Tea at Trianon: Olympics: Celebration Of Sport Or Violent Social Experimentation?

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

Saturday, August 3, 2024

Olympics: Celebration Of Sport Or Violent Social Experimentation?

From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

I loved the Olympics when I was a child. I loved the idea that people worked their whole lives to achieve athletic excellence and share it with the world every four years. My heroes were Nadia Comaneci and many other women who were such strong and athletic females. It inspired me to run track, do recreational gymnastics, play softball, and eventually coach these sports. I was a National Age Group Chairman for USA Gymnastics and a Brevet Level judge as well.

I still love watching some sports like gymnastics.

Unfortunately, commercialization and television ratings have turned the event into an orchestrated monstrosity that no longer celebrates the efforts of so many but has turned the Olympics into a social experiment in many ways, such as allowing men to compete against women.

The most egregious display of this social experimentation came in a recent bout in Women's Boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Forty-five seconds into her bout with Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, an athlete who had previously failed two gender tests, Italian boxer Angela Carini called off the bout, saying that she had never been punched that hard before. Carini was in tears and voiced her frustration, shouting "This is unjust!" and slamming her headgear in the ring. She refused to congratulate the "winner" of the fight. (Read more.)

From Honest to Goodness:

Female athletes from all ages and athletic disciplines were losing trophies and medals and championship titles to men appropriating their sex. It went from “it’s not happening that often, so why care?” to “Sports aren’t that important anyway, so find a cause to champion that actually matters.”
Well this week, we saw a male athlete physically punch a woman in the face on a global stage, and it still seems like no one cares. Algeria’s Imane Khelif is one of two male boxers permitted to fight against women at this year’s Olympics despite being disqualified from the women’s world championships last year for failing testosterone and ambiguously defined “gender eligibility” tests.
It is yet unclear to me whether Khelif is trans identified or a male with a DSD. There’s a difference between claims of trans identities and intersex or DSDs. One is based on subjective feelings. The other is based in material reality that renders a person’s actual biological sex ambiguous. To be clear, intersex is a mutation of the male/female binary; it is not a third option.
I obviously have a LOT more empathy for people in the latter category. It would be very difficult to inhabit a body with a genetic mutation that makes it difficult for people to know if you’re a man or a woman. I imagine it would be very isolating. But chromosomes don’t lie. And when there’s a Y chromosome present, you’re dealing with a male and most of the physiological advantages a male body affords. It is not safe or fair to expect female athletes to compete against males. We cannot afford to care more about the men’s feelings than we do about the women’s safety.
I’ve written extensively about the male takeover of women’s sports before and don’t wish to have to rehash that all here. What the world needs to know for this conversation is that Italian boxer Angela Carini was matched against Khelif in the Olympics this week, and Khelif pummeled her in the face with such force that she resigned after just 46 seconds of the fight, falling to her knees and sobbing. She declined to shake Khelif’s hand at the end of the match. (Read more.)