Tea at Trianon: Honoring Pat Buchanan

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, December 8, 2024

Honoring Pat Buchanan

From The America Conservative:

During the 1990s and into the 2000s, Buchanan was a voice of one calling in the wilderness, warning the nation about unrestricted immigration, free-trade agreements that were decimating the middle class and outsourcing our manufacturing base, and the consequences of the neoconservative and liberal internationalism that resulted in endless wars. Buchanan also defended traditional values such as marriage and the life of the unborn, and he fought against the progressive attacks upon American history.

As a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and in 1996, and as the Reform Party nominee in 2000, Buchanan also championed traditional conservative positions such as opposing affirmative action, reducing the size and scope of the federal government, placing the Constitution first, and protecting the sovereignty of the United States.

Buchanan did not just campaign on an America First platform, but he also reminded conservatives about their intellectual heritage. For decades both the Republican Party and the conservative movement had embraced liberal internationalism characterized by free trade, open borders, and promoting democracy overseas. This liberal internationalism had more in common with President Woodrow Wilson and progressivism than it did with conservatism.

Whether it was NAFTA, WTO, granting Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to China, among other free trade agreements, Buchanan warned that blindly embracing globalization would have consequences to both the economy and national sovereignty. Further, endless wars to spread democracy and exercises in nation building resulted in a grand failure of foreign policy. “How did America lose the world? Through an ignorance of history, an embrace of ideology, and an arrogance of power—hubris,” wrote Buchanan in Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed are Tearing America Apart. (Read more.)