I don't understand why Mitt Romney, who in August claimed that the Obama administration resembles the government of King George III during the Revolutionary War, and now likens the president to Marie Antoinette, is trying so hard to get me (and the rest of the vast American monarchist population) to support Obama. (Not a chance, especially given Obama's apparent tilt towards Argentina against Britain regarding the Falklands, though I'm not aware that any of his Republican opponents have taken a different position, but that's another issue.)
Unfortunately this is only the latest example of an irritating pattern according to which American Republicans--knowing nothing of history outside U.S. borders and little of that within, clueless about real conservatism, and uncritical of the Jacobin interpretation of European history--think it clever to equate their Democratic opponents with allegedly "extravagant" and "tyrannical" European royalty, confident that no one will challenge the premises of their ludicrous analogies. (I am not aware of any specific recent examples of Democrats doing the same sort of thing to Republicans, but they probably exist.) The real Marie Antoinette, of course, was a great benefactress of the poor and certainly never said "let them eat cake."
Isn't it supposed to be the Left who unfairly malign royalty and Christian civilization? But of course most American "conservatives," especially since the ascent of the Trotskyite neocons with the second Bush administration, actually are a kind of "leftist;" arguably America's left-liberals and right-liberals quarrel so strenuously partly because they don't realize how similar they really are. The only Republican presidential candidate who articulates anything resembling authentic historic conservatism even by American standards is Ron Paul. Otherwise, American Republican "conservatism" continually reaches new lows of embarrassing ignorance and should be shunned by all thinking right-wingers.
4 comments:
Unfortunately, no one who gets any big attention will call them out on it. So, alas, sir, they will get away with it.
Excellent post. Anyone that ignorant of history will NEVER get my vote!
Luckily, I don't get to vote for a head of state.
On the bright side, Theodore, it all can't last that much longer. Deck chairs on the Titanic and all that.
I ignore the fact that my neighbors and politicians luxuriate in Whiggery. I have less indigestion this way. :)
It's all coming to a predictable end, and, I think, sooner than many would expect.
Kyrie eleison!
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