Tea at Trianon: Moral Clarity Is Not Optional

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, March 19, 2026

Moral Clarity Is Not Optional

From Unlicensed Punditry:

I’ve been listening to Democrats and the No War in Iran crowd demand ridiculous things. They want public announcements of timelines, strategic plans, budgets, manpower, reports on readiness, and briefings that will be immediately leaked. They want down to the minute accounts of what Trump knew and when he knew it and what he plans to do and what he will rule out, all the while knowing that releasing all this information would mean disaster for any military move.
I recognize all of it is just an attempt to stop American leadership from ending a half-century of threats, the funding of death around the world, and a risk of nuclear war. That the opposition to President Trump’s decisions have no moral standing is a symptom of a complete erosion of moral certitude.
I’ve studied some of great Western leaders – Reagan, Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, even FDR and Truman’s wartime leadership—and it appears to me that great leadership requires many traits—competence, discipline, patience—but above all, it requires moral clarity. Even our American Founding Fathers chose moral clarity in separating from England to form a new nation. (Read more.)