Building the New Dark-Age Mind
America’s descent into the Dark Ages will not end well. It never has in the past. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media History is not static and it does not progress linearly. There was more free speech and unimpeded expression in 5th-century Athens than in Western Europe between 1934-45, or in Eastern Europe during […]
The Three Obamas
Hope and Change was left behind long ago. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The public has come to know three Obamas. But which, if any, of these portraits is real, and which are fantasies? Aside from those who automatically support Obama because he is a redistributionist Democrat, and those who automatically oppose him […]
What’s Driving the Influx of Migrants and Refugees to the West?
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Tuscany — Northern and central Italy are not on the southern Mediterr-anean. But somehow thousands of refugees from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East are everywhere here — as is true of much of the European Union. Some sleep on park benches. Many peddle knock-off electronic goods and […]
Junk Journalism
What the MSM calls “reporting” is often just activism, careerism, and narcissism to advance the Democrat agenda. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Once upon a time, Dan Rather — the fallen CBS celebrity anchorman from the evening news and at 60 Minutes – was the master of “gotcha” journalism. Rather would play up his […]
The Global Pottersville
Where previous presidents fostered American strength, Obama revels in weakness. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Director Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, set during the Depression, was a divine counterfactual thought experiment designed to remind a suicidal George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) that his hometown, Bedford Falls, would have turned out to be […]
Islamic Supremacism: The True Source of Muslim ‘Grievances’
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com In the ongoing debate (or debacle) concerning free speech/expression and Muslim grievance—most recently on exhibition at Garland, where two “jihadis” opened fire on a “Prophet Muhammad” art contest organized by Pamela Geller—one thing has become clear: the things non-Muslims can do to provoke Islamic violence is limitless and far exceeds cartoons.
The Home of Intellectual Populism Could Use Your Help
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO- The Corner I have written for National Review since the third bleak day after September 11, 2001, and have not missed a column since. I live and work on the West Coast, but the editors and writers at NR in New York over the years have seemed like a family, […]
Why the Next President Will Face a Dangerous Predicament Abroad
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online For a time, reset, concessions, and appeasement work to delay wars. But finally, nations wake up, grasp their blunders, rearm, and face down enemies. That gets dangerous. The shocked aggressors cannot quite believe that their targets are suddenly serious and willing to punch back. Usually, the bullies foolishly […]
Disasters at Home and Abroad
From ISIS at Ramadi to riots at home, nothing is going right. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” – W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” Things are starting to collapse, abroad and at home. We all sense it, even […]
Obama and Hillary Are All Too Happy to Coerce Acceptance of Their Agendas
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online What happens when the public does not wish to live out the utopian dreams of its elite leaders? Usually, the answer for those leaders is to seek more coercion and less liberty to force people to think progressively. Here at home, President Barack Obama came into power […]
We’re Still Dumbing Down the Iraq War
The truth about the danger of Saddam Hussein and why we went into Iraq. by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Jeb Bush tangled himself up recently when he tried to answer a dumb question on the intelligence failures about Iraq’s WMDs and their role in going to war with Saddam Hussein in 2003. I’m […]
Were We Right to Take Out Saddam?
Public opinion veers with every change in current conditions in Iraq. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Probable Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush got himself into trouble by sort of, sort of not, answering the question whether he would have supported going into Iraq in 2003 — had he known then what we know […]
Pathei Mathos: What I Relearned the Last 12 Months
What doesn’t kill me, makes me sadder. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia Greek tragedy often ends with a succession of personal disasters that doom an Oedipus or Ajax — apparently part of a divinely inspired nemesis (retribution) to pay back personal hubris (overweening pride). The latter flaw seems to grow and grow until fate […]
George Stephanopoulos’s Clinton Foundation Hypocrisy Is Staggering
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO-The Corner The problem with George Stephanopoulos’s Clinton-gate mess is that his own words prove him to be both a bully and a hypocrite, as well as abjectly unethical. Set aside the fact that — if not outed — he would likely never have informed his viewership about his contributions […]
Lying Inc.
Lying is insidious. When it becomes institutionalized at the top, cynicism and lawlessness follow below. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia Heroic quarterback Tom Brady was apparently caught lying about his involvement in deflating footballs. One assumes that such prevarication counts for little in the larger scheme of football and Tom Brady’s own career trajectory. […]
Hillary Can’t Win. Or Can She?
Can a person with no experience, no achievements, and no likability fool a majority of voters? by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Hillary Clinton has formally announced she is running for president. Thus begins one of the most interesting and consequential political experiments in American history, one that will unfold over the next year […]
Why America Was Indispensable to the Allies’ Winning World War II
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online May 8 marked the end of World War II in Europe 70 years ago — a horrific conflict that is still fought over by historians. More than 60 million people perished — some 50 million of them in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China. The pre-war […]
The First — and a Half — Amendment
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Free speech and artistic and intellectual expression have been controversial Western traditions since the rise of the classical-Greek city-state. When our Founding Fathers introduced guarantees of such freedoms to our new nation, they were never intended to protect thinkers whom we all admire or traditionalists who produce beloved […]
The Failed Tactic of Flattering Islam Won’t Go Away
Why admiring the Muslim world won’t stop the bloodshed. by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The recent attack in Texas against a “draw Mohammed” event ended up with two dead jihadis and widespread criticism of event organizer Pamela Geller for “inciting” or “provoking” the assault on our First Amendment right to free speech. The […]
America’s Politicized Tax Enforcement Is a Harbinger of Decline
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Why did Rome and Byzantium fall apart after centuries of success? What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional fourth-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece? The answer is usually not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them. What ruins societies is well known: too much […]