Who Celebrates Bastille Day?

[Momanohedhunter]

What does her being Asian have to do with anything?

I realize she only parrots wingnuts, but she did post this little jem:


The reason our revolution was so different from the violent, homicidal chaos of the French version was the dominant American culture was Anglo-Saxon and Christian.

You are free to pretend all you want that it means something different.

I bet this will surprise you, but I will concede that PC's description was a little off, but she is touching on an important point which Baruch highlights - it's a cultural difference more than anything else. I think PC was close, but chose terms that were not exact.

The culture in England at the time we were developing was very different than that in continental Europe. The constant warring is a good example of that deep cultural difference.

Although we were fighting the English, we still adopted a lot of good ideas from them for our new country - common law, for example.

people with a full belly who feel they are being taxed wrongfully by an entity thousands of miles away will react a little differently than people who are staving to death while the aristos party on and the *princes* of the church tell them they'll get their reward in heaven. this whole anglo saxon, christian meme that PC trots out via ann petty and the heartbreakers is horseshit.

unless someone wants to argue that france wasn't a christian country at the time and the english monarchy felt that its power wasn't a divine right?

i'm sure PC is a nice person, but she's no rocket surgeon

Like it is now ? Obama having dinner parties and serving $400.00 bottles of champagne, and Michelle Antoinette saying " let them eat carrots".

 

[del]

The conditions under which the FRENCH people were dealing were so wildly different than anything that the Americana colonialists were facing that to try to compare them is just silly.

But here's something to think about....

The chuch didn't pay taxes and owned much of the nations land and wealth.

The artistos didn't pay any taxes and they owned the vast majority of wealth and they also owned the monopoloy on most means of production, too.

The KING (central government) therefore was BROKE. After all, he could NOT tax the people who HAD all the dough (the artistos and the clergy).

The King was broke in part because of all his foolish WARS OF EMPIRE (that he or his father had lost)

Then the CROPS FAILED and the people were STARVING...

There's a lesson there, I think, for some of us.

It has become my perception that many, influenced by the Left, are unable to identify and condemn evil without seeking some 'rational explanation' for same.

One of the most advanced, sophisticated nations of the 18th century kills 600,000 citizens- many of it’s most valuable citizens, plus some 145,000 flee the country. Schom, “Napoleon Bonaparte,” p. 253.

So...exactly which of the items in your post do you see as explaining, allowing, excusing those numbers?

All of them?

Brings to mind this, from Paul Berman's "Terror and Liberalism:"

1. The French Socialists of the 1930’s had impeccable democratic credentials, dating back to the 19th century. They won elections, and in Leon Blum they produced a great leader, a prime minister who had the ability to fuse French patriotism and social justice, and the finest cultural values.

2. Which brings us to Paul Faure, the general-secretary of said French Socialists, and leader of the faction that opposed war- at any cost. While Blum recognized the horror that Hitler represented, the Paul-Fauristes desperately sought to find a description of reality that did not point in the direction of war! ‘Don’t judge Germany too quickly, nor too starkly.’ After all, they had been treated poorly by the Treaty of Versailles. And their people living in Slavic countries weren’t being treated well… shouldn’t we show some flexibility? Conciliate the outraged German people! This is not cowardly, or unprincipled…no, it is simply anti-war. And, therefore, the real dangers were not from the Nazis or Hitler, but from the warmongers, those who would profit from war!

a. While those were the arguments of the anti-war left, the unfocused or philosophical basis which gave credence to those arguments, was that, in our modern world, even the enemies of reason cannot be the enemies of reason. There must always be some rationality behind a movement, no matter how mad it seems. A faith in universal rationality. Can you say “liberal naïveté” of the nineteenth century…a simple minded optimism, the liberalism of a strictly rational world, the liberalism of denial.

b. Paul Faure’s French Socialists refused to believe that millions of respectable Germans subscribed to a political movement whose doctrines were paranoid conspiracy theories, blood-curdling hatreds, medieval superstitions, and the lure of mass murder. For the Socialists, there was always a why.

3. So our Socialist friends listened to the Nazis’ speeches about Jews, and stroked their bearded chins, and queried, ‘what is anti-Semitism, anyway?’ Aren’t there some Jews who we don’t like? And the war-hawks…some of them are Jews…why, even Leon Blum, he is a Jew, and he takes a hard line…suspicious. Perhaps Hitler isn’t entirely wrong.


So, like you, the French Socialists also had a list of reasons why the horrors followed.

do you prefer barley or rye when you construct your straw men?

 

[Si modo]

I bet this will surprise you, but I will concede that PC's description was a little off, but she is touching on an important point which Baruch highlights - it's a cultural difference more than anything else. I think PC was close, but chose terms that were not exact.

