Tea at Trianon: The Darkest State of the Union Address Ever

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, March 10, 2024

The Darkest State of the Union Address Ever

An honest assessment, here.

I disagree with the Reason article in that Hunter Biden should be prosecuted because he has been the instrument of his family's enrichment through his father's public offices. From Reason:

It has only been 231 years since the French Revolution's Reign of Terror ultimately sent 50,000 people to the guillotine including former King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. This situation led inevitably to a Napoleonic dictatorship. Americans must resist at all costs traveling down this very same dangerous path.
In his State of the Union address last night President Biden cast himself as the defender of democracy who would jail former President Donald Trump. I criticized President Trump's behavior on January 6, 2021 in scorching terms, and I argued that his second impeachment should end with a verdict of disqualification from holding office in the future. But, I specifically said then, and I continue to believe now, that no former President of the United States should ever be sent to jail because of the effect that doing so would have on the 35% to 40% of the U.S. population has in revering a particular President who may have committed a crime. President Gerald R. Ford's best and most memorable act in office was his simultaneous pardoning of President Richard M. Nixon and of the Vietnam War era draft evaders to heal the country from the poisonous, political atmosphere of the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Notwithstanding this, the Biden Administration is currently criminally prosecuting Donald Trump for offenses that would lead to Trump's imprisonment where he could easily be murdered by fellow inmates. Trump has thus likened himself, quite reasonably, to Alexei Navalny, the opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putting who was recently murdered in jail where he was held for the crime of running against Putin when he is up for re-election. Even more offensively, Trump is being prosecuted by an unconstitutionally appointed Special Counsel instead of by a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney who has been designated to be a federal Special Counsel. The reasons why this is unconstitutional are spelled out in meticulous detail in a law review article by me and Professor Gary Lawson, Why Robert Mueller's Appointment Was Unlawful? 95 Notre Dame University Law Review 87 (2019). We have made these same arguments as well in numerous amicus briefs about Jack Smith's illegal appointment as Special Counsel, which we have been filing in 2023 and 2024 in the U.S. Supreme Court, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and in the Florida District Court before which Trump is being prosecuted by Jack Smith.
If President Biden was really serious bout being a friend of democracy, he should also call out New York State Attorney General Letitia James for her highway robbery civil lawsuit for $450 million in civil fraud fines and penalties, which just happens to drain Donald Trump of all of his cash just when the national presidential election is getting started, and he needs money. This is a vile abuse of the legal system, which poses a direct threat to democracy.

On top of all of this, there is the fact that Donald Trump has not even been charged with inciting a riot under the Insurrection Act, the penalty for which includes disqualification from holding office, and the "crime" of which he is most plausibly guilty. Instead, the Biden Administration waited nearly two years to prosecute Trump for his behavior on January 6, 2021 finally filing dubious indictments and almost guaranteeing that any criminal trials would occur in the middle of the presidential election, as is now happening. Joe Biden and Merrick Garland's pretense of depoliticizing the Justice Department is nothing more than a fraud on the American people. A serious Attorney General would have appointed a U.S. Attorney Special Counsel to investigate Trump for violating the Insurrection Act at 12:01pm on January 20, 2021, and such a serious Attorney General would have made clear that he sought no jail time but only a disqualification from holding office in the future. Trump should have, at most, been treated the way former President Richard M. Nixon was. (Read more.)

Comparing the France of Louis XVI with the current plight of America. From Schiff Sovereign:

Turgot knew that the economy needed to become more productive, so he wasn’t willing to raise taxes. He wouldn’t cause a financial crisis by defaulting on the debt. And he certainly wasn’t going to increase the debt by borrowing more money. The solution was obvious, and Turgot got to work almost immediately. With the King’s support, he made deep, deep cuts to the royal court. He also liberated trade and commerce by taking power away from the guilds, eliminating price controls, and reducing regulation. And it worked. By the end of 1775, Turgot had balanced the budget and restored France’s creditworthiness such that he was able to refinance a large portion of the French debt with foreign investors at a rate of just 4%. He turned everything around in just barely a year.

Unfortunately for France, however, Turgot had made a lot of enemies. The nobles, the guilds, and even the church hated him. So, on May 12, 1776, the King gave in to the pressure and fired Turgot. France then quickly resumed its decline. The larger point is that it is possible to turn a giant ship around. France was in dire straits when Turgot took over. But he managed to reverse course in a year.

The US is now at a similar point (though frankly much worse) as when Turgot took over French finances. France’s budget deficit in 1774 was roughly 10% of total tax revenue, while the budget deficit in the US last year was closer to 40%. Nevertheless, it’s still possible for America to turn things around. And just like France in 1774, the answers are obvious. Turgot knew that every other government expenditure combined paled in comparison to France’s #1 cost: the royal court. Similarly, everything else in the US government budget combined pales in comparison it its #1 cost: entitlement spending. Obviously, there is plenty of fat to trim everywhere in the US government; the Defense Department routinely wastes tens of billions of dollars, let alone the billions wasted in other departments. And while those cuts would be helpful, they won’t amount to anything unless the #1 issue is tackled.

Entitlement spending, which includes Social Security, Medicare, and various welfare programs which the government now politely calls “income security”, cost a whopping $3.75 TRILLION in Fiscal Year 2023. This is the obvious place to start. But Joe Biden made it very clear in last night’s State of the Union that he has absolutely no intention of doing that. He could have been honest. He could have leveled with voters that there is almost no chance of balancing the budget without obvious entitlement reform… and that failing to balance the budget will result in an existential financial crisis. At a minimum he could have said nothing. But instead, he specifically ruled out entitlement reform (for the second year in a row) and explicitly said, “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age I will stop them!”

Now, Joe Biden may think that he’s doing the right thing. But this is classic Inspired Idiocy.

When Hawaii’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the “Spirit of Aloha” takes precedence over the second amendment, they thought they were doing the right thing. Or when the FTC sued last week to block a grocery store merger, they thought they were doing the right thing. Even the eco-terrorists who sabotaged a Tesla factory in Germany this week believe they’re doing the right thing. Inspired Idiots always think of themselves as righteous. Unfortunately, they’re completely misguided and almost always wrong. They understand nothing, but they’re really passionate about it. And that’s the danger.

This coming fiscal crisis is completely avoidable if the people in charge would simply take it seriously. But the President pledged last night that he will do absolutely nothing to stop it, and in fact continue making it worse. (Read more.)