Tea at Trianon: Trust and Rebuilding

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, February 15, 2025

Trust and Rebuilding

From Jennifer Roback Morse at The Stream:

Defunding the firefighters, DEI hires for significant positions, and ideologically driven environmental restrictions on water projects: All these played a part in increasing the devastation of the recent California wildfires.

In my last article, I argued that these policies are the fruit of Fantasy Ideologies that enhance power accumulation for the Ruling Class. One dreadful consequence of their constant propaganda is that they have damaged the fabric of trust that any complex society needs in order to function.

The Elites have spent years moving the “equity” goalposts, with ever more elaborate demands for eliminating “systemic racism,” “homophobia,” and “transphobia.” Members of the political class have no useful skills themselves, and they have alienated the people who do. With their endless rules, regulations, and mindless requirements, and periodic scapegoating of anyone who resists them, they’ve made it nearly impossible for competent people (who do have a clue what to do) to actually get anything done.

Now that a big chunk of the most densely populated part of California has literally burned to the ground, we have to face the problem of rebuilding. I can tell you from my own experience with natural disasters that wishful thinking has no constructive role to play in this.

The people of Southern California have lost everything. They cannot solve their problems by themselves. They cannot rebuild their homes and communities using only the resources they have on hand there. Everything is gone. They will, by necessity, be counting on people from all over the country and even the world to help them by supplying materials, expertise, and labor.

We saw this firsthand in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where I live, back in 2020. The area was hit by Hurricane Laura that August, then Hurricane Delta six weeks later in October. There was a deep freeze in January 2021, and flash flood that May. Oh, and by the way, COVID lockdowns were still in place at the time.

The hurricanes were the worst. The people had no safe drinking water. No electrical power. No internet. The roads were blocked by downed power lines and trees. Even after the big things were removed, broken glass, trash, chunks of sheet metal, nails, screws and other bits of hardware littered the roads. That meant that even on a short drive, you ran the risk of running over something that would give you a flat tire. And oh yes, for the first few days, no tire shops, auto parts stores, or hardware stores were open. There were gas stations, but no electricity to to get the gas out of the pumps. Everything in your refrigerator or freezer was at risk of spoiling, unless you could get some ice for an ice chest to keep it cool.

(Oddly enough, the COVID virus evidently disappeared during that time. Nobody worried about wearing masks or washing their hands. But I digress.) (Read more.)