Tea at Trianon: Stop Importing Foreign Hatred

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

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Stop Importing Foreign Hatred

From City Journal:

After the October 7 attacks, thousands took to American streets to celebrate. Some explicitly praised the heinous acts of rape, beheading, and kidnapping of civilians. Among these demonstrators were many noncitizens, including those on student visas. Universities such as MIT refrained from suspending students who neglected their classes in order to protest, seeking to protect those students’ immigration status.

Policymakers can fight imported anti-Semitism by safeguarding American Jews from foreign threats, while reinforcing the value of American citizenship. The United States has a long-standing tradition of defending itself against perilous foreign ideologies. George Washington once expressed his hope that America might become a “safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” Washington’s emphasis on virtue is critical. Some of the earliest immigration restrictions aimed to ensure that only virtuous actors were admitted—excluding prostitutes, anarchists, and Communists.

Following World War II, these restrictions broadened to prevent members of totalitarian parties and violators of human rights from immigrating. Terrorists and their affiliates are barred from entering the U.S.; so are their supporters. Even today, such laws continue to result in the denaturalization and deportation of former Nazi officials who managed to enter America under false pretenses. (Read more.)