Patriots and Gentlemen

     "I respect virtue in all its situations;  even when it is found in the unsuitable company of weakness.  I lament to see qualities, rare and valuable, squandered away without any public utility.  But when a gentleman with great visible emoluments abandons the party in which he has long acted, and tells you, it is because he proceeds upon his own judgement;  that he acts on the merits of the several measures as they arise;  and that he is obliged to follow his own conscience, and not that of others;  he gives reasons which it is impossible to controvert, and discovers a character which it is impossible to mistake.  What shall we think of him who never differed from a certain set of men until the moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards?  Would not such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate?  Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice, that a man's connexions should degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power, or he accepts a place? . . .In the mean time we are born only to be men.  We shall do enough if we form ourselves to be good ones.  It is therefore our business carefully to cultivate in our minds, to rear to the most perfect vigour and maturity, every sort of generous and honest feeling that belongs to our nature.  To bring the dispostions that are lovely in private life into the service and conduct of the commonwealth;  so to be patriots, as not to forget we are gentlemen."  Edmund Burke Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (pgs. 87-88,89)

Undermined Legislatures

       "It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting a degree of purity impracticable in degenerate times and manners, instead of cutting off the subsisting ill practices, new corruptions might be produced for the concealment and security of the old.  It were better, undoubtedly, that no influence at all could affect the mind of a Member of Parliament.  But of all modes of influence, in my opinion, a place under the Government is the least disgraceful to the man who holds it, and by far the most safe to the country.  I would not shut out that sort of influence which is open and visible, which is connected with the dignity and the service of the State, when it is not in my power to prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery, and those innumerable methods of clandestine corruption, which are abundantly in the hands of the Court, and which will be applied as long as these means of corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have existence amongst us. . . .An exterior Administration, chosen for its impotency, or after it is chosen purposely rendered impotent, in order to be rendered subservient, will not be obeyed.  The laws themselves will not be respected, when those who execute them are despised:  and they will be despised, when their power is not immediate from the Crown, or natural in the kingdom.  Never were Ministers better supported in Parliament.  Parliamentary support comes and goes with office, totally regardless of the man, or the merit.  Is Government strengthened?  It grows weaker and weaker.  The popular torrent gains upon it every hour.  Let us learn from our experience.  It is not support that is wanting to Government, but reformation.  When Ministry rests upon public opinion, it is not indeed built upon a rock of adamant;  it has, however, some stability.  But when it stands upon private humour, its structure is of stubble, and its foundation is on quicksand. . . .The system of Administration is open to continual shocks and changes, upon the principles of the meanest cabal, and the most contemptible intrigue.  Nothing can be solid and permanent.  All good men at length fly with the spirit which ought to animate such men in a free state, while they decline the jurisdiction of dark cabal on their actions and their fortunes, will, for both, chearfully put themselves upon their country.  They will trust an inquisitive and distinguishing Parliament;  because it does enquire, and does distinguish.  If they act well, they know that, in such a Parliament, they will be supported against any intrigue;  if they act ill, they know that no intrigue can protect them.  This situation, however aweful, is honourable.  But in one hour, and in the self-same Assembly, without any assigned or assignable cause, to be precipitated from the highest authority to the most marked neglect, possibly into the greatest peril of life and reputation, is a situation full of danger, and destitute of honour.  It will be shunned equally by every man of prudence, and every man of spirit."--Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, (p77,78.)

