Tea at Trianon: A Pivotal Ruling

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, March 13, 2021

A Pivotal Ruling

From The Daily Signal:

A near-unanimous Supreme Court decided Monday that two Christian students have the right to sue the Georgia college that violated their free speech rights in the past. The impact of the ruling is far greater than what at first sounds like a run-of-the-mill decision on a procedural issue that might prompt non-lawyers to take a nap. The case is a significant win for the First Amendment and protection of religious speech on the campus of a public college. It portends more thoughtful administration of speech policies on campuses. And the near unanimity of opinion by nine Supreme Court justices with vastly different ideological bents also may bode well for the high court’s future interpretations of the importance of constitutional rights.

The case, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, involves two former students of Georgia Gwinnett College who, while enrolled there, sought to exercise their religious liberty and publicly share their faith with other students by handing out religious literature on campus. However, college officials decided to enforce a policy that barred students from speaking to fellow students about their Christian religious beliefs in a public square. Later, officials barred the students’ speech in a campus “free speech zone” even after the students had applied for and received the appropriate permit as requested by the school. An analysis of the case reveals how hostile Georgia Gwinnett College was to religious speech.

After other students complained about Chike Uzuegbunam’s sharing of his faith in the school’s “free speech zone,” campus police told Uzuegbunam that his speech violated campus policy because it “disturb(ed) the peace and/or comfort” of others. Uzuegbunam and the other student filed lawsuits seeking injunctive relief and nominal damages. After the college eventually abandoned its speech policy, the school moved to dismiss the suits as moot. (Read more.)