The Razor’s Edge

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

California in the Balance

We calibrate California’s decline by its myriad of paradoxes. The nation’s highest bundle of gas, sales, and income taxes cannot close the nation’s largest annual deficit at $25 billion. Continue reading “The Razor’s Edge”

A Man-Made Energy Crisis

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Gas is well over $4 a gallon in most places in California — and soaring elsewhere as well. But are such high energy prices good or bad? Continue reading “A Man-Made Energy Crisis”

America Through the Looking Glass

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

President Obama yesterday praised Brazil for its new offshore oil industry and said he wants to buy as much oil as possible in this new win-win partnership — although we have piled up $5 trillion in new debt, curtailed new petroleum exploration off shore and in the West, as well as kept Alaska off-limits. Continue reading “America Through the Looking Glass”

Some Very Bad American Habits

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

The wealthier and more leisured American society has become, the more it has developed some terrible habits that will have to end if we are going to return to fiscal sobriety and a unified culture. I am pessimistic on that count, but here are a few examples: Continue reading “Some Very Bad American Habits”

Making It Up As We Go Along

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Being There

Gone is Bush the great Constitution-shredder. Tribunals, renditions, Predators, wiretaps, Iraq, Guantanamo, preventative detention — these are now either embraced or expanded. Iraq (“the surge is not working”) is Obama’s “greatest achievement.” Continue reading “Making It Up As We Go Along”

The New Sophists

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

In classical Athens, public life became dominated by clever and smart-sounding sophists. These mellifluous “really wise guys” made money and gained influence by their rhetorical boasts to “prove” the most amazing “thinkery” that belied common sense. Continue reading “The New Sophists”