Abuses of the Court Party

       "The very desire of that body to have such a trust contrary to law reposed in them, shews that they are not worthy of it.  They certainly will abuse it;  because all men possessed of an uncontrouled discretionary power leading to the aggrandisement and profit of their own body have always abused it:  and I see no particular sanctity in our times, that is at all likely, by a miraculous operation, to overrule the course of nature. . . .Whoever has taken a careful view of public proceedings, so as to endeavour to ground his speculations on his experience, must have observed how prodigiously greater the power of the Ministry is in the first and last session of a Parliament, than it is in the intermediary periods, when Members sit a little firm on their seats. . . .It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated;  lest, by attempting a degree of purity impracticable in degenerate times and manners, instead of cutting off the subsisting ill practices, new corruptions might be produced for the concealment and security of the old.  It were better, undoubtedly, that no influence at all could affect the mind of a Member of Parliament.  But of all modes of influence, in my opinion, a place under the Government is the least disgraceful to the man who holds it, and by far the most safe to the country.  I would not shut out that sort of influence which is open and visible, which is connected with the dignity and the service of the State, when it is not in my power to prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery, and those innumerable methods of clandestine corruption, which are abundantly in the hands of the Court, and which will be applied as long as these means of corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have existence amongst us."  Edmund Burke Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, pgs. 66, 75, 77.

Champion of the Discontented

       "But an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation;  an House of Commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in despair;  in the utmost harmony with Ministers, whom the people regard with the utmost abhorrence;  who vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for impeachments;  who are eager to grant, when the general voice demands account;  who, in all disputes between the people and Administration, presume against the people;  who punish their disorders, but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to them;  this is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things in this constitution. . . .I will not believe, what no other man living believes, that Mr. Wilkes was punished for the indecency of his publications, or the impiety of his ransacked closet.  If he had fallen in a common slaughter of libellers and blasphemers, I could well believe that nothing more was meant than was pretended.  But when I see, that, for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been punished, nor their authors discountenanced;  that the most audacious libels on Royal Majesty have passed without notice;  that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country, have not met with the slightest animadversion;  I must consider this as a shocking and shameless pretence.  Never did an envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and private, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and unbridled licence.  All this while the peace of the nation must be shaken, to ruin one libeller, and to tear from the populace a single favourite."  Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, pgs. 53, 59-60

Fear and Stasis, Part Two

      There are several points of comparison between the pissed off British electorate of 1770 that inspired Edmund Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents and the segment of the American public who find Citizen Kane attractive.  The British rogue John Wilkes was the Donald Trump of his day.  His damning sin was bucking the Earl of Bute, but what he was denied Parliament for was his insult to George III in North Briton #45.  The first time Wilkes was denied his seat, the Middlesex electors were at least allowed to elect a replacement.  The second time, the ministry named a Colonel Luttrell to fill Wilkes' spot.
       The grievances of the British in 1770 were the weak legislature caused by an intrusive executive power (namely, Lord Bute and the Court faction), the fact that competent leaders were unwilling to enter office because of the undermining of ministries (as happened with Pitt the elder and Lord Rockingham), and a public feeling that the executive was overwhelming the legislature.
       The grievances of the Trump faction today are similar.  They include a pushover Congress that does everything the President asks, Congressional leaders who are scapegoats for executive programs, and a public uninterested in empowering Congress.
        The problem with the backers of Citizen Kane is that they want to deal with an emasculated Congress, not by restoring the proper functions of Congress (e.g. by returning to actual budgets, rather than continuing resolutions;  an end to finances being designed in the White House), but by replacing one autocratic President with another autocratic President.   Two years ago, Estase was lamenting the nomination of Sci-Fi Bruce Rauner for Illinois governor.  Estase felt that Rauner's position on abortion was unacceptable, and that Rauner basically wanted to enter public life as a rich man's hobby.  Citizen Kane is forty times worse than Bruce Rauner.  Virtually no position Trump takes is based on facts, reflection or experience.  Limited government and constitutionalism are meaningless to him.  All Trump promises to be is a different type of autocrat.  His ego is so out of proportion to what he is that it is not saying too much to call him a meglomaniac.   His history as a liberal is too well-established for any person to take him as anything other than a Democratic plant.   He refuses to rule out a third-party candidacy, yet another sign that his intention is not to defeat Hillary Clinton, but to split the vote to ensure her election.  Why Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh defend Trump defies logic.  It probably will damage the Republican brand forever if a xenophobic authoritarian enters office as a Republican.  So, unlike the British in 1770, there exists today in America discontent, but a strange, incoherent discontent that aims to remedy a disorder by the same disorder.