The culture in England at the time we were developing was very different than that in continental Europe. The constant warring is a good example of that deep cultural difference.

Although we were fighting the English, we still adopted a lot of good ideas from them for our new country - common law, for example.

people with a full belly who feel they are being taxed wrongfully by an entity thousands of miles away will react a little differently than people who are staving to death while the aristos party on and the *princes* of the church tell them they'll get their reward in heaven. this whole anglo saxon, christian meme that PC trots out via ann petty and the heartbreakers is horseshit.

unless someone wants to argue that france wasn't a christian country at the time and the english monarchy felt that its power wasn't a divine right?

i'm sure PC is a nice person, but she's no rocket surgeon

Like it is now ? Obama having dinner parties and serving $400.00 bottles of champagne, and Michelle Antoinette saying " let them eat carrots".

Huh?

When the President entertains, especially when he entertains foreign leaders, he better not be serving Miller Lite.

And, what is so wrong with promoting awareness for healthy eating, especially when we have so many 150 lb. kindergartners?

There is plenty of other shit to criticize, IMO, and it's far more important. I endorse both their activities in what you brought up, and I think most would, too.

 

[Momanohedhunter]

people with a full belly who feel they are being taxed wrongfully by an entity thousands of miles away will react a little differently than people who are staving to death while the aristos party on and the *princes* of the church tell them they'll get their reward in heaven. this whole anglo saxon, christian meme that PC trots out via ann petty and the heartbreakers is horseshit.

unless someone wants to argue that france wasn't a christian country at the time and the english monarchy felt that its power wasn't a divine right?

i'm sure PC is a nice person, but she's no rocket surgeon

Like it is now ? Obama having dinner parties and serving $400.00 bottles of champagne, and Michelle Antoinette saying " let them eat carrots".

Huh?

When the President entertains, especially when he entertains foreign leaders, he better not be serving Miller Lite.

And, what is so wrong with promoting awareness for healthy eating, especially when we have so many 150 lb. kindergartners?

There is plenty of other shit to criticize, IMO, and it's far more important. I endorse both their activities in what you brought up, and I think most would, too.

Then serve $100.00 bottles of champagne and reform the food stamp system so that you can only buy good healthy food. Then there is Michelle's 1,500 calorie lunch. Hypocrisy in action . Then there are the vacations on the tax payers dollar.

 

[Momanohedhunter]

This to.

 

[Si modo]

Like it is now ? Obama having dinner parties and serving $400.00 bottles of champagne, and Michelle Antoinette saying " let them eat carrots".

Huh?

When the President entertains, especially when he entertains foreign leaders, he better not be serving Miller Lite.

And, what is so wrong with promoting awareness for healthy eating, especially when we have so many 150 lb. kindergartners?

There is plenty of other shit to criticize, IMO, and it's far more important. I endorse both their activities in what you brought up, and I think most would, too.

Then serve $100.00 bottles of champagne and reform the food stamp system so that you can only buy good healthy food. Then there is Michelle's 1,500 calorie lunch. Hypocrisy in action . Then there are the vacations on the tax payers dollar.

Meh. I can stomach that. What I can't stomach is Obamacare and the numerous other totalitarian individual right abuses this administration champions.

I'm not going to sweat about carrots and champagne. I really can't get myself torqued up about that, even if I try hard to do so.

 

[Momanohedhunter]

Huh?

When the President entertains, especially when he entertains foreign leaders, he better not be serving Miller Lite.

And, what is so wrong with promoting awareness for healthy eating, especially when we have so many 150 lb. kindergartners?

There is plenty of other shit to criticize, IMO, and it's far more important. I endorse both their activities in what you brought up, and I think most would, too.

Then serve $100.00 bottles of champagne and reform the food stamp system so that you can only buy good healthy food. Then there is Michelle's 1,500 calorie lunch. Hypocrisy in action . Then there are the vacations on the tax payers dollar.

Meh. I can stomach that. What I can't stomach is Obamacare and the numerous other totalitarian individual right abuses this administration champions.

I'm not going to sweat about carrots and champagne. I really can't get myself torqued up about that, even if I try hard to do so.

Yeah, just spend less because times are hard. Just eat carrots and drink Natural Light, and walk more.

 

[CitizenPained]

If Bastille Day were celebrated in the pubs in Denver, you know I'd find a reason to show my inner Francophile.

 

[Momanohedhunter]

If Bastille Day were celebrated in the pubs in Denver, you know I'd find a reason to show my inner Francophile.

Whats stopping you ? Cinco de Mayo , and St Patty's day are celebrated and 90% of those celebrating have no clue what they are about. That includes most Irish and Latino respectively.

