Tea at Trianon: Censorship and COVID

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, September 13, 2022

Censorship and COVID

From Robert Kennedy, Jr. at The Defender:

“Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science. … So if you are trying to, you know, get at me as a public health official and scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you’re attacking science … You have to be asleep not to see that.” — National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, “Meet the Press,” June 9, 2021

It is troubling enough that Dr. Anthony Fauci, our country’s leading public health technocrat and the fiat leader of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the world’s principal funder of scientific research — would make such a narcissistic and scientifically absurd statement. The more serious concern is that the majority of my political party — the Democrats — and the mainstream media generally accept Fauci’s assertion as gospel.
Journalists — even science journalists — act as if they believe any pronouncement by Fauci (or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or World Health Organization) should mark the end of scientific inquiry. My latest book, “A Letter to Liberals — Censorship and COVID: An Attack on Science and American Ideals,” emerged from a congenial and ongoing conversation during the COVID-19 pandemic between myself and my longtime friend and former law partner, John Morgan, a lifelong champion of the Democratic Party and liberal values.

I invited John, who reveres Fauci and accepts the scientific validity of the government’s COVID-19 countermeasures, to reengage his critical thinking skills and accept my challenge to a science-based debate — and he did. I hope this free book will encourage other liberal Democrats to do the same — because that’s the kind of dialogue we need in order for democracy to function.
In what was arguably one of the most important speeches in American history, President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a Republican — warned our citizenry against the type of misplaced faith in federal scientific bureaucrats we are witnessing today. (Read more.)