The Discipline of Confusion

     "A sullen gloom, and furious disorder, prevail by fits:  the nation loses its relish for peace and prosperity, as it did in that season of fullness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the First.  A species of men to whom a state of order would become a sentence of obscurity, are nourished into a dangerous magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances;  and it is no wonder that, by a sort of sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disorders which are the parents of all their consequence.  Superficial observers consider such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing more than the effect of it. . . .One mob is hired to destroy another;  a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and justly increases their discontent.  Men become pensioners of state on account of their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion."  Edmund Burke Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents p.45

The Yin and Yang of the Elegant Eighteenth

         The two threads that wrap through the thought of the eighteenth century are enlightenment, as represented by such luminaries as Isaac Newton and John Locke, and Romanticism, represented in the thought of Sir Walter Scott and Oliver Goldsmith.
           Enlightenment thinkers emphasized reason.  They also tended to be egalitarian, though the egalitarianism of a John Locke had definite limits, and never intended towards the empowerment of the uneducated or poor.  The Romanticism of a Sir Walter Scott or a Goldsmith emphasized the importance of heroic people.  Scott and Goldsmith also recognized the nobility as the conservers of the state and its traditions.  
           Enlightenment called for a broadening of political representation.  The common man's voice was now heard as never before, reinforced by the popular culture of Daniel Defoe, which honored the tradesman and shopkeeper.   At the same time, Romanticism curbed the desire to reconstitute society entirely.  Never could England forget her monarchy and nobles.
             Some thinkers represented a synthesis of Enlightenment and Romanticism.  Edmund Burke offered a modified Lockean doctrine.  Burke respected tradition while extolling Parliament's role as voice of the nation.   Thomas Jefferson also took Enlightenment ideas, softening their potentially corrosive potential towards established authority.

A Pro-Life Whig Manifesto

       The Republican Party, as represented as such characters such as Sci-Fi Bruce Rauner, seems to be becoming transmogrified into a group of amoral Ayn Randians.  Unwilling to address any social issue as being the road to ruin, the only thing the Randians care about is "smaller government."  Not honest government, not parlimentary democracy, not a civil society, just "smaller" government.  The only thing this new brand of libertarian Republicans care about is money.  This is mine.  Don't touch it.  Get a job.
         One sign that the Randians are taking over is the obsession with disability (SSI) recipients.  While there has been a swelling of SSI recipients in the last few years, it has become an article of faith with the Randians that nobody legitimately receives disability.  Even if you are a quadraplegic, you are a leach on society if you recieve SSI.  To use Paul Ryan's unlovely phrase, such people are takers who steal from makers.  This Manichean duality of people who are unworthy and people who are worthy is a staple of talk radio, which is really odd, because when George W. Bush was president, recieving SSI was not the mark of a parasite.  Maybe this is one reason why talk radio is dying, the recreational activity of choice for people who think they are excellent human beings because they make a lot of money.
           Don't get me wrong.  I'm not endorsing the nihilistic left.  I'm just pointing out how nihilistic the Randians are.  Pro-aborts who think everyone who recieves social benefits are scum have as little moral compass as modern liberals.  Unfortunately, the Primrose League, or establishment Republicans, are just this sort of person.
           It would be Estase's position that being pro-life goes hand in hand with a realization that some persons will need social benefits.  When a family has the integrity and honor to bring a child with Down's Syndrome into the world, this human person should not anticipate a life of homelessness and squalor.  A Down's patient is a valuable person, not just a taker.  Does the Republican party want a T-4 program to eliminate everyone who might not make a lot of money?  Is the highest value of Republicanism stinginess?  The Irishman these people need to keep in mind is Edmund Burke, not Ronald Reagan.  The talk radio community pretends to exemplify conservative thought, but they actually are ignoring one of Burke's most important principles:  stinginess has longer-range costs that are not forseeable in the present.  Another Burkean principle ignored by the Randians is that for men to love their country, their country should be lovely.  A lovely country does not kill its weak and poor.  A lovely country does not call the poor "takers."

