The Mysterious Omission

Ron Unz delves into the French Revolution and discovers a very interesting omission from Simon Schama’s popular history of that revolution:

Given its great length, Schama’s account provided an enormous amount of detail on the French society of that era and the course of the revolution that suddenly upended it. But his narrative very conspicuously lacked any direct explanation of why that colossal upheaval occurred, instead suggesting the French Revolution resulted from a combination of unforeseen, contingent factors and events. Two years of bad harvests had driven up the price of bread and the blunders of the king and some of his ministers provoked the spontaneous political combustion that brought down their thousand-year monarchy, while further mistakes gradually moved the revolution in an increasingly radical and bloody direction.

This constituted the major contrast with Webster’s account, which instead presented a very different interpretation of roughly the same historical facts. She portrayed the French Revolution in strictly conspiratorial terms as the deliberately planned outcome of particular political plots.

Some of her theories seemed quite unlikely. Her book was written during the height of the anti-German propaganda of the First World War. Therefore, on the basis of extremely thin evidence, she suggested that prior to his death in 1786, Frederick the Great of Prussia had sought to weaken the French monarchy and its Austrian alliance by promoting Masonic propaganda against Queen Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Austrian Empress Marie Theresa, who for decades had been his foremost geopolitical adversary.

But the main conspiracy that Webster described was hardly an implausible one, with neither the motive nor the means being outlandish, and she drew heavily upon contemporaneous sources for her analysis. The individual whom she fingered as the primary orchestrator of the French Revolution had also been discussed by Schama but only given glancing coverage.

As I had mentioned earlier, Philippe, the enormously wealthy Duc d’Orléans, was the king’s cousin and a close heir to the throne, ranked just behind the youngest brother of Louis XVI. Yet rather remarkably, he became one of the major early patrons of the revolutionary movement, even officially renaming himself “Égalité” as a sign of his support.

Among his large personal holdings was the Palais-Royal estate in Paris. Both Schama and Webster emphasized that he allowed it to be used as a hotbed and staging area for revolutionary activism, its private grounds being off limits to the French police authorities. Schama treated this as merely due to his liberal, open-minded tendencies, but according to Webster it was only one of the many actions he took deliberately aimed at destabilizing the ruling monarchy and then replacing his cousin on its throne. Whether or not her analysis was correct, the important role of the Palais-Royal in the early stages of the revolution appeared on dozens of pages of Schama’s text, and indeed many members of the National Assembly later described it as the “birthplace of the Revolution.”

One of the earliest cases of mass urban violence in Paris was a major riot at a wallpaper factory, leading to more than two dozen deaths, and this important story was covered at length by both Schama and Webster. Philippe visited the scene during that incident and threw small bags of money to the cheering rioters. Their attack on the factory was initially blocked by government troops, but after the latter were forced to open their lines to allow the carriage of Philippe’s wife to pass, the rioters poured through that gap and destroyed both the factory and the home of its influential owner. Both authors reported all these same facts, but only Webster treated them highly suspicious.

According to Webster, this was only one of many such examples. She argued that Philippe deployed his vast wealth to recruit thousands of violent brigands, who launched attacks against government facilities and civilian infrastructure, all aimed at fostering the spread of lawlessness, violent unrest, and the resulting wild rumors that would weaken the hold of the king and provoke an uprising. In fact, at one point Schama freely admitted that “later generations of royalist historians” had claimed that many of these incidents were orchestrated by Philippe and his fellow plotters in order to undermine government authority and allow him to seize the throne. But the author then made no effort to either explore or refute those accusations.

A couple of months after that first large riot, Philippe played a crucial role in leading the political revolt of most of the traditional French parliament against monarchical authority, and these members soon formed the new National Assembly in its place.

Later that same year, a mob of Parisian protesters led by women marched on Versailles and violently stormed the residence of the king and queen, who narrowly escaped with their lives. Philippe was later accused of having planned their murder by funding those rioters, who allegedly chanted his name as their new king. Once again, Webster heavily emphasized these facts, while Schama minimized them.

