Category Archives: Europe

Update II: The French Revolution Revived

Conservatism, Debt, Economy, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Founding Fathers, Inflation, Liberty, Political Philosophy

“Everything human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit,” is how the Brilliant Edmund Burke, supporter of the American colonists, described the illiberal, irreligious, intolerant French Revolution. In return, the punk Thomas Paine spat worthless venom at Burke for his devastating critique of that blood-drenched Revolution. Like contemporary Americans, Paine’s fealty was to the Jacobins, who, for his troubles, almost had him guillotined. The Rights of Man, in particular, is intended as a refutation of Edmund Burke’s critique. Naturally, it does nothing of the sort.

There is no affinity between the French and American founding ideas. And Paine’s proto-socialism—he advocated welfare financed by taxes—is quintessentially unAmerican. Yet Paine is beloved of Americans; of Burke I seldom hear. I intend to change that here on BAB.

Let me begin with an excerpt from Reflections on the Revolution in France, where Burke speaks about the proliferation of fiat money (“fictitious representation”). He does so a great deal in this magnificent tract. Burke hammering on about “current circulating credit,” “defiance of economical principles,” and “bankruptcy” could not be more germane in fin de siècle America:

“At present the state of their treasury sinks every day more and more in cash, and swells more and more in fictitious representation. When so little within or without is now found but paper, the representative not of opulence but of want, the creature not of credit but of power, they imagine that our flourishing state in England is owing to that bank-paper, and not the bank-paper to the flourishing condition of our commerce, to the solidity of our credit, and to the total exclusion of all idea of power from any part of the transaction. They forget that, in England, not one shilling of paper money of any description is received but of choice; that the whole has had its origin in cash actually deposited; and that it is convertible at pleasure, in an instant and without the smallest loss, into cash again. Our paper is of value in commerce, because in law it is of none. It is powerful on ‘Change, because in Westminster Hall it is impotent. In payment of a debt of twenty shillings, a creditor may refuse all the paper of the Bank of England. Nor is there amongst us a single public security, of any quality or nature whatsoever, that is enforced by authority. In fact, it might be easily shown that our paper wealth, instead of lessening the real coin, has a tendency to increase it; instead of being a substitute for money, it only facilitates its entry, its exit, and its circulation; that it is the symbol of prosperity, and not the badge of distress. Never was a scarcity of cash and an exuberance of paper a subject of complaint in this nation.”

[SNIP]

Readers: search the online volume, posted on Bartleby.com, and post comments excerpting your favorite tracts.

Update I (August 26): Prof. Dennis O’keeffe is the author of Burke, due out in October of this year.

Update II: Russell Kirk on Burke:

“Written at white heat, the “Reflections” burns with all the wrath and anguish of a prophet who saw the traditions of Christendom and the fabric of civil society dissolving before his eyes. Yet his words are suffused with a keenness of observation, the mark of a practical statesman. This book is polemic at its most magnificent, and one of the most influential political treatises in the history of the world.” (The Essential Russel Kirk, 2007, p. 144)

Brussels Unbans Ugly Fruit & Veg

EU, Europe, Free Markets, Regulation

If from the title of this post you’ve deduced that the newly christened European Onion (EU) had been regulating produce—then you are perfectly correct. “Curly cucumbers, crooked carrots and mottled mushrooms – odd-looking fruit and vegetables” had been barred from Europe’s markets and supermarkets by the Brussel sprouts that run that Continent.

BBC News: “July 1 marks the return to our shelves of the curved cucumber and the knobbly carrot,” said Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

“We don’t need to regulate this sort of thing at EU level. It is far better to leave it to market operators,” said the Patron Saint of the “wonky” vegetables.

Monarchy Vs. Mobocracy

Democracy, Europe, History, Liberty, Political Philosophy

This anecdote from Pat Buchanan’s latest, historically rich column gives meaning to Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s thesis that if one has to choose between the mob (democracy) or the monarchy, the latter is far preferable and benevolent:

“Louis XVI let the mob lead him away from Versailles, which he never saw again. When artillery captain Bonaparte asked one of the late king’s ministers why Louis had not used his cannons, the minister is said to have replied, ‘The king of France does not use artillery on his own people.'”

“To which Napoleon is said to have replied, ‘What an idiot.'”

‘Foxy Knoxy’: Another Toxic Export

America, Celebrity, Crime, Europe, Media

Ann Coulter is right about very many things; it’s a shame she rarely writes about the things she’s right about. This week, she has—and with a vengeance—in an excellent column exposing the crime that is America’s news coverage of the case of creepy, corrupted “Foxy Knoxy” (Amanda Knox), an American college student, aged 21, from Seattle, Washington, who is on trial for murder in Perugia, Italy.

With O.J.-type evidence in support of their case, Italian law enforcement agencies are alleging Knox murdered and sexually assaulted one of her roommates, British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

I’ve watched the case unfold and have had similar thoughts as those Ann Coulter expresses in “NYT: DUKE LACROSSE PLAYERS KILLED MEREDITH KERCHER:

“The evidence includes:

— a large kitchen knife, believed by forensic investigators to have caused at least one of Kercher’s three wounds, found at Sollecito’s house. Despite having been thoroughly washed, the knife had Knox’s DNA on the handle and the murder victim’s DNA on the blade.

— a bloody footprint at the crime scene that matches Sollecito’s. The floor had been cleaned so that the footprint was invisible to the naked eye, but was revealed with Luminol (just like on “CSI”).

— Knox’s bloody footprints, mixed with Kercher’s blood, were found in another roommate’s room, where a window had been broken to make it look like there had been a break-in — a theory discounted immediately by investigators. Knox’s footprints, too, had been scrubbed but were discovered with Luminol.

— Kercher’s bloody bra strap at the crime scene that had abundant amounts of Sollecito’s DNA on it.” Read on.

[SNIP]

The case is instructive in what it says of a deep-seated pathology infecting American society, where reality takes a backseat to some self-serving parallel universe. You see it again and again … Something else that’s worth noting and is not forthcoming from the American media, paragons of pity that they are: Meredith Kercher, whose throat was cut with a pen knife during the sexual assault, died an agonizingly slow death.