The Rat That Roared: Why France is pro-Saddam.

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | Thursday, February 6, 2003 | By Christopher Hitchens

[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, February 6, 2003

Quote of the Day by cubreporter

[jdege]

What we have called the "British tradition" was made explicit mainly by a group of Scottish moral philosophers led by David Hume, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson, seconded by their English contemporaries Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke, and William Paley, and drawing largely on a tradition rooted in the jurisprudence of the common law. Opposed to them was the tradition of the French Enlightenment, deeply imbued with Cartesian rationalism: the Encyclopedists and Rousseau, the Physiocrats and Condorcet, are the best-known representatives. [...]

Though these two groups are now commonly lumped together as the ancestors of modern liberalism, there is hardly a greater contrast imaginable than that between their respective conceptions of the evolution and functioning of a social order and the role played in it by liberty. The difference is directly traceable to the predominance of an essentially empiricist view of the world in England and a rationalist approach in France. The main contrast in the practical conclusions to which these approaches led has recently been well put, as follows: "One finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion, the other believes it to be realized only in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose"; and "one stands for organic, slow, half-conscious growth, the other for doctrinaire deliberateness; one for trial and error procedure, the other for an enforced solely valid pattern." It is the second view, as J.L. Talmon has shown in an important book from which this description is taken, that has become the origin of totalitarian democracy.

The sweeping success of the political doctrines that stem from the French tradition is probably due to their great appeal to human pride and ambition. But we must not forget that the political conclusions of the two schools derive from different conceptions of how society works. In this respect the British philosophers laid the foundations of a profound and essentially valid theory, while the rationalist school was simply and completely wrong.

- F.A. Hayek, "The Constitution of Liberty"

[Defiant]

More like the Weasel the Roared.

[Thud]

ping

[Frances_Marion]

"He puts me in mind of the banker in Flaubert's "L'Education Sentimentale": a man so habituated to corruption that he would happily pay for the pleasure of selling himself."

Sounds like Le Clintons...

[nutmeg]

bump to read later

[unending thunder]

It was Diderot, the great Encyclopaedist who established the route to a true republic,"....true democracy will reign, when they strangle the last King, with the bowels of the last Bishop."

I do however feel that much of the US ire aimed at France is mis-directed. Surely the Louisiana Purchase has got to be the greatest real estate deal ...EVER. Unless you say that Polk's stealing the Mexican Territories and Jackson's theft of the Spanish enclaves in the South East was even better, as no money changed hands.

The good news is that the "Charles De Gaulle", the French nuclear Aircaft Carrier has been at sea for 4 days without a major mishap, although it is still using the propellors from an earlier craft after the failure of the original propellors on the first sea trials.

There is however, worrying solidarity amongst French mademoiselles with their Iraqi "sisters", as they continue to remain unwashed and refuse to shave their armpits.

[unending thunder]

It was Diderot, the great Encyclopaedist who established the route to a true republic,"....true democracy will reign, when they strangle the last King, with the bowels of the last Bishop."

I do however feel that much of the US ire aimed at France is mis-directed. Surely the Louisiana Purchase has got to be the greatest real estate deal ...EVER. Unless you say that Polk's stealing the Mexican Territories and Jackson's theft of the Spanish enclaves in the South East was even better, as no money changed hands.

The good news is that the "Charles De Gaulle", the French nuclear Aircaft Carrier has been at sea for 4 days without a major mishap, although it is still using the propellors from an earlier craft after the failure of the original propellors on the first sea trials.

There is however, worrying solidarity amongst French mademoiselles with their Iraqi "sisters", as they continue to remain unwashed and refuse to shave their armpits.

[goodolemr]

Christopher Hitchens really has a way with words. I love reading his columns.

[The Raven]

[Eisenhower]....in a course of folly in Vietnam, and went so far as to inherit it.

Ahhhh! The sign of a true liberal. Eisenhower started the Vietnam war.

[JohnHuang2]

Christopher Hitchens really has a way with words. I love reading his columns.

My sentiments exactly.

[PogySailor]

Bump

[Pearls Before Swine]

Wonderful title -- "the rat that roared!"

[WaveThatFlag]

I do however feel that much of the US ire aimed at France is mis-directed. Surely the Louisiana Purchase has got to be the greatest real estate deal ...EVER.

Sure, but the Louisiana Territory was offered to the United States (for nothing) by Napolean a man widely proclaimed by French people everywhere to be their greatest leader. Since then, several Republics with "France" in their name have existed, including a Nazi one from 1940-1944. The current Republic named France (the 5th one, by some accounts) came into existence in 1958, has explored communism, and has been of no discernable value to the United States.

[Delchev]

While you all are at it, don't forget about Greece..

[happygrl]

Hitchens BUMP!

[Conspiracy Guy]

Le poop, le surrender, le crap. We should stop making fun of the French. They are doing a good enough job alone.

[WaveThatFlag]

Except Greece was not made a permanent member of the Security Council by an accident of history. Somehow France got itself declared a "winner" in the Second World War. If I were German, Japan, or India, I would be considering leaving the UN at this point.

[Servant of the Nine]

Modern liberalism came out of the Romantic Movement started by Rousseau. It is the polar opposite of the rationality of either the English or French Enlightenments.

So9

[sheik yerbouty]

Napolean was Corsican.