Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Sept 23, 2011 15:06:53 GMT -5
As usual, La Voix can be found all over Night's Doorstep, and elsewhere. It is pinned on walls, piled in taverns, flying down the streets propelled by the summer breeze.
Time, my dear friends, mes enfants de la révolution, for a pop quiz.
Someone poisons (le gasp) the Dauphin. Is it:
1.a nation of disorganised warrior tribes, fond of wearing bearskins and and stabbing each other with pointy sticks
2.a member of our very own scheming aristocracy hungry for yet more crumbs from the table of political power
I'll give you a clue. It's not the COMPLETELY IMPLAUSIBLE answer.
And yet our divinely appointed leadership has rushed us into a destructive war with an innocent nation, giving what an outspoken friend of mine would term “sweet f-all” for the cost to human life on both sides, all because they couldn't look into the mirror of truth and recognise their own reflection.
This, THIS, is precisely why we need a system of governance based on just and meritocratic principles, not mere accident of birth and fortune. A council of the wise, elected by the people, would not have led this kingdom into a futile war. A council of the wise, elected by the people, would not be poisoning each other in a desperate bid for supremacy.
I am not excusing, nor defending, what was done. It was a base and cowardly act, reflective of a base and cowardly people, but we must consider the WHY as well as the HOW.
Think of it like this.
Consider street pigeons, diseased and ragged, fighting for pieces of bread, simply to survive.
Now imagine a farmyard, where food is plentiful and bestowed on all equally.
Our country is the slum; our people those pigeons. We are forced to squabble for power because we have none, and no means of getting any, despite our virtues, despite our merits. If our system of governance was elective, rather than hereditary, then those with the will and the skill would have the means to better our country for the good of all.
Let me re-iterate. I do not support the act that was committed. I do not believe in poisoning any more than I believe in war, but I will say this in the poisoner's defence: at least he (or she) damn well did something. At least they showed something like initiative, something like ambition, something like independent thought. All traits I have long suspected bred out the Royal line. I am glad at least one of them had a thought beyond fetes and fucking.
Yes, a crime has been committed. But there is a far greater crime that will go unpunished, and that our continued acceptance of a system of government that takes strength, courage, intelligence, and ambition and perverts them into cowardice, selfishness and murder.
Time, my dear friends, mes enfants de la révolution, for a pop quiz.
Someone poisons (le gasp) the Dauphin. Is it:
1.a nation of disorganised warrior tribes, fond of wearing bearskins and and stabbing each other with pointy sticks
2.a member of our very own scheming aristocracy hungry for yet more crumbs from the table of political power
I'll give you a clue. It's not the COMPLETELY IMPLAUSIBLE answer.
And yet our divinely appointed leadership has rushed us into a destructive war with an innocent nation, giving what an outspoken friend of mine would term “sweet f-all” for the cost to human life on both sides, all because they couldn't look into the mirror of truth and recognise their own reflection.
This, THIS, is precisely why we need a system of governance based on just and meritocratic principles, not mere accident of birth and fortune. A council of the wise, elected by the people, would not have led this kingdom into a futile war. A council of the wise, elected by the people, would not be poisoning each other in a desperate bid for supremacy.
I am not excusing, nor defending, what was done. It was a base and cowardly act, reflective of a base and cowardly people, but we must consider the WHY as well as the HOW.
Think of it like this.
Consider street pigeons, diseased and ragged, fighting for pieces of bread, simply to survive.
Now imagine a farmyard, where food is plentiful and bestowed on all equally.
Our country is the slum; our people those pigeons. We are forced to squabble for power because we have none, and no means of getting any, despite our virtues, despite our merits. If our system of governance was elective, rather than hereditary, then those with the will and the skill would have the means to better our country for the good of all.
Let me re-iterate. I do not support the act that was committed. I do not believe in poisoning any more than I believe in war, but I will say this in the poisoner's defence: at least he (or she) damn well did something. At least they showed something like initiative, something like ambition, something like independent thought. All traits I have long suspected bred out the Royal line. I am glad at least one of them had a thought beyond fetes and fucking.
Yes, a crime has been committed. But there is a far greater crime that will go unpunished, and that our continued acceptance of a system of government that takes strength, courage, intelligence, and ambition and perverts them into cowardice, selfishness and murder.