Retaliation (1774)

Of old, when Scarron his companions invited,
Each guest brought his dish, and the feast was united;
If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish,
Let guest bring himself, and he brings the best dish:
Our Dean {Barnard} shall be venison, just fresh from the plains;
Our {Edmund} Burke shall be tongue with the garnish of brains;
Our Will {iam Burke} shall be wild fowl, of excellent flavour,
And Dick {Richard Burke} with his pepper shall heighten the savour;
Our {Richard} Cumberland's sweet-bread its place shall obtain,
And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain;
Our {David} Garrick's a salad, for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree;
To make out the dinner, full certain I am,
That {John} Ridge is anchovy, and {Sir Joshua} Reynolds is lamb,
That Hickey's a capon, and, by the same rule,
Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool.
At a dinner so various, at such a repast,
Who'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last?
Here, waiter, more wine!  let me sit while I'm able,
Till all my companions sink under the table;
Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,
Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead.
Here lies the good Dean {Barnard}, re-united to earth,
Who mixed reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth:
If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt;
At least, in six weeks I could not find 'em out;
Yet some have declared, and it can't be denied 'em,
That sly-boots was cursedly cunning to hide 'em.
Here lies our good Edmund {Burke}, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote;
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining;
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit,
For a patriot too cool, for a drudge disobedient,
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.
Here lies honest William {Burke}, whose heart was a mint,
While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in't;
The pupil of impulse, it forced him along,
His conduct still right, with his argument wrong;
Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam,
The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home;
Would you ask for his merits?--alas! he had none:
What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.
Here lies honest Richard {Burke}, whose fate I must sigh at;
Alas, that such frolic should now be so quiet!
What spirits were his!  what wit and what whim!
Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb;
Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball,
Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all!
In short, so provoking a devil was Dick,
That we wished him full ten times a day at Old Nick;
But missing his mirth and agreeable vein,
As often we wished to have Dick back again.
Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
His gallants are all faultless, his women divine,
And comedy wonders at being so fine;
Like a tragedy-queen he has dizened her out,
Or rather like tragedy giving a rout.
His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd
Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud;
And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone,
Adopting his portraits, are pleased with their own.
Say, where has our poet this malady caught?
Or wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Say, was it that vainly directing his view
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few,
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last, and drew from himself?
Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax,
The scouge of imposters, the terror of quacks:
Come, all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines,
Come and dance on the spot where your tyrant reclines:
When satire and censure encircled his throne,
I feared for your safety, I feared for my own;
But now he is gone, and we want a detector,
Our {Dr.} Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture,
{James} Macpherson write bombast, and call it a style,
Our Townshend make speeches, and I shall compile;
New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over,
No countryman living their tricks to discover;
Detection her taper shall quench to a spark,
And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark
Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.
As an actor, confessed without rival to shine:
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,
And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turned and he varied full ten times a day:
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick:
He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came;
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who peppered the highest, was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind:
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
While he was be-Roscuised, and you were bepraised.
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
To act as an angel and mix with the skies:
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his {Hugh} Kellys above.
Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good nature;
He cherished his friend, and he relished a bumper;
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser:
I answer, No, no;  for he always was wiser.
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that.
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest?  Ah no!
Then what was his failing?  come tell it, and burn ye.
He was--could he help it?--a special attorney.
Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind.
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland:
Still born to improve us in every part,
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering:
When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing;
When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.
Here {Caleb} Whitefoord reclines, and, deny it who can,
Through he merrily lived, he is now a grave man.
Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun!
Who relished a joke, and rejoiced in a pun;
Whose temper was generous, open, sincere;
A stranger to flattery, a stranger to fear;
Who scattered around wit and humour at will;
Whose daily bon mots half a column might fill;
A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free;
A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he.
What pity, alas!  that so liberal a mind
Should so long be to newspaper essays confined!
Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar,
Yet content "if the table he set on a roar;"
Whose talents to fill any station were fit,
Yet happy if {H.S.} Woodfall confess'd him a wit.
Ye newspaper witlings!  ye pert scribbling folks!
Who copied his squibs, and re-echoed his jokes;
Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come,
Still follow your master, and visit his tomb:
To deck it, bring with you festoons of the vine,
And copious libations bestow on his shrine;
Then strew all around it (you can do no less)
Cross-roadings, ship-news, and mistakes of the press.
Merry Whitefoord, farewell!  for thy sake I admit
That a Scot may have humour,--I had almost said wit:
This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse,
"Thou best humoured man with the worst humoured Muse."
Oliver Goldsmith