Webster also noted that the colors adopted early on by the revolutionary forces—white, blue, and red—happened to exactly match the colors of Philippe’s Orléans family. Perhaps this was mere coincidence, but perhaps not.

Given her future areas of historical interest, Webster also naturally emphasized that Philippe served as the Grand Master of French Freemasonry, presumably giving him a great web of hidden influence over the elite elements of his society, something obviously very helpful in overthrowing a regime. Schama entirely omitted that potentially important fact, and instead explicitly dismissed all such conspiratorial notions in just a few sentences:

To counter-revolutionary writers, looking back on the disaster of 1789, the proliferation of seditious and libelous material seemed even more sinister, evidence of a conspiracy hatched between godless followers of Voltaire and Rousseau, Freemasons, and the Duc d’Orléans. Was not the Palais-Royal after all one of the most notorious dens of iniquity, where even the police were forbidden from pouncing on peddlers of literary trash? Understandably, modern historians have steered clear of anything that could be construed as subscribing to the literary conspiracy theory of the French Revolution.

Wikipedia is notorious for representing the establishmentarian perspective on historical events and shying away from any questionable conspiratorial claims. But although the page on Phillipe makes no mention of Webster, the factual account it provided seemed closer to her analysis than that of Schama.

We should also not entirely ignore an interesting historical echo that came decades later. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the Bourbon monarchy was restored in France, and two of Louis XVI’s younger brothers then successively held the throne. But in the Second French Revolution of 1830, Charles X was overthrown and replaced by his cousin Louis Philippe d’Orléans, Philippe’s surviving son, who thus finally achieved the goal that his late father had allegedly sought.

Judging Webster’s work and weighing her conclusions against those of Schama is obviously difficult for a non-specialist such as myself, but I can certainly understand why her book was so highly regarded by at least some scholars when it appeared in 1919. Her main historical analysis seemed solidly based upon reliable sources of that era, many of which were only available in French, and she made an effort to weigh these against each other and evaluate their credibility. Her text included well over 1,000 footnotes to such crucial source material, while Schama’s provided none at all, instead merely listing the main works he drew upon for each individual chapter. So to some extent, Webster’s book represented new academic research, while Schama had produced what amounted to a very hefty synthesis and presentation of preexisting material.

All of this raises the interesting question of why Schama’s massive volume so casually dismissed and ignored the conspiratorial analysis that had been advanced by Webster more than three generations earlier.

The answer, of course, is that in order to get published and become the primary English language reference on the French Revolution, it was vital for Schama to conceal the involvement of The Empire That Never Ended.

I’ve read Schama’s work twice. I’ve never read anything by Webster. But I have absolutely no doubt that Webster’s work is more historically accurate and reliable, simply because Schama had to omit what has been, over the course of recorded human history, one of the most important actors and drivers of events, which is the intersection of supernatural and material evil that Philip K. Dick identified as The Empire That Never Ended, that AC calls Cabal, that Vladimir Putin calls The Empire of Lies, and which we label Clown World.

The Romans called it Carthage, demanded its defeat, and sowed its grounds with salt. The Conquistadors called it the Aztec Empire and did their best to eradicate it forever. The Crusaders were corrupted by it. The Inquisitors did their best to root it out of Christendom and have been slandered for their efforts ever since. But regardless of what it is called, it will never die because it is not of human origins and the fallen rulers of this world will always find corrupt human spirits who are willing to serve them in return for the false immortality they are offered.

It’s not hard to understand why the wicked are so slavishly committed to the will of their evil masters. They fear death, as they well should, and they will do literally anything in their futile attempts to avoid their inevitable Divine judgment.

DISCUSS ON SG



White Bull at Mobile World

If you’re a young entrepreneur, or someone attempting to break out of a career rut, you absolutely must watch the series of videos White Bull is putting up on their substack, beginning with today’s.

E: When there’s a networking event, what’s the first thing you need to do?

