Happy Bastille Day

by Bryan

6 comments

1 Badtux { 07.15.12 at 1:27 pm }

They started off things right, shortening the necks of plutocrats who needed their necks shortened, but then they went off the rails and ended up following Napoleon to national disaster — over a quarter of the military-age men of France dead by the end and complete and utter economic ruin in that manpower-intensive time. I am thus far rather unimpressed by the history of violent revolutions, every single one of them that I’ve ever examined has led to national disaster and dead bodies by the millions.

Note that the War of American Secession was *not* a revolution, rather, it was a war by one segment of a country for the right to secede from the majority of the country and become a new nation… hmm, sort of like the 1861-1865 unpleasantness, now that I think about it, which was actually a war of secession rather than a civil war (a civil war is where multiple armed bodies within a single country are fighting for control of the entire country, which does not at all typify the War of Southern Secession, which was all about the Southern states attempting to secede and form their own nation… the English Civil War is a better example of a real civil war).

So anyhow, that’s why I don’t say “Happy Bastille Day”. I remember the history of what happened *after* Bastille Day. The plutocrats needed taking down, but doing it via violence ended up simply begetting more violence until 5 million (conservative estimate) were dead Europe-wide…

– Badtux the Revolutionary History Penguin

2 Bryan { 07.16.12 at 9:00 am }

The current Republican Party wants to install a close facsimile of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the White House to enact more of the policies that led to the French Revolution in the US.

3 Badtux { 07.16.12 at 10:11 am }

Indeed. And we know how well that worked out the first time.

Though, actually, the bigger issue that led to the French Revolution was taxes and how the aristocratic class didn’t want to pay them. Sound familiar? Seems that if the aristocrats don’t want to pay taxes, attempting to extract them from the peasantry doesn’t suffice to provide sufficient revenue to pay your soldiers, and your soldiers, well… when they don’t get paid, Bad Things Happen. Hrm.

Of course, all those aristocrats who didn’t want to pay taxes ended up having their necks stretched. But our own aristocratic class doesn’t study history or much of anything, to tell you the truth, so they neither know, nor care.

4 Bryan { 07.16.12 at 1:56 pm }

Thanks to W we already have ‘tax farming’, so most of the pieces are in place. It’s about time to invest in guillotine stock and knitting supplies for the fun to come on the Mall.

I would note that military pay and benefits are now ‘under review’ for ‘cost saving’, and below the Federal level everyone is laying off cops as well as teachers to avoid raising taxes on ‘the job creators’.

It is definitely going to come as a nasty surprise because ‘no one could have imagined’ that it would happen… 😈

5 Badtux { 07.17.12 at 11:53 pm }

Sad to say, the majority of people killed as a result of the French Revolution were *not* the aristocrats who so richly deserved it, but, rather, ordinary sods caught in the crossfire of first the Reign of Terror and then the Napoleonic Wars.

I can imagine this “nasty surprise” you mention. The main problem is that I really don’t *want* to imagine it, because violent revolutions, once they finish with their original targets, inevitably eat their own.

– Badtux the Doesn’t-like-blood (except inside where it belongs) Penguin

6 Bryan { 07.18.12 at 1:39 pm }

It is a bit difficult to attempt to classify the deaths of innocent bystanders as ‘collateral damage’ when they number the vast majority of deaths in any conflict, be it war or revolution. If the deaths were truly unintentional, there couldn’t possibly be so many.