Tea at Trianon: Hegseth Is Right

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

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Hegseth Is Right

From The Federalist:

In May, three female Democratic senators critical of Hegseth justified keeping the committee because of its role to “reduce barriers to the recruitment and retention of women.” This criticism assumes that recruitment and retention of women should be a special priority of the military. I disagree. For decades, increasing the percentage of women relative to men, expanding women’s roles in military career fields, and positioning women to break glass ceilings have been the driving forces behind “women in the military” policies. This needs to end. Here’s why.

Increasing the number of women in the military is not mission-critical. The reality: Recruiting and retaining women in our military does not increase the number of sleepless nights for our foes.

Prioritizing attention to women comes at the expense of recruiting and retaining men. Men are the backbone of our military. It is senseless, even bizarre, for a military to focus special attention (for decades, no less) on recruiting and retaining women with no parallel attention to recruiting and retaining men, while even disadvantaging men in promotion so that it can produce upward arrows on graphs about women in the ranks of the military. Men are stronger. Men have greater physical endurance. Because men do not get pregnant, their period of peak physical vitality, and their availability to be away from home, will not be interrupted. (Read more.)