A Character

  "A Bird, who mongst his other sins
    Had liv'd among the Jacobins,
    Tho' like a kitten amid Rats
    Or callow Tit in Nest of Bats
     He much abhorr'd all Democrats,
    Yet natheless stood in ill report
     Of wishing ill to Church and Court--
     Tho' he'd nor claw nor tooth nor sting--
      And learnt to pipe, God Save the King;
     Tho' each day did new feathers bring,
      All swore, he had but a leathern Wing--
     Nor polish'd wing nor feathered Tail
      Nor down-clad Thigh would aught avail--
      And tho' being tame, devoid of gall
      He civilly assur'd them all
      ' A Bird am I of Phoebus' Breed,
        And on the Sunflower cling and feed.
        My name, good Sirs! is Thomas Tit!'
      The Bats would have hail'd him Brother Cit,
      Or, at the farthest, Cousin German.
      At length the matter to determine
     He publicly disowned the vermin,
      He spared the Mouse, he praised the Owl
      But Bats were neither Flesh or Fowl.
      Blood-sucking Vampires, Harpy, Gouls,
      Came in full clatter from his throat,--
      Till his old Nest-mates chang'd their Note
      To Hireling, Traitor, and Turn-Coat--
      A base Apostate that had sold
      His very teeth and claws for Gold--
      And then his feathers!  smokes the jest.
      A tit indeed!  Aye, Tit for Tat
      With Places and Title, Brother Bat,
      We soon shall see how well he'll play
      Count Goldfinch or Sir Judas Jay!

      Alas poor Bird!  and ill-bestarr'd.
      Or rather let us say, poor Bard!
      And henceforth quit the Allegoric
       With Metaphor and Simile
      For simple facts and style historic--
      Alas, poor Bard!  no gold had he.
      Behind another's team he stept
      And plough'd and sowed, while others reapt;
      The work was his, but theirs the play.
      Sic vos non vobis,his whole story.
      Besides, whate'er he writ or said
      Came from his heart as well as head,
      And tho' he never left in lurch
      His King, his Country, or his Church,
      Twas but to humour his own cynical
      Contempt of doctrines Jacobinical,
      To his own Conscience only hearty
      Twas but by chance he served the party,
      The self-same things had said and writ
      Had Pitt been Fox and Fox been Pitt,
      Content his own applause to win
      Would never dash thro' thick and thin
      And he can make, so say the wise,
      No claim who makes no sacrifice--
      And bard still less;  what claim had he
      Who swore, it vex'd his soul to see
      So grand a Cause, so proud a realm
      With Goose and Goody at the Helm,
      Who long ago had fall'n asunder
      But for their Rival's baser blunders,
      The Coward Whine and Frenchified
      Slaver and Slang of th' other side--

      Thus, his own whim his only bribe,
      Our bard pursued his old A B C;
      Contented if he could subscribe
      In fullest sense his name, Estase
      (Tis Punic Greek, for He hath stood)
      --Whate'er the men, the cause was good--
      And therefore with a right good will
      Poor fool!  he fought their battles still.
      Tush!  squeaked the Bats;  --a mere bravado
      To whitewash that base renegado;
      Tis plain unless you're blind or mad,
      His conscience for the bays he barters;
      As true it is--as true as said--
      These circlets of green baize he had--
      But then, alas!  they were his garters!