F: Survey the landscape, make some determinations (about who is there and who you should try to talk to), but mainly, just go… You’ve just got to execute, make a decision and go.

E: What’s your advice for young entrepreneurs. They’re just scared!

F: Yeah, it’s always uncharted territory. Uncharted waters. So you can be afraid of your own shadow, getting up in the morning, all of that. But that doesn’t pay the bills, it doesn’t get customers. So engage, say hello, see what’s going on. Ask people questions. They love to talk about themselves. And then, when it’s appropriate, insert what you’re doing.

The key phrase: when it’s appropriate. You can always tell the newbies and the nobodies, because they’re desperate to talk. They don’t listen. They don’t pay any attention to who is who and what is what. The vets, who are actually there to do business, are always relaxed. They’ve probably already got a lunch meeting or a workout session scheduled with the people they’re there to meet, so they’re networking strategically, making connections that may or may not be important in the future.

My advice: listen, don’t talk. Sooner or later, someone will ask you. And when you answer, keep it very short and succinct. You’re not there to sell, you’re there to learn, to connect, and to plant seeds.

DISCUSS ON SG


The Crimean War 2.0

Britain has signed a hundred year agreement to support Ukraine militarily and financially. This includes providing Ukraine £3 billion a year until 2031 and to support Ukraine “for as long as needed,” and establishing military bases along the Sea of Azov, which Russia controls.

I can only assume the plan here is to take on the Russians, then shriek for help in the hope that the Americans are dumb enough to white knight for the British when they wouldn’t do so any longer for the Ukrainians.

Whatever. It’s a truly futile strategy, as a moment’s thought should make clear. If Americans cared about the British enough to fight for them, we would have already sent the SEALs and other special forces into Rotherham and other English cities to take out the Asian rape gangs.

The Polish Prime Minister may be a Clown World puppet, but his summary of the situation is an apt one.

500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians.

And about 100 million of those “Americans” are invaders anyhow. The sooner the USA shuts down NATO and brings all of its troops home, the better.

DISCUSS ON SG


Yes, English IS Our Official Language

The God-Emperor 2.0 finally establishes de jure what has always been the de facto case. But it’s official US law now, and all the press-2-for-Spanish apologists are free to voluntarily remigrate themselves and their objections.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. From the founding of our Republic, English has been used as our national language. Our Nation’s historic governing documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have all been written in English. It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States. A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.

In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream. Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society. This order recognizes and celebrates the long tradition of multilingual American citizens who have learned English and passed it to their children for generations to come.

To promote unity, cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens, ensure consistency in government operations, and create a pathway to civic engagement, it is in America’s best interest for the Federal Government to designate one — and only one — official language. Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society.

Accordingly, this order designates English as the official language of the United States.

And the winning continues. Still not tired.

DISCUSS ON SG


Free Trade is What It Is

My strong and logically impeccable opposition to free trade is well known in these parts. But for my post today on the business stack, I thought it would be interesting to see what my new best friend thought about it. And I was very startled indeed to be informed that neither Ian Fletcher nor I had even begun to complete the dismantling of what has arguably been one of the most damaging policies ever constructed on the basis of such an obviously false and flimsy foundation.

I asked Deepseek to share what it thought of what has, for more than two centuries, served as the conceptual foundation of the free trade policy that has served as a quasi-religion for the Western elite of the post-WWII era. And while I knew it was a fundamentally flawed theory, so much so that economist Joseph Schumpeter once described its question-begging formulation as “the Ricardian vice”, I was still a little surprised to see how completely it was demolished by the pattern recognition of the Chinese AI system.

I then asked it to review my Labor Mobility argument, and see how long it would take for the USA to lose half of its working nationals if a) the USA were to adopt a genuine free trade policy and b) global economic efficiencies were to improve to the point that the global labor mobility rate matched the existing intra-USA labor mobility rate.

To determine how long it would take for the majority of the US labor force under age 55 to be working abroad under a 3% annual emigration rate, we model the outflow using exponential decay. Here’s the breakdown:

Assumptions:

  • Annual emigration rate: 3% (0.03) of the remaining labor force each year.
  • No return migration, immigration, or changes in labor force size (simplified model).

