Why I am so great

here are all of the scum who control oil, coal, and natural gas

here are the ones who run the factories

Happy 250th Birthday Napoleon 

You absolute walking shitpost of a man. 

Have an Aesthetic Hipster Moodboard of his Childhood™ 

Born August 15, 1769 to Letizia and Carlo Bonaparte, Napoleon was their second surviving child after his older brother Joseph. He was born, and raised for the first nine years of life, in Ajaccio, Corsica. 

We don’t know much about his childhood beyond some rather apocryphal stories and vague remembrances tinged by Empire. But here are some Fun (mostly apocryphal) “Factssssss” on Young Napoleon put together for your reading pleasure.

From what can be gathered he was a precocious, lively and very loving child who was probably an absolute handful to raise. 

He did excel at sucking up to the nuns that ran this small school he went to as a child.So whenever he got in trouble he could usually get out of it. At least with the authority figures of the school.  

He was prone to Mischief and usually dragged Joseph along with him. 

Stockings were never pulled up. Always around his ankles making him look like a Rascal (which he was, so good work there Napoleon) 

Apparently Letizia sent the children to bed with no food upon occasion in order to have them become accustomed to hardship and to learn how to suffer without showing it. Which, as a parenting technique, won’t potentially fuck your kids up at all. 

He loved numbers and had a small fort built on a balcony of their house where he would go and do math things away from everyone. 

Contrary to popular belief, at least when Napoleon was young Letizia was not the Main Religious figure of the family. The job of praying was left to his nonna. 

He was baptized when he was around two which I find interesting since most early modern, Catholic families tended to baptize their children fairly quickly in case they died young. 

He apparently had a brief career as an altar boy wherein he would make faces at his brother during Mass like any good, normal child. This did result in him getting a beating from Letizia who felt it dishonored the family more than it did God. So uh, there’s some priorities laid out for you. 

Napoleon liked to say he was born on a rug embroidered with an image of Caesar because the man loved his Symbolism but Letizia apparently replied to that story with “is it not enough that he was born, but it must be upon a rug decorated with Caesar?” (or something to that effect). Harsh take down but I dig it.  

While at Brienne he enjoyed a meal so much he made note of the menu on the inside of one of his books which I find oddly endearing. I remember chicken and chestnuts being involved so it probably reminded him of home where chestnuts were a staple of the diet. 

He took great pride that his family vinted their own wine and had this elaborate bartering system set up because actually coin-money wasn’t a big thing on Corsica. Like you’re buying cheese from the shepherds, they don’t care about your hard coinage, they want your wine. But Napoleon long had a weird (and understandable) hang up about money.  Which, as someone who also grew up with Very Little, I get. 

He apparently was made to go spy on his father to make sure he wasn’t gambling down at the cafes dock-side and he found this Humiliating and Terrible and never really forgave Letizia for putting him in the middle of their marital disputes. 

There’s more but this is long enough as is. As always, with Napoleon’s youth, things are dodgy on the accuracy and legitimacy side but whatever. The Essence feels right, which is what he would have wanted.

Oooh playing with fire. 

I’m going to go high level because there is a lot happening everywhere, all the time. 

I think he’d be disgusted by, or just generally against, Trump, Le Pen, Ferage, the alt-right, tea-partiers, mega-church movement, putting children in cages, the free press, the internet, late-night television, anti-vaxxers, anti-climate change movement (once climate change is explained to him), Franco, feminism, most modern literature (though I bet he’d like LOTR), extremists of any kind, this whole “women in politics” business, Faith Goldy, Catalonia independence movement, Islamophobia, isolationism, anti-intellectualism, anti-arts and sciences, cover up of abuses by the Catholic Church, modern fashion etc. 

For Trump especially, I think he’d find him disgusting on a personal level. Uneducated, incapable of holding a real conversation, gauche, anti-intellectual, anti-fact-based discussion, anti-science, anti-art etc. He also feel that Trump is disgracing the position of President and that he is unworthy of leadership. Napoleon would also find Trump physically repulsive as he could be a wee bit shallow in some of his assessments (though, very early modern to 19th century to assume your physical appearance is a manifestation of your interiority).

