Tea at Trianon: Three Reflections About the Defeat in Kansas

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, August 15, 2022

Three Reflections About the Defeat in Kansas

From Return to Order:

The second reflection is that the pro-life movement must not moderate but double down on its message. It is time to disregard the dire warnings on the moderate right and radical left that predict failure for the pro-life side if it takes the Dobbs victory too far.

The pro-abortion side is recommending a strategy that it is not following. It does not practice what it preaches. Indeed, after the Dobbs decision, the logic of this “moderate” perspective would be to recommend that the left moderate its radical kill-until-birth position on abortion. Clearly, the Dobbs decision put them on the wrong side of legal history.

However, the left did precisely the opposite in the face of defeat. It doubled down and radicalized. Blue state legislatures are now passing North-Korean-style abortion policies that allow abortion up to birth with no restrictions. President Biden uses every weapon in his executive arsenal to make abortion available to those living in anti-abortion states. The woke establishment is pulling out all stops to defend this imagined “right” to kill one’s baby by shamelessly offering benefits to those who choose abortion over life.

No moderate voices plead with the left to de-radicalize. The liberal media’s message after Kansas is a demand that the left double down and the right tone down. Following their fallacious advice is a blueprint for disaster. Instead, pro-lifers should listen to it carefully and firmly do the opposite.

The history of the pro-life movement that led to the unlikely Dobbs decision has been an uncompromising defense of the moral law and human life. It is foolish to abandon a proven means of victory to accommodate those without the courage to take a principled stand. The pro-life side needs to double down. (Read more.)

The Left needs to stop framing abortion as the solution to Black women’s problems. The New World Order has always hated the fecundity of African-American women. From Deseret News:

We’ve been told that rich white women can easily get abortions regardless of the law, therefore providing taxpayer funding for abortion means equality. Black women’s equality depends on having the same access to abortion as affluent white women, they say.

Every positive indicator of well-being in which we are not on par with white women is used as a reason for why we need abortion on demand. Maternal mortality, pregnancy-related complications, lack of insurance, diabetes, hypertension — whatever ails us is a reason to make sure we can get abortions.

I reject these arguments. Abortion is not a cure-all.

A Black woman who is poor and gets an abortion will still be poor, still live in a food desert, still lack insurance. After an abortion, she will still be in the circumstances that abortion advocates claim make motherhood too burdensome. According to all indicators, Black women have had plenty of abortions, and yet we are still poorer, sicker and more economically distressed than white women. We have had the abortions prescribed as a curative, and they have not been healing but toxic.

And when have Black women ever not faced difficulty in the history of this country? Have our indicators of well-being ever been on par with that of white women, in particular those who are well-off? How does abortion cure any of our ills? Our unborn children are not the root cause of the poverty, the food deserts, the unclean water, the underfunded schools or anything else that corresponds with poor outcomes.

So why is abortion framed as the solution? Why are people saying Black women must be able to get abortions or else we will die? The framing is off. Why don’t we deserve real solutions that don’t involve ending the lives of our progeny? Killing the poor is not a solution for poverty.

Our well-being should not be measured by our access to abortion, but rather by the things affluent people take for granted: access to wholesome food and clean water, safe and affordable housing, good schools, good jobs, spouses with good jobs, clean air, everything.

Ask poor Black women what they want and need, and abortion access doesn’t even come up because their basic living conditions are the problem, not their fecundity. For example, residents of a Washington, D.C., housing project recently gave a handwritten note to the mayor outlining the unsafe conditions in which they live. In the letter, the residents said they have been conditioned to accept less, and that is why so many of them have not spoken up about the mold, roaches, leaks and a host of other unacceptable and unsafe conditions. They need clean, safe, and affordable housing. The overemphasis on abortion for this community deflects from their actual needs. (Read more.)