Tea at Trianon: Then They Came For... Betsy Ross? Jefferson? July 4th? America?

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, July 15, 2019

Then They Came For... Betsy Ross? Jefferson? July 4th? America?

From Zero Hedge:

The eye-catching sentence is: “Democrats continue to lag far behind Republicans in expressing extreme pride in the U.S.” The actual percentages expressing themselves “extremely proud to be American” are: Republicans 76, Democrats 22. That’s a heck of a gap: 54 percentage points. In 2001 it was ten points, 64 to 54. Here’s my question for Democrats. The biggest issue in our politics right now arises from the fact that millions - tens of millions, likely hundred of millions - of foreigners want to come settle in America, with or without proper permission. Isn’t that an occasion for…”pride”? Apparently not. This last week, we have seen a couple of major strides toward the abolition of Independence Day: .

First we have learned that the 13-star Betsy Ross flag is an emblem of fascismbecause of “its connection to an era of slavery.”[Nike Nixes ‘Betsy Ross Flag’ Sneaker After Colin Kaepernick Intervenes, by Khadeeja Safdar and Andrew Beaton, WSJ, July 1, 2019]

The logic on this one was hard to follow. Is it the thirteen stars, representing the original thirteen colonies, in all of which (I think) slavery was legal at the time Ms. Ross offered her flag design? If it was, then the thirteen stripes must be equally offensive. That could be…what’s the cant word here?…oh yes: problematic, that could be problematic to a great many not-yet-fully-woke Americans, as our present national flag retains those same thirteen stripes. The issue got further confused when diehard counter-revolutionary subversives noted that the Betsy Ross flag was prominently displayed at Barack Obama’s second inaugural bash. (Read more.)