Things Napoleon would potentially support include the European Union, globalization, increased access to education, increased access to healthcare, free museums, easier immigration, modern science (imagine explaining to him that we landed a man on the moon, he’d be so chuffed), NAFTA and other trade deals, proliferation of literacy, modern medicine, Arab spring, vaccinations!, dentistry, automated manufacturing, trains planes and automobiles, a lot of our tech, modern bathtubs, hot tubs, Jacuzzi tubs, office supplies, mocking people in the college admissions scandal, reduction of religious influence in politics, national parks etc. 

QU’EST-CE QU’UN BREXIT? They sure as hell don’t know. 

So, Napoleon would probably be pro-EU, he’d just think that France should be in charge. “Hey, how about France is the hegemonic power here? Has anyone thought about that? What do you mean Luxembourg is independent? They’re so tiny. Go on Macron, take them back.” 

Napoleon at a philosophical level was fine with immigration, if not outright pro-immigration as is captured in his “it doesn’t matter which side of the Rhine you were born on, if you decided you were French then you were French” (paraphrased) encapsulating his view at a high level. (However, his de jour policies were a bit stickier.)  

He’d be against any political approach that sought to cut people off from each other. The latest isolationist swing in global politics he’d disagree with, quite vehemently I imagine.

On Brexit Napoleon’s exact words are, “Yes, go on England. Shoot yourself in the foot while you set yourself on fire. I am getting popcorn and a front row seat.” (Trust me. Those are his exact words. I asked him myself.)

Slightly more seriously, he would disagree with the Leave position. While Napoleon had respect for the UK as an economic power, things have changed drastically since 1800. I think he’d argue that, in terms of a cost-benefit-analysis, it makes greater sense for the UK to remain than to leave, regardless of one’s desire for “sovereignty” and “independence” and “idk what a Brussels is but I dislike that they have opinions about the British sausage.” 

Things I’m not sure what his opinion would be, mostly because the world has changed so radically since his life and he’d be playing a lot of catch-up if he were to be brought to life include: Putin and Russia, Syria, gay marriage, trans rights, Iraq War, nuclear weapons (I’m leaning towards Against simply because of the MAD effect. He’d see them as a pointless exercise as war is supposed to leave you ideally with something gained, not mutual destruction), carbon tax, Fake News (as he heavily regulated and controlled France’s press during his reign I think he’d be wary of the modern free press, but at the same time, I think he’d dislike the blatant anti-intellectualism and dishonesty of crying Fake News every two seconds), Israel (I’m leaning towards Support, but maybe not. Really hard to say. He’d have to have the holocaust explained. In his own time, he wanted Jewish people to fully integrate into society and become “more French.” One of his motives for liberating them from the ghettos was to encourage assimilation into broader French society), reparations (probably Against), the ICC etc. 

He would be appalled that he is sometimes compared to Hitler. Once someone sat down and explained Hitler, the Third Reich and the Holocaust to him. 

“So this uneducated, stupid, disorganized, fear mongering, hate filled, cowardly little Austrian is compared to me? This man who is no better than a picculu cani sicilianu? How Dare.” 

One thing I want to witness is someone walking Napoleon through the Cold War and nuclear arms race. He’d be so appalled at the stupidity of it. “Well that was a waste of time, energy and resources. Eternally dumb. I expected better from America!” 

Thank you for this FIERY ASK. I hope I get 0 hate mail. But we will see. 

I think from time to time on Napoleon’s hypothetical opinions on current day issues and you’re right Im sure in that he’d probably split his breeches laughing at whatever Parliament’s doing for a) having a woman in politics and b) embarrassing themselves on the world stage the way they are at the same time. I suspect he’d be fucking living for the Britain of today.

Tbh wrt LGBT stuff/trans rights it would be hard to say but I’d hesitantly suggest he might even be pro just because his style of politics often targeted oppressed groups and press-gang them into French society to further his own political aims. He might play the old “hate the sin but love the sinner” kind of game where he doesn’t necessarily approve of/care for/believe in such politics but it would also be counter to his political aims to not support them, at least in many cities and younger voters through Europe. I have NO idea how he might react to the migration crisis, but I’d suspect he’d be very pro-integration.

I also suspect he wouldn’t think much of freeze peach either, it was…not his favourite tool as a statesman !

THIS is how you do it. this is how break down a people. like the beginning. strip them of their language, along with everything else that makes them who they are.