      Ah silly Bard!  unfed, untended,
      His Lamp but glimmer'd in its socket:
      He liv'd, unhonour'd and unfriended
      With scarce a penny in his pocket:
      Nay, tho' he hid it from the Many,
      With scarce a pocket for his penny."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    

NIH Study:Rob Halford Member of TEA Party

I have wondered who kidnapped Edmund Burke, and who decided Rob Halford was a member of the TEA Party.  Edmund Burke, according to the Investigation Discovery show "Evil Twins," is a name associated with white supremacist groups.  The eighteenth century Whig was also labeled as a homosexual by the ridiculously Freudian Isaac Kramnick book "The Rage of Edmund Burke," whose smoking guns on the homosexuality claim were quotes such as the one from the impeachment of Warren Hastings about "pure defecated evil."  Speaking of weird Freudian theories, and with a petasus tip to Protein Wisdom, a National Institutes of Health study (yes, even though we're broke, we can still fund junk science) by W.W. Tilden entitled "The Psychohistorical Roots of the American 'Tea Party' Movement" makes the ridiculous claim that Tea Partiers like it in the ass.  To quote:

       Extreme resistance to governmental taxation and authority is derived, according to Freud's theory of anal characterology, from premature and harshly coercive toilet training, in which a child is forced unfairly and against its will to surrender the product of his eliminations (which represent money, among other things, in the unconscious) to parental authority.  Among these individuals anal eroticism plays a significant role in the psychogenesis of paranoia and conspiracy theorizing, which may represent a defense mechanism erected against repressed fears of passive submission.

Isaac Kramnick couldn't have said it better!  And what decade did Kramnick write his piece of weirdness in?  The 70s!  The same decade that gave us "Deliverance," "Midnight Cowboy," and "Dog Day Afternoon."  No, people in the seventies weren't obsessed with homosexuality or anything.

Burkean Rhetoric?

The following is the kind of prose Estase would almost associate with Edmund Burke, and how he wishes he wrote.  It is from Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout.  Nero Wolfe gave the kind of dialogue one would associate with Georgian Britain, where his investigator Archie Goodwin speaks like a film noir gumshoe.  It is this juxtaposition that makes the Nero Wolfe mysteries so much fun.

"At least he might have.  Let's say his proposal was that he should, with your consent, remove Caesar and put another bull in his place.  He would take Caesar to the Osgood barns.  You would, during Tuesday, help to guard the substitute so that no one who would be at all likely to notice the deception would be permitted to approach too closely.  With the substitute once butchered, on Wednesday, the danger would of course be over.  On Thursday, Mr. Pratt and his guests, with trumpets of publicity, would eat the barbecued bull.  On Sunday, with the week expired, Clyde would present Mr. Pratt with irrefutable evidence that it was not Caesar who had been sacrificed and that he had therefore won the bet.  Mr. Pratt would of course explode with rage, but in the end he would have to compose himself and admit his helplessness and pay the $10,000, for if the facts were made public the roar of laughter would obliterate him.  Customers in a pratteria would say, 'Do you suppose this is really beef?  It may be woodchuck.'  Mr. Pratt would have to pay and keep his mouth shut.  He couldn't even take Caesar back, for what would he do with him?  Clyde Osgood would get the $10,000, and doubtless a part of his proposal would be that you get Caesar.  I don't know how that would work out, since officially Caesar would be dead, but there might be a way around that difficulty, and as a minimum benefit you could breed his exceptional qualities into your herd.  That, of course, is merely the outline of the proposal.  Clyde had probably developed it in detail, including the time and manner of shuffling the bulls.  The most auspicious time for that would have been after 1 o'clock, when you would be the one on guard, but you might have refused to involve yourself to that extent;  and therefore one possibility is that the shuffling was set for earlier and had actually taken place.  Caesar may be alive at this moment.  The bull who died of anthrax may have been only a substitute.  I offer that only as a conjecture;  obviously it is tenable only on the supposition that you agreed to Clyde's proposal and entered into his scheme. . . and you know more about that than I do.  But leaving that entirely aside, what do you think of the scheme itself?  Do you detect any flaws?" (p160-61)