Answer: Approximately 23 years would be required for the majority (>50%) of the US labor force under age 55 to be working abroad, assuming a constant 3% annual emigration rate.

Deepseek confirms what we already knew from observing the USA and the European Union. Free trade is neither good for an economy or a nation. To the contrary, it destroys both.

    DISCUSS ON SG


    What Three Years Hath Wrought

    Three years ago, three reporters in the Swiss media publicly defamed me and one of their accusations concerned the fact that I pointed out Clown World was the aggressor and the cause of the Ukraine war, that it was absolutely retarded for the European nations to intervene on behalf of a country with a foreign regime put into power by a US neocon coup, and that it was grandiose stupidity for the Swiss government to throw away the centuries of neutrality that protected the Swiss people from the wars that harrowed Europe in order to join the side that was absolutely guaranteed to lose the war.

    On the war in Ukraine, his opinion is just as clear-cut: the aggression is the work of “the imperial USA”, which has put Russia in a situation of compulsion. He calls the West “Clown World”, while Russia would represent “Sovereign World”. At the end of February, he titled his blog, “Grandiose stupidity in Switzerland” and criticized the fact that the President of the Confederation Ignazio Cassis has sided with the European Union sanctions.

    Three years later, all of my observations been born out in spades. The US and European sanctions have proven worse than useless. The United Nations Security Council has refused to condemn the so-called “Russian aggression” that was the inevitable response to the military expansion of NATO to its borders as well as the brutal assaults on the Russian people of the New Russian republics who had been seeking self-determination. And European leaders, such as former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl are already beginning to admit that Russia has won the war.

    It had been said that Russia could allegedly be smashed on the battlefield, that it would fall to the Middle Ages level, that the Russian society would be ruined. However, that never happened. No mass riots that Europe expected or would like to see, ever happened either. We often heard that the country was going to fall into 40 new states, but it never happened as well. Taking the mentioned factors into consideration, I think that yes, Russia has won.”

    And most importantly, the fact that the Ukrainian war was only one battle in the ongoing war between Clown World and the Sovereign World represented by Russia, China, and now America, has been underlined by the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas.

    We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the agressor [sic]. Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.

    The irony of the unelected Eurocrats who hate democracy, hate their own people, hate Christianity, criminalize free speech, and rule over their subjected people as the puppets of Clown World calling themselves “the free world” is satanic inversion at its most obvious. And the significant point of her statement is that thanks to President Trump, aka the God-Emperor 2.0 (may he reign 3,500 more years), America has finally, like Russia and China, begun to free itself from the wicked rule of Clown World.

    And the Eurocrats will fail in their quest to raise up a new leader of Clown World because the European peoples are finally beginning to see through all their lies. They promised peace, unity, and wealth, and delivered war, diversity, and economic devastation. It will not be long before their masters throw them from their high horses. But until then, they will continue to invert and subvert the truth, because their retardery knows no limit. Their irrationality is rapidly approaching levels last seen when an Austrian was hiding from Russian tanks in a Berlin bunker.

    French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Portugal that “I think we were all right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago, and to continue to do so.”

    UPDATE: The people have asked for it, and they shall receive.

    DISCUSS ON SG



    Sigma Game and Diplomacy

    Even those of you who have no interest in the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy might be interested in reading this extremely illuminating breakdown of yesterday’s diplomatic debacle when Ukraine Head of State Vladimir Zelensky visited the White House and the God-Emperor 2.0, may he reign 3,500 more years.

    Reviewing the transcript, what struck me most was the way that the Gamma went directly at the Situational Bravo rather than at the Alpha. Zelensky did so because he correctly read Vance as being psychologically weaker than his situational status tends to suggest. Not only did Zelensky reportedly refer to Vance in a vulgar and dismissive manner, albeit in classic passive-aggressive Gamma style under his breath and in a foreign language, but he attacked Vance as part of his attempt to evade the topic that was under discussion, which was the observable fact that Russia has already won its war with Ukraine and therefore diplomacy is necessary to end the war before Ukraine is forced to accept an unconditional surrender.

