Opinion of Maximilien de Robespierre?

[hangfan91]

French revolutionary leader of the Jacobins, guillotined the King and the greedy aristocrats in France during the French revolution.

FF IMO.

[TNF]

One of the greatest of all time.

[politicus]

French revolutionary leader of the Jacobins, guillotined the King and the greedy aristocrats in France during the French revolution.

FF IMO.

Polled in June https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=194491.0. Why don't you start using the search function?

[SWE]

FF, duh

[Rockefeller GOP]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

French revolutionary leader of the Jacobins, guillotined the King and the greedy aristocrats in France during the French revolution.

FF IMO.

Do you know anything about the French Revolution?

[TNF]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

He became a monarchist?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Why on earth are the leftists supporting the guy who sent the Hebertists to the guillotine and supressed the Enragés?

Obvious HP btw.

[Bigby]

Obvious HP. The Bourbons weren't that better, but two wrongs never make a right.

[Sopranos Republican]

Awesome

[DemPGH]

One of the monsters and the worst sort of cultist. HP. Many, many, many folks of the lower classes his committees sent to the guillotine.

[Cory]

One of the greatest of all time.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

He became a monarchist?

He became a power-hungry monster, killing tons of innocent people.

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

Why on earth are the leftists supporting the guy who sent the Hebertists to the guillotine and supressed the Enragés?

Bloodlust-fuelled

[7,052,770]

Certainly a fun historical figure to read about.

HP obviously, but not really any worse than the Louises.

[TNF]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

He became a monarchist?

He became a power-hungry monster, killing tons of innocent people.

While the guillotine was undoubtedly used in error here or there on someone who might not have deserved to meet the fate that they did, the overall policy of The Terror was the correct one. Robespierre was not a monster, he was a revolutionary dedicated to the eradication of the aristocracy and those counterrevolutionaries that wanted to turn back the clock on French democracy. Every aristocrat tried and executed was guilty by virtue of being an aristocrat in the first place, so the number of innocent people that ended up meeting the blade is likely a very low one.

[Yelnoc]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

He became a monarchist?

He became a power-hungry monster, killing tons of innocent people.

While the guillotine was undoubtedly used in error here or there on someone who might not have deserved to meet the fate that they did, the overall policy of The Terror was the correct one. Robespierre was not a monster, he was a revolutionary dedicated to the eradication of the aristocracy and those counterrevolutionaries that wanted to turn back the clock on French democracy. Every aristocrat tried and executed was guilty by virtue of being an aristocrat in the first place, so the number of innocent people that ended up meeting the blade is likely a very low one.

You're trying too hard.

[politicus]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

He became a monarchist?

He became a power-hungry monster, killing tons of innocent people.

While the guillotine was undoubtedly used in error here or there on someone who might not have deserved to meet the fate that they did, the overall policy of The Terror was the correct one. Robespierre was not a monster, he was a revolutionary dedicated to the eradication of the aristocracy and those counterrevolutionaries that wanted to turn back the clock on French democracy. Every aristocrat tried and executed was guilty by virtue of being an aristocrat in the first place, so the number of innocent people that ended up meeting the blade is likely a very low one.

The idea that you can be "guilty" by virtue of belonging to a particular social class (or caste or ethnicity etc.) is terrifying.

[TNF]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

He became a monarchist?

He became a power-hungry monster, killing tons of innocent people.

While the guillotine was undoubtedly used in error here or there on someone who might not have deserved to meet the fate that they did, the overall policy of The Terror was the correct one. Robespierre was not a monster, he was a revolutionary dedicated to the eradication of the aristocracy and those counterrevolutionaries that wanted to turn back the clock on French democracy. Every aristocrat tried and executed was guilty by virtue of being an aristocrat in the first place, so the number of innocent people that ended up meeting the blade is likely a very low one.

The idea that you can be "guilty" by virtue of belonging to a particular social class (or caste or ethnicity etc.) is terrifying.

Except that social class is absolutely nothing like race or ethnicity. Nice try though.

[politicus]

Sour grapes HP who became what he claimed to hate.

He became a monarchist?

He became a power-hungry monster, killing tons of innocent people.

While the guillotine was undoubtedly used in error here or there on someone who might not have deserved to meet the fate that they did, the overall policy of The Terror was the correct one. Robespierre was not a monster, he was a revolutionary dedicated to the eradication of the aristocracy and those counterrevolutionaries that wanted to turn back the clock on French democracy. Every aristocrat tried and executed was guilty by virtue of being an aristocrat in the first place, so the number of innocent people that ended up meeting the blade is likely a very low one.

The idea that you can be "guilty" by virtue of belonging to a particular social class (or caste or ethnicity etc.) is terrifying.

Except that social class is absolutely nothing like race or ethnicity. Nice try though.

First, I did not mention race.

Second, in a pre-modern society you were born into a certain estate (nobility, clergy, bourgeois, peasantry etc.) and could not change that, it was much closer to the Indian caste system than modern social class distinctions. How should French aristocrats have become non-aristocrats? (and therefore in your logic allowed to live). Even aristocrats sympathetic to the revolution where executed due to their birth under the reign of terror.

Third, even class is not something you choose and can necessarily easily change and revolutionary regimes have generally applied class distinctions quite arbitrarily like the Soviet use of Kulak to include basically anyone in the peasantry that opposed the regime.

[The Mikado]

Sent Olympe de Gouges to the guillotine for pointing out the hypocrisy of the patriarchal misogynistic assholes of the Jacobin Club and put Tom Paine on death row simply because he was foreign, despite probably being more revolutionary than half the Jacobins (Paine ended up surviving because Robespierre's execution happened before his date with the guillotine).  Ended up in trouble solely because he turned on his own followers and had to be killed to ensure their protection.  I'm not sure how you can really defend a figure like this.

[MurrayBannerman]

HP, but an incredibly fascinating character of history.

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

I'm not sure how you can really defend a figure like this.

Bloodlust-fuelled

Always. ALWAYS. True Leftists f[inks]ing love revolutionary bloodshed more than Freepers lust for CWII.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I really don't understand TNF's position here ... even if the Terror was necessary, Robespierre's paranoia and personal failures ensured him to be counterproductive. His stupidity led to the Bonaparte coup and a reactionary wave that erased many of the new freedoms of the period.

Plus, it wasn't as if only the nobles were executed - the vast majority of people killed were working class. And, of course, he executed Lavoisier; who was only guilty of being naive.

I don't think he's a monster a la Hitler, but he was utterly ruined by power.

[The Mikado]

I have to work under the impression that TNF isn't very familiar with the particulars of Jacobin rule, because there really isn't much there to admire.  Most of the victims of Robespierre, St. Just, Marat, Danton, and their colleagues weren't exactly upper crust and very few were royalists or other reactionaries, they were the original leaders of the French Revolution, who either ended up guillotined or fleeing into exile like Dumouriez, the original military hero of the revolution who ended up leading exile anti-Republican forces because his service to the state made him a target of jealous Jacobins.  The war the Jacobins led against "counterrevolutionary" peasants in the Vendee fighting to preserve their king and priests and the faith of their fathers left the entire region devastated and the culture of the region demolished as tens of thousands of civilians were massacred in a state-sponsored campaign of terror and crimes against humanity.

EDIT: Of course, I have no predilection for sympathy for revolution or social upheaval.  TNF does, which means he's forced into defending the consequences, no matter how problematic or counterproductive they are.  It's an intellectual trap that leads to things like Noam Chomsky defending the Khmer Rouge.