Reading the Riot Act About Burke

The following is from The House of Commons in the Eighteenth Century by P.D.G. Thomas (Oxford, 1971):

His{Hartley} rising always operated like a Dinner Bell. One day, that he had thus wearied out the Patience of his Audience, having nearly cleared out a very full House which was reduced from three hundred to about eighty persons, half asleep;  just at a time when he was expected to close, he unexpectedly moved that the Riot Act should be read, as a document necessary to elucidate, or to prove some of his foregoing assertions.  Burke, who sat close by him. . . laid hold of Hartley by the coat, "The Riot Act! my dear friend, the Riot Act!  To what purpose!  Don't you see that the mob is already completely dispersed?"(p221)

That Burke was a natural target for interruptions can be seen from Wraxall's pen-portrait of him in action:  'Burke constantly wore spectacles.  His enunciation was vehement, rapid, and never checked by any Embarrassment:  for his Ideas outran his Powers of Utterance, and he drew from an exhaustless Source.  But his Irish Accent, which was as strong as if he had never quitted the Banks of the Shannon, diminished to the Ear, the enchanting Effect of his Eloquence on the Mind.  The dazzling oratory of Edmund Burke, adorned with metaphors and similes, makes magnificent prose:  but it must often have been incomprehensible to a large part of his audience.  He spoke too long as well as too fast, and it was part of his practice to speak late in debates.  He lacked the personal or social stature to command respect.  His views were often predictable, and usually unpopular with the majority of members present.  Attempts to stop him were therefore frequent, and sometimes mentioned by Burke himself.  On 10 December 1770 he made this comment during his speech:  'I must address myself to some gentlemen, and I will do it with humility, that they have a disposition, when any gentleman gets up, they don't choose to hear speak, to endeavor the best they can, to drown him with noise, and clamour.  I never knew it was formed into a regular system till today.' Later in the same session Burke reported to Rockingham that on 13 February 1771 he had 'waited for the general reply, until after twelve;  a detachment of Macaronies endeavored to prevent me from speaking, but they did not succeed.'  During his speech Burke remarked, 'I am very glad that the House is full;  but there is another point not so easy to gain--a patient attendance, a very full and patient House.'  Even age and experience did not give Burke immunity from such treatment.  Carl Moritz noted this incident during a speech by him on 9 July 1782 in praise of the recently deceased Lord Rockingham:  'As he did not meet with sufficient attention, and heard much talking and many murmors, he said, with much vehemence and a sense of injured merit, "this is not treatment for so old a Member of Parliament as I am, and I will be heard!"  On which there was immediately a most profound silence.(p225-226).

Edmund Burke was not always popular with his contemporaries, and it is nearly certain that the superficial over at Fox News would have zero use for an Edmund Burke today.

Burke: Where to Look?

If anyone out there is looking for a good biography of Edmund Burke, MP, I would heartily discourage anyone from reading Isaac Kramnick's The Rage of Edmund Burke, which makes a thoroughly bizarre attempt to psychoanalyze the Irish Whig through Freudian exegesis of his writings, and concludes he was a homosexual who didn't really believe his own principles.  Much better is Conor Cruise O'Brian's The Great Melody, which makes no such attempts at psychoanalysis, choosing instead to focus on his Irish heritage as an explanation for the great statesman's reactions to human exploitation.

It occurs to me that homosexuality is like racism--something one really might accuse anyone of, and which it is impossible to disprove in inclination in either case with any certainty.

Congressional Reform

"In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature."


Edmund Burke

Senator Landrieu

"When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people."

Edmund Burke

Why Systematizers Are Wrong, Part Four

"I do not villify theory and speculation--no, because that would be to villify reason itself. Neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit unquam.[Reason is not decieved, nor does it ever decieve.] No; whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering, that it is a false theory, is by comparing it with practice. This is the true touchstone of all theories, which regard man and the affairs of men--does it suit his nature in general;--does it suit his nature as modified by his habits?"
Edmund Burke, Reform of Representation, 1782