Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers

Tag Archives: Trayvon Martin

Our Truest Lies

September 24, 2013 10:30 am /

If the truth doesn’t deserve social justice — well, tell a noble lie.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

At the end of John Ford’s classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the editor of the local paper decides not to print the truth about who really killed the murderous Valance. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”Aaron_Alexis-FBI_Image

Legends now become facts in America at almost lightning speed. Often when lies are asserted as truth, they become frozen in time. Even the most damning later exposure of their falsity never quite erases their currency. As Jonathan Swift sighed, “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

After the recent shooting tragedy at the Washington Navy Yard, cable news shows, newspaper reports, and talking heads immediately blasted lax gun laws. The killer, Aaron Alexis, had mowed down 20 innocent people — twelve of them fatally — with yet again the satanic AR-15 semi-automatic “assault” rifle. The mass murdering was supposedly more proof of the lethal pathologies of the National Rifle Association and the evil shooter crowd Read more →

Posted in: Mainstream Media, Political Culture, Race in America / Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Our Postmodern Angst

August 13, 2013 12:24 pm /

In our unheroic age, victimhood has replaced valiant struggle.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

In the globally connected and affluent world of the 21st century, we thankfully have evolved a long way from the elemental poverty, hunger, and ethnic, religious, and racial hatred that were mostly the norm of the world until the last century.800px-Beer_summit_cheers

Yet who would know of such progress — and the great sacrifices made to achieve it — from the howls of our postmodern oppressed? In fact, the better life has become, the more victimized modern affluent Westerners seem to act. Read more →

Posted in: America's Future, Race in America, Civilization / Tagged: , , , , ,

Untruth at The New Yorker

July 29, 2013 11:00 am /

A column on the Trayvon Martin case elicits an egregious attack.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

It is rare to read an essay in which almost every statement is wrong, but that is the case with “A Sermon on Race from National Review” by one Kelefa Sanneh, appearing on The New Yorker’s website — little more than McCarthyite character assassination in the form of a reply to my column this week on the president’s and the attorney general’s reactions to the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case.

Read more →

Posted in: Race in America, Race / Tagged: , , ,

Facing Facts about Race

July 23, 2013 11:51 am /

Young black males are at greater risk from their peers than from the police or white civilians.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

Last week President Obama weighed in again on the Trayvon Martin episode. Sadly, most of what he said was wrong, both literally and ethically. Read more →

Posted in: Race in America / Tagged: , , , , , ,

Lying in the Age of Obama

July 23, 2013 11:40 am /

By Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

A Nation of Liars

The attorney general of the United States lied recently to Congress [1]. He said he knew of no citizen’s communications that his department had monitored. Lie!

In fact, Holder knew [2] that his subordinates were targeting reporters. He also did not tell the truth about the New Black Panthers case [3]. He had sworn that there was no political decision to drop the case. Not true; the decision came from the top. He again lied about the time frame in which he first learned of the Fast and Furious case [4]. Read more →

Posted in: Political Culture, The Left / Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Supposed Crimes of the Mind

July 11, 2013 5:32 pm /

With hate speech, it’s the perceived ideology of the perpetrator that matters most.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

By WorkerBee [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

When do insensitive words destroy reputations?

It all depends.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen was dropped by her TV network, her publisher, and Read more →

Posted in: Race in America / Tagged: , , , ,

Presidential Rhetoric

April 24, 2013 6:46 pm /

by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

If only the president might show the same audacity to weigh in on the murderous Tsarnaev brothers as he did when he expressed his displeasure during the ongoing Henry Louis Gates or Trayvon Martin matters Read more →

Posted in: Punditry, Commentary / Tagged: , , ,

Obama’s Non-Triangulation

March 16, 2013 4:11 pm /

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

After the election, dozens of op-eds — I wrote one myself — cautioned the president about second-term overreach, focusing on how either hubris or simple fate has seemed to do in most modern second presidential terms. Read more →

Posted in: Commentary / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Tangled Web of Race

February 21, 2013 7:39 pm /

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

A number of commentators have openly sympathized with multi-murderer Christopher Dorner, who shot seven innocent people, killing four of them. Apparently, the late Dorner was a voice in the wilderness crying out against the racist injustice of the “system.” Read more →

Posted in: Human Rights, Identity Politics, Race in America / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Trayvon Martin Case and the Growing Racial Divide

April 18, 2012 11:52 pm /

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Two Racial Narratives — and the Current Hysteria

Polls show that the Trayvon Martin case has split the country apart over perceptions of race and justice, in ways that may dwarf the polarities of the O.J. Simpson trial days of 1994. Read more →

Posted in: Identity Politics, Race in America / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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