Quote from: PereJoseph

Oh, please. The King and aristocracy employed and protected the lower classes and built France.

1% of the population controlled nearly half the land.

What's wrong with that ?

And guess which class it was that was taxed the highest? I'll give a hint: It wasn't the first estate. And it wasn't the second either.

I don't have to guess that the Third Estate was taxed the highest since I know very well that they were -- as well they should be insofar as the Church and the nobility are vital constituents of the rule of the Kingdom.  Wealthy manufacturers -- especially of luxury items, -- those who engage in commerce, urbanites, and labourers rightly have a modest amount of tribute exacted from them in order to maintain their protectors, in honour of those who are their patrons and the enforcers of justice and lawful authority, or as a fee in reparation for the potential damage their accuмulation of wealth inflicts upon the common good (this is especially pertinent to merchants, who especially are the solvents of human association).  Tax the bourgeoisie and take modest tribute from the subject class/common people.  Sounds just and reasonable to me.  This way agrarian stability and local production are fostered while consumers and the possession of much money is discouraged.

Who said it was?

Your tribalistic hatred of the august House of Bourbon and use of class warfare rhetoric gives the impression that you sympathise with the French Revolution and encourage others to feel likewise.

Which France has not had for...how many centuries now?

Well, Henri V and Charles X (assuming the line of the Louis XVII failed, which is doubtful) were known for their piety and their strict observance of principle, so that would mean 142 years.  Louis XIII was known for his piety, and Louis XIV, after his conversion of heart later in life, also became quite pious before death (Our Lord said that Louis XIV "would repent" to Ste. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, from which we can conclude that he was saved).  Louis XVI had a conversion of heart away from his former weakness at the end as well and was, in fact, awarded with holy martyrdom.  Even Louis XV did penance on his death bed.  Why Our Lord seems more indulgent towards the Eldest Sons of His Church is unclear, but in any case it seems to me that He is.

In any case, the Kings of the ancien régime were not exactly letting Protestants run around freely.  Louis XVI was not enforcing the registered laws with the savour for justice that his duty of state required, but even he had Protestants jailed and executed for public heresy only a few months prior to the Revolution's outbreak.

I'm none of those things, but leave it to a Bourbonite to think so.

You are apparently a racial nationalist in the liberal sense, thus my calling you a liberal revolutionary.

By the way, it was the Bourbons themselves who were the poster boys of decadence in France, yet you imagine that the Bourbons are the ones who would have freed France from it?

You are talking about Catholic Kings anointed with oil from Heaven and wielding lawfully constituted sovereign authority, not profane republican presidents and ministers enforcing a peace by the sword and their own strength.  Show some respect.  As for your supposed argument, if the problem is that the Kings are not living up to their office, who but they could live up to their office for them ?  Of course the legitimate Kings of France are the ones who would free France from decadence (of which they were not the "poster boys"), with the help of God's ministers and the Holy Ghost.

You mean those same Bourbons who fought the Church in the Wars of Religion and sided with the Protestants against the papacy?

I mean the same Bourbons who fought against those Austrians who hypocritically wrapped their endless dynastic expansion campaign up in the banner of the Church while the Spanish Habsburgs were sending weapons and funds to the Huguenots -- the same Bourbons who saw the Habsburgs as appealing to religion to crush their rivals in order to erect an autocracy in Europe, the Pope being nothing but the family chaplain to stamp their decrees.

Those Bourbons?

No, the Bourbons who tried to stop the Austrians after they had pacified Bohemia by drawing their troops into a diversionary battle against Gustavus Adolphus so that they could negotiate the election of the Elector of Bavaria.  This was done with the aim of stopping Habsburg personal dynastic pretensions and an Austrian autocracy for the defense of Christendom and the peace of Europe and the purity of the Faith.  And that was furthermore necessary for the explicit purpose of uniting Christendom in a final battle against the Turks for the recovery of the Holy Places so that missionaries could be sent throughout Africa and Asia to peacefully convert the whole world to Christ (as per the designs of Père Joseph, whose understanding was framed by his personal witness of the Germans engaging in coercive conversions during his many travels).

The ones who wage war against Catholic countries and sided with anti-Christs just to maintain and expand their own political power?

The Austrians warred against Catholic countries and collaborated with Protestants to bring the French monarchy down, simply to maintain and expand their own political power.  The French monarchy, by contrast, has always explicitly understood itself as having a unique divine mission to spread the Faith and protect the Church, ever since the days when Clovis was charged with this task by St. Remi at the baptismal font of Reims.

Those great Bourbon defenders of the Church and Catholic culture?

Their Most Christian Majesties, the only sovereigns on earth blessed with oil from Heaven.

You should have stuck with Laval.

He was okay, in a way, but he was also part-liberal and believed in the Revolution's concept of the French nation.  I need to read more about him, but obviously he could not wield legitimate power in the Kingdom of France.

He was greater than any degenerate Bourbon and closer to a Catholic king than those who came before and after him.

Absolute nonsense.  I wish you would divulge why you hate the Bourbons and the French so much.  What did we and our Kings ever do to you ?

Yet your friends in the Resistance chose the Jew-loving De Gaulle and then restored the Republic.

