Selwyn Duke
Maybe France deserves to burn
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By Selwyn Duke
October 28, 2026

In 1811, Joseph de Maistre, a French philosopher who detested the French Revolution, famously said: “People get the government they deserve."

In light of recent events in France and elsewhere, however, something else comes to mind: Do people get the riots they deserve, too? Maybe—sometimes.

Now, I’ll preface my remarks by saying that I really do hope France channels its inner Napoleon and rights the ship. And were I in charge there, I assure you the rioting miscreants would meet their Waterloo in short order. (If the Duke of Wellington can do it, so can the Duke of Westchester. I do proffer my services, too, but I require the same deal the Roman Republic offered during crises: A man would be appointed dictator for a specified time to restore normality, endowed with extraordinary powers and largely free from the usual legal constraints—wink.) But a thought occurred to me the other day.

Just two years ago France became the world’s first nation to explicitly guarantee a “right to abortion” in its constitution. Approximately 85 percent of Frenchmen supported the amendment, President Emmanuel Macron characterized the move as “French pride,” and the Eiffel Tower “was lit up in celebration, with the message: ‘My Body My Choice,’” wrote the BBC at the time.

Note here, though, what France’s constitution does not guarantee: freedom of speech — at least, not really. The document does claim it’s protected, but then adds the caveat, “except to answer for the abuse of this freedom in cases determined by law.” Translation:

You’re free to say anything—that the government allows you to say.

So you can, and people are (see Brigitte Bardot et al.), punished for Hate Speech™ in France. So watch your mouth. But if you want to kill an unborn baby, well, Brie Brother is there with bells on (though not church bells; those have been replaced with the adhan.)

And, no, this isn’t “just” about prenatal infanticide. That’s actually a symptom of a deeper problem: lack of virtue. Another symptom of it is the riots themselves.

Philosopher G.K. Chesterton once noted (I’m paraphrasing) that the problem nowadays is that Christian values are floating around detached from one another. Consequently, we have scientists who care only about Truth, but have no pity; and humanitarians who care only about pity, but have no Truth. Today we’re heavy on the (pseudo)humanitarians, the woke capons and clucking-Karen hens who are tough with babies in the womb but melt before foreign invaders in the streets.

But they’re short on “Christian values” (virtues, really) because they’re short on Christianity, and this is because they shorted it more than two centuries ago.

If your knowledge of the French Revolution (1789) transcends what they teach in government school, you know that it was when “leftism,” in name, was born. Those French revolutionaries were left-wing nuts who, like the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, aimed to restart history. They instituted a new calendar, beginning in 1792, that had 10-day weeks omitting the Lord’s Day. The explicit goal was to eliminate Christianity and, well, congrats, Gallic garçons, you’ve largely succeeded.

And now, since man’s faith-nature abhors a vacuum, you’re getting Islam—good and hard.

I mentioned virtues (good moral habits), and I would remind you that Kindness, Love and Charity are among them. But so are Faith, Wisdom, Diligence and, most importantly here, Courage. The modern West, however, is the land where “Can’t lives on Won’t Street.” It is the inheritor of the greatest civilization to grace God’s green Earth, and what did it do with this bequeathment? It squandered it!

With eyes increasingly blinded by sin and metaphorically fattened via excess, it traded Truth for tastes, principles for preferences and virtues for “values” that too often were vices. It forgot the Gods of the Copybook Headings and began worshiping multiculturalism, diversity and tabula rasa fantasies. Its people willingly though unknowingly became Eloi and then invited in millions of Morlock foreigners, deluding themselves with assimilation dogma. Oh, it’s not just failure to consider that not everyone is assimilable. They also never asked: What that is attractive would the aliens assimilate into?

Our “Pride” parade mentality and reality?

“Transitioning” children to opposite-sex simulacrums and initiating them into perversion?

The “If it feels good, do it” credo?

Moderns’ mushy-headed moral relativism, which really just boils down to moral nihilism?

A people so weak and woke (but I repeat myself) that they won’t even stand up for their formative faith, history and culture?

“Men”—and I use the term loosely—so pusillanimous that they’re dominated by their own women and won’t protect them from alien tribes’ predation?

Women so lacking in character that they dress like hookers and act like hellions?

“Adults” so childish they need “safe spaces” and comfort animals and can’t even discipline their own kids?

Our culture of death (as opposed to the Morlocks’ more masculine cult of death)?

Will the Morlocks say, “Oh, sahib, can I be part of your enlightened, ethereal brotherhood?”?

Heck, the Amish and Hasidim don’t assimilate into that; I don’t, either. Why would rough foreign men with their absolutism (the wrong kind) and merciless cults?

The irony here is that the clock is ticking on this civilizational orgy of idiotic iniquity. When Muslim Democrats took over Hamtramck, Michigan’s political offices a few years back—thus creating the first U.S. locality with an Islamic mayor and all-Islamic city council—one of their moves was to ban the “Pride” flag’s display on public property. The old-line, ousted-from-power Democrats were incredulous and beside themselves. “We did everything we could to make your transition here easier,” one of the officials said mournfully, “and this is how you repay us, by stabbing us in the back?”

Well, when you live in an inverted faux reality between your ears for years, actual reality is quite the kick in the teeth.

But when the Morlocks achieved enough power, gone would be those abortion “rights,” that sexual liberty license, and those multiculturalist and diversity fantasies. Wokeness would be put to sleep—permanently.

Something else the post-Christian West doesn’t grasp is that, with Christianity’s “What you do to the least of these …” injunction, its adherents will have compassion for the weak and offer them protection. The Morlocks, no matter their place of origin, hold the weak in utter contempt. To them weakness is a sin that invites domination.

If it’s not already obvious, I’m not just picking on poor self-flagellating France. News is that Britain’s left-wing Labour Party—which had imported massive numbers of third worlders into the U.K. to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”—has surged to its largest polling lead since 2024.

In a shocking upset, Brazil just re-elected (or did it?) once-criminally-convicted socialist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

And here in the U.S., people may via midterm voting again empower our rapacious, megalomaniacal, economically illiterate and morally depraved homegrown aliens, the Democrats. After Biden administration depredations, this would be like the Titanic having backed up to hit the iceberg again.

But, “What, me worry?” say distracted Westerners. For sure, they all are busy. They have places to go, people to have sex with, and babies to kill.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X, Truth Social, MeWe, Gettr, Tumblr, Instagram or Substack or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

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© Selwyn Duke

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
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