THE FRENCH DESERVE BETTER THAN THEY GET - Editorial by Norman Lockman

The News Journal ^ | Sept. 3, 2003 | Norman Lockman

[new cruelty]

The next time you hear a bunch of talk show patriots trash-talking the French for congenital anti-Americanism, ingratitude and cowardice because France led the international opposition to President Bush's misadventure in Iraq, politely inform them there would be no United States of America without France.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Maybe they will pummel us with their berets......

[IncPen]

A good read all around.

Hey, as long as he's on the subject of who owes who what, I'm looking at his picture and thinking he's of a certain age, wondering if he'd want to talk to me about my reparations, you know, for his generation squandering the $40 billion we've thrown at Great Society programs since LBJ...

I'm really stuck on this reparations thing lately

[tet68]

For them, it is dishonorable not to know and revere your own national history.

Oh yes, and they do such a good job with parts of it.
Sedan,wwI,wwII Algeria,Vietnam, those just get disrevered.

[tet68]

Note to children.

NEVER trust anyone who wears a bowtie!

[Verginius Rufus]

De Grasse's action helped set up the victory at Yorktown, true, and we should be grateful for that help...but without the bravery of the American troops in the Second Battle of the Marne, the Germans might have captured Paris in 1918...I'd say we were even for De Grasse's help.

Already in 1782 the French were trying to hurt us, during the peace negotiations...they wanted the independent U.S. to be as small and weak as possible.

[niteowl77]

a bit more if you choose to look it up in a good history book because they are rather rare in most homes

I'd agree with him, but not as he'd like: if it has been published in the last twenty-five years (roughly), it isn't going to be good. My dad taught Government and American History for nearly thirty years, and he pronounced the latest textbooks to be "s**t" (dad did - and does - render a blunt verdict). He had to review them, and at the end of his teaching, he was choosing the "best" of a bad lot.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Give me a break. The Marquis de Lafayette was a friend to the young America and did his best to help. He tried to influence the French Court into sending money and troops. He fought with the Americans and helped send Cornwallis scurrying back to England. The French did at the last moment arrive to drive off the English Navy who was planning to rescue Cornwallace. Any fighting the French did was for their own American Possessions and land in the North East and what was then the North west. They enlisted the Indians as did the English. But they were not necessarily anyone's friend. Just taking care of French business, as usual.

The Marquis de Lafayette was a man of substance, our friend and a friend to his own country embroiled in Revolution. He tried to save them from anarchy and failed.

We owe the French NOTHING. If there is one thing to thank them for it is the sale of the Louisianna Territory by Napoleon to Thomas Jefferson. A huge tract of land that changed the face of the United States forever. Helping to make us the continental United States of America.

[BartMan1]

$ 40 billion is on the low side, don't you think ?

I am with you , though, and I want reparations for the opportunity cost of all that lost money, too.

Can you imagine what our economy would look like today if we had left all that money ( in real terms probably on the order of $ one trillion dollars in present value money) in the private economy which has been squandered by the libs on their pet programs ?

[reagan_fanatic]

[Billthedrill]

Before Mr. Lockman goes into transports over the undoubted U.S. debt to the French crown, I'd advise him to spend an additional 15 minutes on the Internet and look up the circumstances of the XYZ affair that followed the successful War of Independence. The very first country that Washington was worried would invade the fledgling United States was not Great Britain, it was France.

[x]

It's not like the French helped us out of the kindness of their hearts, but rather out of a desire to stick it to the British.

True, but getting involved in our Revolution probably cost Louis his throne. It screwed up his finances to the point where he had to call the Estates General to get more money, and it spread revolutionary ideas. And the revolution that resulted plunged France into chaos and misery (offset for some people by Napoleonic gloire, but devastating to many more). The old saying that "no good deed goes unpunished" probably explains a lot about Franco-American relations -- on both sides.

[R. Scott]

Yep.

[lowbridge]

bump

[freedumb2003]

and then make love to their pretty girls. You'll need the following:

[happygrl]

Excellent vignette on the French and Indian War.

For movie buffs, it was this part of our history that was dramatized so beautifully in "The Last of the Mohicans".

The French instigated their Indian allies to attack settlers all along the frontier. This they did in a most brutal fashion. Please note, all the bleeding hearts for Indians.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

ROFLMAO

[Verginius Rufus]

The XYZ Affair actually happened while John Adams was President, although Washington would have been in command if there had been open warfare. It was all about Talleyrand's "pay to play" method of diplomacy...a forerunner of the tactics of Gray Davis or the Clinton White House. The undeclared naval war with France which followed is sometimes called the Quasi War (no connection to Quasi Mfume).

The one thing France has done for us since 1781 is to give us the Statue of Liberty. I don't think France should get credit for selling us Louisiana--that was Napoleon's doing, and he was a Corsican, not a genuine Frenchman.

[Billthedrill]

Right you are, and BTW, the Statue of Liberty was originally intended for the Suez Canal...New York harbor got it as an afterthought.

[SkyPilot]

Oh, you're wicked!

[new cruelty]

Great post. If you don't mind, I'll share your thoughts in my correspondence with (ab)norman.