What True Immigration ‘Reform’ Would Look Like
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Can we be honest about illegal immigration? It is a common challenge to almost every advanced Western country that is adjacent to poorer nations. American employers and ethnic activists have long colluded to weaken border enforcement and render immigration law meaningless. The former wanted greater profits from cheaper […]
The Truth About Western “Colonialism”
How the misuse of a term legitimizes the jihadist myth of Western guilt. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas Language is the first casualty of wars over foreign policy. To paraphrase Thucydides, during ideological conflict, words have to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which is now given them. One word that […]
The Obama Administration’s Chicago Politics
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Barack Obama is the first American president from Chicago. That fact will be the trailblazing Obama’s most lasting legacy. Chicago has long been stereotyped as a city where any-means-necessary politics have ruled, and where excess is […]
Donald Trump and the Fed-Up Crowd
Watching Trump’s rise, America’s middle class “fed-up crowd” is enjoying the comeuppance of an elite that never pays for the ramifications of its own ideology. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Donald Trump — a former liberal and benefactor of Democrats — is still surging. But his loud New York lingo, popular put-downs of […]
Appeasing Iran Ignores the Lessons of History
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The now-concluded Iran nuclear negotiations predictably reflect ancient truths of appeasement. While members of the Obama administration are high-fiving each other over a deal with the Iranian theocracy, they should remember unchanging laws that will surely haunt the United States later on.
More Sanctions Wouldn’t Have Stopped Iran
But one measure would have. by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Critics of President Obama’s recent deal with Iran have rejected the president’s assertion that the only alternative to his deal is war. They think that more aggressive sanctions could have changed Iran’s behavior, given the economic costs the current sanction regime has inflicted. […]
Obama and Trump: Two of a Kind
Outwardly they couldn’t be more different. But take a closer look. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online President Obama is said to feel liberated, in the sense that he can finally say what, and do as, he pleases — without much worry any more over political ramifications, including presidential and congressional elections. Obama’s […]
San Francisco: One Sick Sanctuary City
As is true daily in other sanctuary cities, San Francisco rolled the dice with someone else’s safety, resulting in the murder of Kate Steinle. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media The horrific — but likely preventable — death of Kate Steinle at the hands of five-time deported illegal alien and seven-time released felon Juan Francisco […]
The Iran Failure Has Many Fathers
The dangerous belief that words alone can transcend an eternal truth of human nature. by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Everybody knows the deal with Iran is a disaster. Why is equally obvious: Iran will get $150 billion to spend on weapons and its terrorist proxies, will keep its enrichment facilities, will continue to […]
Progressive Elites Ignore Human Nature at Everyone Else’s Expense
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Human nature is unchanging, predictable — and can be dangerous if ignored. Five-time deportee and seven-time felon Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an unauthorized immigrant, recently was arrested in San Francisco for the murder of an innocent passerby, Kate Steinle. The alleged killer told a local TV station that he […]
Want Him to Enforce Laws That Would Have Kept Kate Steinle Alive? Governor Jerry Brown Thinks You’re a ‘Troglodyte’
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Last March, California Governor Jerry Brown declared that those who wished existing federal immigration law to be enforced — in the manner that would have saved the late Kate Steinle from a five-times deported, seven-times released felon illegal alien – were: [A]t best … troglodyte, and at worst […]
The Four Horsemen of a Looming Apocalypse
Our Four Major Threats: China, Iran, Russia, ISIS-They could all be confronted. But by the Obama administration? by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The U.S. and its allies are faced with four major threats, and they are as diverse and yet as akin as the proverbial apocalyptic horsemen. Vladimir Putin has a tsarist […]
THE PRESIDENT’S LOOKING-GLASS ISLAMIC WORLD
Obama may have forgotten about “war with Islam,” but war with Islam has not forgotten about him. by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine President Obama recently gave a speech at the Pentagon about our efforts against ISIS that confirmed he has little awareness of the real world our enemies inhabit. The talk reprised the […]
Disregard for the law is America’s greatest threat
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Barbarians at the gate usually don’t bring down once-successful civilizations. Nor does climate change. Even mass epidemics like the plague that decimated sixth-century Byzantium do not necessarily destroy a culture.
Is the World Becoming Fed Up?
Faster, please: A great pushback is awakening here and abroad, but its timing, nature, and future remain mysterious. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Given European socialism, and given its therapeutic culture that assumes morality is relative and situational, it is quite stunning — especially to the Greeks — that suddenly debts are to […]
What Obama Has Taught Us
Obama has built a legacy, all right: appeasement, staggering debt, racial animosity by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online President Obama last week spiked the ball on the Supreme Court’s decisions to legalize gay marriage and to ratify the Affordable Care Act. Yet it is difficult to see quite how Obama had much to do […]
We Are All Californians Now
California Drought — Bad Policy, Poor Infrastructure By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online California is in the midst of a crippling four-year-old drought. Yet the state has built almost no major northern or central mountain reservoirs since the New Melones Dam of 1979. That added nearly 3 million acre-feet to the state’s storage reserves – a […]
ISLAM THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
The latest volume of J.B. Kelly’s essays shows how little we’ve learned about the Middle East. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas From the 1960s to the late 1990s, John Barrett Kelly was one of the most influential advisors, writers, and commentators on the Middle East. In 1980 his book Arabia, the Gulf, and […]
Progressive Mass Hysteria
Democracies have been fickle for 2,000 years, but the Internet makes it worse. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online One of the most harrowing incidents in the Athenian historian Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War is the democratic debate over the rebellious subject state of Mytilene on the distant island of Lesbos. Thucydides uses […]
Hillary Gump
Forrest Gump usually had a positive role to play at the hinges of fate; the equally ubiquitous Hillary Gump’s cameos have made history far worse. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media The fictional and cinema hero Forrest Gump somehow always managed to turn up at historic moments in the latter twentieth century. But whereas […]