I have no friends in the Resistance, though I am at least happy that they ended German occupation.  Obviously the French State of Maréchal Pétain was preferable to any of the Republics or Bonapartist Empires or Constitutional "monarchies" that have established their illegitimate juntas and so forth in France.

Silly monarchists.

So you admit that you are not a monarchist ?

What reason do you have for guessing so ?

Well did you not just say I am a socialist revolutionary, have class warfare on my mind, etc. I am against free trade, large corporations, and and for a living wage. How does that equal a socialist revolutionary in your mind?

That's not really satisfactory, actually; it's like saying you "don't like" sodomy and murder.

What else can I say other than both are bad, evil, etc.?

"So you admit you are not a monarchist?"

Well to borrow from your favorite author Joseph de Maistre he said that no one form of government can be applied to every nation.

Yes, but why would you conclude that that means I am a capitalist ?  You seem to rely on provably unjustified and inaccurate assumptions for a lot of the information about your opponents' beliefs that you use in discussions.  Surely you can see why that's problematic, right ?

Now you are making wild accusations, since not at one time did I call you a capitalist.

It doesn't.  Your blatant use of class warfare rhetoric gives the impression that you are a socialist, though, specifically when you talk about "elitists" and "upper-class prejudice" and criticise private schools in opposition to public schools and say that everybody should be educated by the government, etc.

I think you demonstrate your inability to keep track of an argument pretty well here.  You only recently brought up your three policy positions and I did not in any way address them when I said that you were apparently a socialist revolutionary.  It makes no sense why you would then conclude that those positions of yours are what motivated me to say what I did.  It's actually completely illogical.

Oh I'm sorry I guess when I talk about elitism that makes me a socialist now. And yes there is definitely a lot of prejudice amongst the rich and the intellectuals, one doesn't need to be a socialist to understand that, but live in the real world. In regards to your other arguments I do not "worship" sports, I just realize that sports are important for a healthy body. Usually it is the libertarian ideologue who moans about being "educated by the government" but nevertheless I support parental choice but I also realize that those who do not go to public schools are elitist.

Quote from: PereJoseph

Yes, but why would you conclude that that means I am a capitalist ?  You seem to rely on provably unjustified and inaccurate assumptions for a lot of the information about your opponents' beliefs that you use in discussions.  Surely you can see why that's problematic, right ?

Now you are making wild accusations, since not at one time did I call you a capitalist.

Sigh.  Nevermind.  It's not that important.

Oh I'm sorry I guess when I talk about elitism that makes me a socialist now.

Given what else you've said, yes, it makes you sound like a socialist.

And yes there is definitely a lot of prejudice amongst the rich and the intellectuals, one doesn't need to be a socialist to understand that, but live in the real world.

I never claimed there wasn't prejudice amongst the rich and amongst the educated or academics or etc., but when somebody starts complaining about the "upper class" in general (of which nobody who is not nobility or an extremely wealthy old money family can really claim to belong), it sounds like antagonism to "upper classes" in general.  It is important to be specific about what one means.

Usually it is the libertarian ideologue who moans about being "educated by the government" but nevertheless I support parental choice but I also realize that those who do not go to public schools are elitist.

"Those who do not go to public schools are elitist."  Care to go into more detail ?  Do you mean everybody who doesn't go to public schools or what ?  And when you say elitist in this instance, how do you mean ?  Do you mean that those who don't go to public schools look down on the educations of those who do ?  If so, I wonder if you consider home-schoolers "elitist" because they eschew the brainwashing and poor quality educations at schools run by the government of left-wing nation-states.

I don't think you understand what PED meant by calling the comte de Maistre a troubled soul.  I disagree with that assessment, but in any case what you are talking about doesn't seem to be what PED is talking about.

Forgive me, PereJoseph, and other readers, I try to be efficient and often fail miserably by miscommunication.
You are correct in your assessment of my intent, I should have clarified my statement to pertain to his end days, and those who say he was pained by possible philosophical infection of revolutionary ideas, perhaps Burke's influence?   In this I may have made unfair summary judgement of the man (i.e, "not one of my favorites").  To be just, most of his body of work is inspiring and he was a rock regarding proper authority.

A friend emailed this to me (he says the source is Wikipedia):

What was novel in Maistre's writings was not his enthusiastic defense of monarchical and religious authority per se, but rather his arguments concerning the practical need for ultimate authority to lie with an individual capable of decisive action, as well as his analysis of the social foundations of that authority's legitimacy. In his own words, which he addressed to a group of aristocratic French émigrés, "you ought to know how to be royalists. Before, this was an instinct, but today it is a science. You must love the sovereign as you love order, with all the forces of intelligence."

Thank you.

I'm sure you will clarify this better.  It can be misinterpreted.

Well make no mistake there are plenty of things wrong with public schools like "sɛҳuąƖ education," lack of religious instruction, lack of national pride, lack of intellectual pursuits, etc.

There is no parental choice of public schools for Catholic parents.

Well I guess my folks were bad guardians then. :rolleyes: You do know that even in Catholic schools it has been forgotten that the student should be Catholic first, and whether the child is a scientist or genius is secondary.