Tea at Trianon: Carjackings, Looting, And Murder

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

Thursday, October 5, 2023

Carjackings, Looting, And Murder

Biden's America. From The Federalist:

Three pretty unnerving things have happened within the past week: Target cited crime and safety as reasons for closing another nine locations, a congressman was carjacked at gunpoint, and a Philadelphia-based journalist was murdered in his home. Welcome to the United States of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We hope you enjoy your stay!

To be fair, there isn’t yet a ton of information available about the homicide. All we know is that the victim is a left-winger named Josh Kruger and that he spent much of his days tweeting about how exaggerated the nationwide violent crime spikes have been. A local paper described him as “a former city spokesperson who advocated for more support for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents” (aka any ethnic minority who knowingly commits a crime or mooches off their parents well into adulthood).

Kruger had also posted a tweet mocking Dilbert comic creator Scott Adams for predicting in 2020 that there would be another wave of violent crime if Joe Biden were elected. “The Dilbert dude is like Nostradamus,” Kruger wrote in sarcasm. “Look at this prediction from 2020. Wow. Eerie.” He was killed two days later. Police haven’t identified a suspect.

But police a few miles south in Washington, D.C., do have an idea as to who it was that carjacked House Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar at gunpoint Monday night: “Three black males wearing all black clothing,” said an area alert. Carjackings in the metropolitan area have increased by more than five times the 2018 rate.

As for Target, the corporate arm announced last week that it was shutting down nine stores “because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance.” All of the affected businesses are in cities where their Democrat mayors and state prosecutors determined it safe to legalize crime by way of scaling down law enforcement and letting looters and assailants get away: San Francisco, Portland, New York, and Seattle. (Read more.)