This is Bastille Day.

Was the French Revolution a good thing or a bad thing? Some of the Founders liked and some did not.

What do you think? I like to hear some comments.

The French never quite got it. After they declared The Rights of Man 16,000 heads rolled. Go figure.

Any revolution that can produce Marat and Robespierre can't really be good. The French Revolution ate its young. The bottom lline of the French Revolution was Napoleon Bonaparte. ♠

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob; We agree but was the overthrow of the king a good idea.

The French on the side of the America Revolution was analogous to The Russians fighting with the allies against Germany in WWI. Disastrous consequences for France and Russia. Bad societies and governments became horrible socities and governments.

--Brant

Transforming France into a Constitutional Monarchy might have worked out better. It worked for the Brits. Instead the French got the Terror, the they got Napoleon. In subsequent years they alternated between a republic and a Constitutional Monarchy. The Frogs never really got it.

We Americans are fortunate in tracing the descent of our Republic back to the brits, who by 1775, were already governed under a limited monarchy. The American struggle was not so much with the king (George the 3 rd) but with Parleiment, who would not grant the American colonies proper representation.

If you want to see how we might have ended up if Parliment had been more reasonable, look at Canada. They manged to become a republic (in effect) without a revolution and without a civil war.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob; I agree with Lady Thatcher at the time of the Bicentennial told the French president that the French Revolution was a bad idea. I think she got the worse seat in the house for one of the events.

Yes and no. in the 1640's a king was overthrown (Charles I) and his reign ended by the headsman axe. Then followed years of civil strife and finally the rule of Oliver Cromwell whose Protestant Puritan buddies outlawed having fun in public. No kissing, no dancing, no theater. By the time Cromwell was dead, the Brits could hardly wait to have a king again. The civil war in England was probably not as bloody as the aftermath of the French revolution, but it was bad enough. The Irish got short shrift and what happened was a direct cause of today's "unpleasantness" in Ireland.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bastille Day is for the French as The Fourth is for Americans and Canada Day for we Canuckistanis and so on and so forth. Big national celebrations. No one goes out into the streets to reenact The Terror or has mad guillotine parties and street dances . . . so, please decouple the idea of a French National Holiday from the idea of a Let's Celebrate the Bloodthirsty Nightmare of Revolution.

That said, why not celebrate? Well, as Ba'ab points out, the French are frogs. Secondly, their commie slogan is evul: liberty, equality, fraternity, a slap in the face to Objectivist values of liberty, productivity and gated communities. Thirdly, their country is a socialist hellhole, rife with darker style people and their evul encroaching cult. Fourthly, they retain some raggy remnants of pride in themselves as a nation and culture, which should be stripped off, since they have degenerated to a state almost as evul as the socialist hellholes Sweden and Finland. Fifthly and finally, the French Revolution was bad, evul, ugly and stupid from top to bottom.

Bastille Day's only pitiful value is as public spectacle, the massive military show on the Champs d'Elysees. Even then, the Russians and North Koreans arguably do a better job. If you are ever a tourist stuck in the hellhole of Paris on July 14th, make sure that you tell the French you meet that you may enjoy their parade, but revile their revolution's excesses and lack of Objectivist principles. Just so they get that straight.

Mind you, what I do not understand completely is how France is still the number one tourist destination in the world.



See also Bastille Day festivities in NYC in 2008.