    Read the whole thing there. The lesson, as always, is this: no amount of intellectual comprehension and self-control can reliably replace one’s behavioral patterns established during one’s formative years.

    DISCUSS ON SG


    The Euthypro Deception

    Long-time readers may recall that I disproved the so-called Euthyphro Dilemma presented by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue of the same name in an appendix of The Irrational Atheist. This sparked numerous attempts by various atheists, ranging from midwits to complete retards, desperately attempting to salvage one of the core elements of the average college-educated atheist’s non-belief foundation.

    With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke, who once fantasized about an AI identifying all of the logical errors committed by Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica, I thought it might be interesting to see if my new best friend agreed with me or not on the logical shortcomings of Socrates’s argument.


    HOW MANY LOGICAL FLAWS DO YOU DETECT IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE EUTHYPHRO DILEMMA BY SOCRATES?

    Okay, so I need to figure out how many logical flaws are in Socrates’ Euthyphro Dilemma. First, I should recall what the Euthyphro Dilemma actually is. From what I remember, it’s a philosophical question posed in Plato’s dialogue “Euthyphro.” Socrates asks Euthyphro whether something is pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious. The dilemma is meant to challenge the idea that morality is dependent on divine command.

    The Euthyphro Dilemma, as presented by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue, is a foundational challenge to divine command theory. While it is philosophically provocative, several potential logical flaws or limitations have been identified in its construction:

    1. False Dichotomy

    The dilemma presents only two options:

    • A: Acts are pious because the gods love them (divine command theory).
    • B: The gods love acts because they are pious (independent moral standard).

    Flaw: It ignores hybrid or nuanced positions, such as:

    • C: The gods’ nature is inherently good, so their love aligns with an objective moral standard (e.g., perfect-being theology).
    • D: Piety is grounded in a relational framework (e.g., covenantal ethics), where divine commands and moral truths cohere through relationship rather than arbitrary fiat.

    2. Equivocation on “Piety”

    The dilemma assumes a univocal definition of “piety” (moral goodness). However, if “piety” is context-dependent (e.g., culturally relative or tied to specific divine attributes), the dichotomy collapses.

    Flaw: Socrates treats “piety” as a static, monolithic concept, neglecting the possibility of pluralistic or dynamic moral frameworks.

    3. Theological Assumptions

    The dilemma presumes:

    • A polytheistic context (gods with competing desires).
    • Divine arbitrariness (gods could command cruelty).

    Flaw: In monotheistic traditions (e.g., Christianity, Islam), God’s nature is often held to be necessarily good, rendering the “arbitrary command” horn (A) incoherent. If God cannot act contrary to His nature, moral truths are neither independent nor arbitrary but grounded in divine essence.

    4. Circularity

    If A and B are framed as mutually exclusive, the dilemma risks tautology:

    • If A is true, piety lacks intrinsic meaning.
    • If B is true, piety exists independently of the gods.

    Flaw: This ignores the possibility of a non-arbitrary divine command theory, where God’s commands reflect His rational, benevolent nature (avoiding both arbitrariness and independence).

    5. Limited Scope

    The dilemma targets divine command theory but does not engage:

    • Secular moral frameworks (e.g., utilitarianism, virtue ethics).
    • Natural law theory (morality grounded in human nature or reason).

    Flaw: By framing morality solely in terms of divine authority, the dilemma becomes irrelevant to non-theistic ethical systems.

    6. Anthropomorphic Projection

    The dilemma assumes gods with human-like preferences, reducing divine morality to a transactional “command vs. standard” binary.

    Flaw: It fails to account for transcendent or ineffable conceptions of divinity (e.g., apophatic theology), where divine morality exceeds human categorization.

    7. Strawman of Divine Command Theory

    Continue reading “The Euthypro Deception”