Tea at Trianon: The Uncomfortable Truth

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

Sunday, July 12, 2020

The Uncomfortable Truth

From Activist Mommy:

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to retain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The ruling was a major blow to the pro-life community who had hoped to turn the tide with two conservative Trump-appointed justices.

According to NPR, Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, joined with the court’s liberal justices in casting the deciding vote on Monday. Back in 2016, Roberts was among the dissenters when the court struck down a nearly identical Texas law. In order to promote “the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, [foster] reliance on judicial principles, and [contribute] to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process,” Roberts wrote that the court should, in this case, stand by its precedents, adding that “the Louisiana law burdens women seeking [pre-viability] abortions to the same extent as the Texas law.”

Justice Samuel Alito, also a Bush appointee, wrote the principal dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh. He wrote that the court’s decisions in both the Louisiana and Texas cases are “used like a bulldozer to flatten legal rules that stand in the way.” In a separate dissenting opinion, Thomas wrote, “Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled,” and that the court has “neither jurisdiction nor constitutional authority to declare Louisiana’s duly enacted law unconstitutional.” Kavanaugh and Gorsuch also wrote separate dissents. (Read more.)

Also from Activist Mommy:

In his dissent of the court’s recent ruling against restrictive abortion regulations in Louisiana, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas fiercely reminded his fellow justices that a right to abortion exists nowhere within the text of the Constitution. On Monday, the court overturned a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to retain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital in a 5-4 ruling. If not for the ruling at least two of the state’s three clinics would have been forced to shut down.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, joined the court’s four liberal justices in striking down the law, arguing that the court must follow the precedent it set four years ago in striking down a nearly identical Texas law seeking to protect women from botched abortions.

In dissent, Justice Thomas, a George H. W. Bush appointee, wrote, “Today a majority of the Court perpetuates its ill-founded abortion jurisprudence by enjoining a perfectly legitimate state law and doing so without jurisdiction.”

“Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled” Thomas went on, adding that the court has “neither jurisdiction nor constitutional authority to declare Louisiana’s duly enacted law unconstitutional.”

Thomas’ dissent suggests that the abortion activists who brought the lawsuit before the court didn’t even have legal standing to do so as petitioners who file lawsuits are supposed to file such suits on their own behalf, not on behalf of others. (Read more.)