Thursday, July 18, 2019

A reminder from the distant past

 Once upon a time there lived in Sardinia a royalist named Joseph-Marie de Maistre.
.. After the French Revolution, he strongly advocated for a "social hierarchy" and "monarchy" as the best form of government.
.. In 1811, as ambassador to Russia, he opined that:
Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.
.. This quote is often mistakenly attributed to Abraham Lincoln or Alexis de Tocqueville. It has a couple of renditions in translation to English:
>> "Every country has the government it deserves" 
>>  "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." 
.. He was, of course, speaking sarcastically about the chaos that was erupting in Russia at that time.
.. The attitude expressed has, however presciently, become wonderfully predictive as our country moves through a contemporary nexus of political miasma.
.. Another observation from Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre:
 Les fausses opinions ressemblent à la fausse monnaie qui est frappée d'abord par de grands coupables et dépensée ensuite par d'honnêtes gens qui perpétuent le crime sans savoir ce qu'ils font.
.. This is also significant for our times and is translated as: 
>> False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.

We have now the leader and his administration that we deserve. We, 59 million of us, voted him into office. 

9 comments:

  1. No idea why, but when I copied and pasted the quote in french, it changed the font size of some of the post.

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  2. "On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron." H.L. Mencken (1920)

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  3. You hooked me on Fly fishing in Yellowstone long time ago. Worth the read every time, though I don't look too closely at every gourmet delight on offer.

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  4. He is the poster boy for the worst of the American experience and the most selfish of human behavior.

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  5. And I fear that we will continue to get what we deserve in 2020.

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  6. I love that last one, given our con-artist-in-chief.

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  7. I love that last quote. It's too appropriate. :(

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