Tea at Trianon: An Ill-fated Charade

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

Friday, February 5, 2021

An Ill-fated Charade

From Epoch Times:

Next week the political center-stage will be occupied by the ill-fated charade of the impeachment trial. This must be the last gasp of the notorious Democratic inability to focus for long on any political activity except hatred of the ex-president.

For five years it has been their substitute for policy and for politics itself, and it motivated the Democrats to jam through an impeachment vote with no due process, no witnesses or evidence, with only 10 of 207 Republicans joining them.

The former president is charged with inciting an insurrection. He urged “peaceful and patriotic” representations to the Congress, no violence, and certainly no violent overthrow of the government (which is what insurrection means).

It is for this colossal, petulant farce that the Senate is called to remove someone from an office he does not hold for an exhortation he did not make to commit an act which no one intended, even the professional hooligans who premeditatedly led the assault on the scandalously under-defended Capitol.
The most interesting aspect of this case is that the ex-president has apparently fired counsel who wished to win the case just as formulated-not guilty as charged, rather than also making the case that Trump was cheated out of his election.
This is the real, main issue of contemporary American politics: the Democrats and all the Republicans who are not unambiguous Trump supporters, (clearly, the considerable majority of Republicans do support him), cannot accept any serious question of the legitimacy of the election result. That would be too great an impeachment of the system itself.

The facts that Trump was caught flat-footed on election-night, and that his legal challenge was helter-skelter and wildly oversold, does not erase the dubious lop-sided vote drops in the middle of the night in Pennsylvania, the infamous consent to the reduction of voter verifiability conceded in the Stacey Abrams action in Georgia, and a great weight of affidavit evidence of systematic fraud, none of which was ever legally addressed. The state courts were unrigorous in the several states where they were tested, and the Supreme Court ducked the issue, abdicated.

The implications of conceding that it was a rigged election have caused the entire political establishment and almost all of the media, (who were nearly unanimous in opposing Trump anyway), to lock arms in support of the integrity of the election.

This is precarious, because it is quite likely that more than the 45,000 votes that were required to flip to deliver Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to Trump, could have been found if the post-election inquiries had been conducted and adjudicated thoroughly. No one seriously disputes that Biden won the popular vote except Trump, but the winning candidate has lost the popular vote on six previous occasions, including 2016. (Read more.)

From The National Pulse:

The Democrats have just released their full legal brief against President Donald J. Trump. You can read the full document below...The document falsely claims that no election result has been contested in U.S. history. The document also makes clear Democrats are using the power of the state to try to ban President Trump from holding public office ever again – moves similar to those made by tyrants across the globe against political opponents. (Read more.)

From The Western Journal:

The inevitable backlash is already starting to boil. And not just among 74 million Trump voters, but also a lot of moderates and Democrats who thought they were getting “Unity Joe Biden” and not AOC in a blue suit and face mask.

Remember, Republicans did really well in the last election on the state and local levels. Don’t get discouraged — get motivated and keep that momentum going.

As of this year, Republicans will have complete control (governor and both houses of legislatures) in 24 states, while Democrats have only 15. Republicans have full control of the legislatures in 31 states; Democrats only 18. In terms of population, Republicans control legislatures that represent nearly 186 million Americans; Democrats less than 134 million. (Read more.)