French Revolution Attacking the American Revolution

The Google firing confirms a working hypothesis I have been pondering recently. The French Revolution is attacking the American Revolution.

The American Revolution was sparked by the Enlightenment, Judeo/Christian moral beliefs, mixed with Greek and Roman philosophy and political theories. At its best, the American Revolution promotes universal human equality–a work still in progress–individual freedom, freedom of thought and speech, the rule of law, etc..

The French Revolution, in contrast, is Utopian, collectivist, authoritarian, intolerant, and punitive. It is anti-religion generally and anti-Christianity specifically. It accepts the belief that the ends justify the means.

At its worst, the FR unleashed some of history’s most vile and destructive tyrannies: The First Republic and The Terror, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, etc.

In its more mundane iterations, French Revolution ideologies express as the social fascism we increasingly witness today, such as the stifling of free speech on college campuses and thought control pogroms that cost professionally competent people their jobs for expressing disfavored opinions.

And here’s its inherent weakness: The French Revolution is never satisfied. Wrongs are never fully remedied. It grows ever more extreme until, eventually, it eats its own. Just ask Robespierre.

Not an appeal to authority – you called Prof. West’s expertise on the subject ‘idiotic’ and I was merely pointing out that he teaches Politics at conservative Hillsdale College - ‘one of the only colleges in America -- outside of the military academies -- that requires every student to take a course on the Constitution to graduate’ . It is obviously your prerogative to quickly dismiss him while encouraging others to ‘do the hard work of examining the arguments’…

Note – I did not once tell you what to think – I merely provided a quote or links so you could decide for yourself - or ‘be your own devil’s advocate’, so to speak…

You’re going strictly on the Declaration and Jefferson’s words?

We’re going on the whole principle, which is borne out constantly by the whole of the AmRev discussions and debates, writings and so forth held by many of the Signers and Constitutional convention debaters, and contained within such as the Federalist Papers.

Honestly, I actually get irritated when people think the French Revolution wasn’t an Enlightenment based Revolution. Let me point out that some of the guys the Revolutionaries had looked up to and tried to emulate regarding their works included the likes of Diderot and Voltaire, and those guys most CERTAINLY were of the Enlightenment, even if Rousseau wasn’t.

And for the record, Thomas Jefferson, not to mention Thomas Paine, outright supported the Jacobins and the other Revolutionaries in their horrors, even after the rest of the Founding Fathers became very privy to their crimes and rightfully condemned them. Just look at this if you don’t believe me: https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/05/understanding-thomas-jeffersons-reactions-rise-jacobins/

And as far as the Girondins being moderates, nice try, but they weren’t true moderates. They’re about as “moderate” as PBS, CBS, NBC, and ABC were “moderate”, or how Macron was “moderate.” If anything, they were about as radical as the Jacobins. Bertrand Barère, a member of the Girondins, actually advocated for turning Vendee into a graveyard. Read this if you don’t believe me: http://www.culturewars.com/CultureWars/Archives/Fidelity_archives/parricide.html

I do agree with you guys on one thing: Our revolution, despite being founded to some extent on similar Enlightenment literature to that of the French Revolutionaries, was definitely not similar to them at all.

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