 

[geauxtohell]

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to he erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

From Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Robespierre was a tyrant. It is always amusing to watch people try to play politics with the actions of tyrants. Would Hitler be considered a "liberal" or a "conservative"? Why in the hell does it matter in relation to their actions? Why should we feel compelled to try and make these figures (who exist in different times and different countries) fit into our own political landscape? It's silly.

Even if we try, whatever principles these people had were eventually abandoned for the love of power and they became corrupted.

On that note, liberals in America don't celebrate Bastille Day because we aren't French. That much should be self evident.

 

[Momanohedhunter]

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to he erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

From Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Robespierre was a tyrant. It is always amusing to watch people try to play politics with the actions of tyrants. Would Hitler be considered a "liberal" or a "conservative"? Why in the hell does it matter in relation to their actions? Why should we feel compelled to try and make these figures (who exist in different times and different countries) fit into our own political landscape? It's silly.

Even if we try, whatever principles these people had were eventually abandoned for the love of power and they became corrupted.

On that note, liberals in America don't celebrate Bastille Day because we aren't French. That much should be self evident.

I have only seen it celebrated in New Orleans. Mostly it is done to justify getting ripped before noon.

 

[Ravi]

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to he erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

From Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Robespierre was a tyrant. It is always amusing to watch people try to play politics with the actions of tyrants. Would Hitler be considered a "liberal" or a "conservative"? Why in the hell does it matter in relation to their actions? Why should we feel compelled to try and make these figures (who exist in different times and different countries) fit into our own political landscape? It's silly.

Even if we try, whatever principles these people had were eventually abandoned for the love of power and they became corrupted.

On that note, liberals in America don't celebrate Bastille Day because we aren't French. That much should be self evident.

I'm almost positive that PC will claim that Hitler was a liberal. FWIW

 

[Momanohedhunter]

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to he erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

From Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Robespierre was a tyrant. It is always amusing to watch people try to play politics with the actions of tyrants. Would Hitler be considered a "liberal" or a "conservative"? Why in the hell does it matter in relation to their actions? Why should we feel compelled to try and make these figures (who exist in different times and different countries) fit into our own political landscape? It's silly.

Even if we try, whatever principles these people had were eventually abandoned for the love of power and they became corrupted.

On that note, liberals in America don't celebrate Bastille Day because we aren't French. That much should be self evident.

I'm almost positive that PC will claim that Hitler was a liberal. FWIW

Thought it was progressive ?

 

[Ravi]

No. Hitler was a monster and a fascist that used aspects of any belief to sway the German people.

Including Christianity.

 

[CitizenPained]

If Bastille Day were celebrated in the pubs in Denver, you know I'd find a reason to show my inner Francophile.

Whats stopping you ? Cinco de Mayo , and St Patty's day are celebrated and 90% of those celebrating have no clue what they are about. That includes most Irish and Latino respectively.

It's not celebrated here. No reason to dress myself in a French flag or don a beret and get wasted.

 

[Momanohedhunter]

If Bastille Day were celebrated in the pubs in Denver, you know I'd find a reason to show my inner Francophile.

Whats stopping you ? Cinco de Mayo , and St Patty's day are celebrated and 90% of those celebrating have no clue what they are about. That includes most Irish and Latino respectively.

It's not celebrated here. No reason to dress myself in a French flag or don a beret and get wasted.

No, just hit the club say "happy Bastille day bitches" and have at it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to he erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

From Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Robespierre was a tyrant. It is always amusing to watch people try to play politics with the actions of tyrants. Would Hitler be considered a "liberal" or a "conservative"? Why in the hell does it matter in relation to their actions? Why should we feel compelled to try and make these figures (who exist in different times and different countries) fit into our own political landscape? It's silly.

Even if we try, whatever principles these people had were eventually abandoned for the love of power and they became corrupted.

On that note, liberals in America don't celebrate Bastille Day because we aren't French. That much should be self evident.

I'm almost positive that PC will claim that Hitler was a liberal. FWIW

"Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while."

1. Fascism, communism, national socialism, progressivism, liberalism all are fruit of the same poison tree, one that grows based on ideas of the collective over the individual, and government power over the Constitution. They worship a charasmatic leader over the concept of checks and balances. They strive for utopia on earth.


