works. It cannot work. Only a small number of intense idealists will work to the hardest and best of their abilities for thirty, forty years even though not specially rewarded. Most people — normal people, that is people along the norm — will work, but not to their best conceivable output, if they are not rewarded extra for giving extra. And a great many people will not work at all, feigning illness, assorted maladies, and just-plain pleading: “I am working as hard as I can.” (Read more.)