Tea at Trianon: American Exceptionalism

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, July 4, 2026

American Exceptionalism

From Tierney's Real News:

Modern-day Communists like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Karen Bass and Aurélie Chevalier often make the same broad claim: that America is inherently flawed and a country that's not worth saving. They say it’s an oligarchy, rigged by billionaires, with workers paying the price for a system that can’t be fixed. In their view, the Constitution and the Founding Fathers hardcoded racism and inequality into the nation from the very beginning, designing it to protect “white elites” through slavery, racial hierarchy, and concentrated property rights.
They believe America should be burned to the ground and rebuilt as a collectivist country, using "messianic" figures like Marx, Mao, Muhammad, Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, and Castro as our heroes. The Communists who want to destroy America are backed by our adversaries in the Red-Green axis of Communist China, Russia, Iran & North Korea who want Islamo-Communism to rule America and the world. While their arguments may sound emotional and confident, they are based on a lie. That lie is repeated by liberal teachers and professors in textbooks in public schools and colleges - where our children are being indoctrinated to hate God, hate America, hate themselves and love Communism - and through headlines and memes in the fake news day after day. (Read more.)