Tea at Trianon: A Tragic Farce in the Senate

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

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

A Tragic Farce in the Senate

From Dr. Zmirak at The Stream:

Perhaps the most outrageous recent exchange in our public life took place in Senate hearings, when the pro-family patriot Sen. Josh Hawley was questioning U.C. Berkeley Professor Khiara Bridges. As The Guardian reported:
During the judiciary committee hearing, Hawley, who has previously co-sponsored a bill which would prevent transgender children from competing in sports, questioned Khiara Bridges, a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law who was invited to testify on reproductive rights.

“You’ve referred to ‘people with a capacity for pregnancy’,” he said. “Would that be women?”

Bridges replied: “Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy. Many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy, as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy.”

Hawley said: “So this isn’t really a women’s rights issue. It’s … it’s what?”

Bridges said: “We can recognise that this impacts women while also recognising that it impacts other groups, those things are not mutually exclusive, Senator Hawley.”

She added: “I want to recognise that your line of questioning is transphobic and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them.”
We can’t just lazily wave at Bridges’ position and point to it as madness. Of course it is, to you and me. We know with all the certainty of biological science and thousands of years of human civilization, plus the testimony of Scripture, that the divide between the sexes is real, crucially important, and tied to reproduction.

But that’s not enough. We face a new ideology that bears all the force of an evangelizing religion, backed by activist billionaires, which has captured all the high ground in our culture.

So we must think through clearly, even ruthlessly, the full implications of the dogmas taught by the Transgenderist cult, which public school teachers are preaching to our children — and Democrats are enshrining into law. (Don’t worry, Establishment Republicans will be obediently repeating the same superstition, just a few years later. They always do.) (Read more.)

From Todd Starnes:

More than 80 Christian conservative organizations wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) calling on him to oppose the “Respect for Marriage Act,” which would codify same-sex marriage into law.

The bill, which is now awaiting a vote in the Senate, passed the House of Representatives last week with the help of 47 Republicans.

Michael Farris, the Alliance Defending Freedom CEO and president, asserted the Democrat-sponsored bill will not only redefine marriage but also intentionally jeopardize religious freedom.

“When culture and political institutions fail to respect the institution of marriage and instead promote open aggression against those who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, they not only undermine human flourishing, but seriously harm religious freedom,” Farris said.

“The so-called ‘Respect for Marriage Act’ doesn’t simply codify the Obergefell decision… it also empowers the government to punish millions of Americans who hold decent and honorable beliefs about marriage,” he added. (Read more.)