Schivelbusch, “Three New Deals,” chapter 1:
2. In 1933, Fascism was celebrating its eleventh year in power, in Italy, and the election of the National Socialists in Germany represented an unmitigated defeat for liberal democracy in Europe’s largest industrialized nation.

a. At the beginning of the same month, FDR was inaugurated as President. And before Congress went into recess it granted powers to Roosevelt unprecedented in peacetime. From Congressional hearings, 1973: “Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency.” Emergency Powers Statutes (Senate Report 93-549)

3. The National Socialists hailed these ‘relief measures’ in ways you will recognize:

a. May 11, 1933, the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter, (People’s Observer): “Roosevelt’s Dictatorial Recovery Measures.”

b. And on January 17, 1934, “We, too, as German National Socialists are looking toward America…” and “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” comparable to Hitler’s own dictatorial ‘Fuhrerprinzip.’

c. And “[Roosevelt], too demands that collective good be put before individual self-interest. Many passages in his book ‘Looking Forward’ could have been written by a National Socialist….one can assume that he feels considerable affinity with the National Socialist philosophy.”

So....I guess you hit the nail on the head!

 

[Polk]

When a new member complained that some thought he was a liberal, one of our members proudly proclaimed: “Welcome from a real liberal.”

The beauty of USMB is how proudly most of the folks here speak right up for their beliefs!

1. So, kudos to our liberals friends, and have a wonderful July 14th, Bastille Day, the day that memorializes the French Revolution, and, since liberals/ progressives are heir to the French Revolution, have a great celebration!

2. Yes, just as an argument can be made that classical liberals, or what would be called conservatives today, are heir to the American Revolution, liberals can trace their provenance to Rousseau, and St. Just!

3. For Rousseau, the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” proclaimed that the ‘general will’ of the people had to be correct, because it was the ‘general will,” the true interest of what everyone wants whether they realize it or not, and he ‘determined’ the ‘general will,’ so, anyone who deviated from same deserved no rights!

a. Although he had written a ‘constitution,’ it became malleable for Robespierre: “How did Robespierre actually interpret these principles? He said: “[W]e must exterminate all our enemies with the law in our hands”; “the Declaration of Rights offers no safeguard to conspirators”; “the suspicions of enlightened patriotism might offer a better guide than formal rules of evidence.” http://www.nationalaffairs.com/docl...hvsthefrenchenlightmentgertrudehimmelfarb.pdf,

Notice the echo in the actions of the early Progressives who suggested that the US Constitution may be shed, ‘like a garment.’ Their views surpassed those of the Founders. http://www.nationalaffairs.com/docl...hvsthefrenchenlightmentgertrudehimmelfarb.pdf

Could there be a better description of the collectivist totalitarian statist?

4. Of course, a minor difference that the astute might notice is that America’s documents did win freedom and individual rights, and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen led to bestial savagery, followed by Napoleon’s dictatorship, followed by another monarchy, and finally something resembling an actual republic some 80 years later.

5. And just one more difference between the two revolution, mirroring the difference between liberals and conservatives? With the Jacobins in control, the “de-Christianization” campaign kicked into high gear. Inspired by Rousseau’s idea of the 'religion civile', the revolution sought to completely destroy Christianity and replace it with a religion of the state. To honor “reason” and fulfill the promise of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen that “no one may be questioned about his opinions, including his religious views,” Catholic priests were forced to stand before the revolutionary clubs and take oaths to France’s new humanocentric religion, the Cult of Reason (which is French for ‘People for the American Way’).Revolutionaries smashed church art and statues.

a. The reason our revolution was so different from the violent, homicidal chaos of the French version was the dominant American culture was Anglo-Saxon and Christian. “52 of the 56 signers of the declaration and 50 to 52 of the 55 signers of the Constitution were orthodox Trinitarian Christians.” David Limbaugh Believers in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or, as they would be known today, “an extremist Fundementalist hate group.”
(From Coulter’s best seller, “Demonic .”)

So, to those of the Liberal persuasion, party like it’s 1789!

…But remember, the party will be over in November, 2012.

Talk about a weird argument.

1. If anything, the French Revolution is part of the Jeffersonian tradition, which is the heart of the modern right in America.

2. The Robespeirre quotes could have come straight from the mouths of modern right-wing politicians.

3. You act as if some great liberal impulse inspired French anti-clericalism. The difference between the American and French revolutions as it pertains to religion is that the church in France was wedded to the state against the interest of the citizenry. One theme you'll notice in the West today is that the countries with the highest rates of religiosity are generally those where the religious establishment was not an active opponent of democratization.

4. That stat about the number of "orthodox Trinitarian Christians" among the signers of the Constitution is utter rubbish.

 

[Polk]

How did France turn out in the next two hundred years? The US had to save their quiche eating asses twice in the 20th century. Half the country wanted to be Nazis during WW2. Now they riot in the streets for three months paid (by the taxpayers) vacation every year.

And there wouldn't have been a United States without French aid during the Revolution, so where are we going with this?

 

[ginscpy]

Gives The Surrender Monkeys something to celebrate.