Tea at Trianon: Will Americans Fight for Globalism?

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

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Will Americans Fight for Globalism?

From American Greatness:

It also shouldn’t be necessary to debate moral distinctions. Gaza, Lebanon under Hezbollah, and Iran, are all ruled by ruthless Islamic extremists. Syria and Russia are corrupt and brutal dictatorships. China is a fascist ethno-state. Whatever Israel and America’s shortcomings may be, they don’t begin to rise to the level of oppression of these rivals.

During the Cold War, when memories of the 2nd World War were still relatively fresh in the minds of Americans, that sort of moral argument was enough. We weren’t perfect, but the Soviets, who had to build a 4,000 mile long fence to keep millions of their most talented subjects from migrating to Western nations, were obviously much worse. That moral distinction got us through the Korean War, and though more fitfully, it got us through the Vietnam War. And then it was enough to justify massive defense spending during the Reagan years. Ultimately, this containment doctrine worked. In 1989 an exhausted Soviet Union dissolved and the Iron Curtain came down.

Today, though it shouldn’t be, it is necessary to revisit all these premises. To begin with, the American people have changed. When the Cold War began, 90 percent of Americans were of various European descent, and the conflicts of the early 20th century had a unifying impact on the culture, erasing much of the bitterness left over from the Civil War as well as most of the tribal animosities their families might have brought with them from Europe. That has all changed. (Read more.)