Dumbing Democracy Down
by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society Many in the west are interpreting the demonstrations in Egypt against Hosni Mubarak as populist expressions of “aspirations for a democratic future,” as a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron put it.
Not a Time for Wishful Thinking about Egypt
by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The fall of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak has occasioned all manner of democracy happy-talk in the West.
Obama’s 1979
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Obama’s deer-in-the-headlights, finger-to-the-wind, “I can’t believe this is happening to me” initial reaction to the Mubarak implosion has eerie precedents.
Egypt’s Identity Crisis
by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media With Egypt’s “July Revolution” of 1952, for the first time in millennia, Egyptians were able to boast that a native-born Egyptian, Gamal Abdel Nasser, would govern their nation: Ever since the overthrow of its last native pharaoh nearly 2,500 years ago, Egypt had been ruled by a host of foreign […]
Goodbye to All That: 2004-2007
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Days of Rage In times to come, the period between the failed campaign of John Kerry and the Democratic control of the Congress, coupled with the beginning of the successful surge, should be known as “The Insane Years.”
Jerry Brown, Modern Sisyphus
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services California Gov. Jerry Brown must rapidly close a $25 billion budgetary shortfall. But right now it seems almost a hopeless task since the state’s disastrous budget is a symptom, not the cause, of California’s much larger nightmare.
Cario Ironies: Same Cast of American Characters, Different Play
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The United States’ public position on Egypt is “flexible.” That in and of itself is not surprising, given the ambiguities surrounding the Cairo uprising.
Signs of the Times
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Trimalchio’s Bowl Sometime during the reign of the emperor Nero, the novelist and imperial confidant Petronius wrote a novel about life among the Roman nouveau richein the Bay of Naples.
Victor and the Savior Generals
by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas What factors decide wars? Luck? Fervent ideology? Preponderance of material resources? Or is advantage achieved by superior manpower and morale? In modern times, is victory found largely in lethal cutting-edge technology?
Clueless on Cario
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media My Three-week Victory, Your Seven-year Mess It is difficult trying to figure out what the left’s position is on democracy and the Middle East. Here’s a brief effort.
Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The 2008 financial crash originated with a housing bubble. Not long ago, the cheap-money policies of the Federal Reserve, the infusion of trillions of dollars in new foreign investment, and the misguided policies of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae all conspired to extend to millions of Americans lots […]
The Middle East and the Multicultural Nightmare
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Obama’s Multiculturalism vs. Bush’s Freedom Let us be honest. Most of George Bush’s admirable support — as voiced in his 2005 inaugural address — for freedom abroad was de facto abandoned by 2006-7. Condoleeza Rice had championed Egyptian dissidents, but within a year that advocacy was dropped and we were back […]
Why the Egyptian Revolution Can Be the Best or Worst Thing to Happen
by Raymond Ibrahim NRO’s The Corner It is clear that the media and its host of analysts are split in two camps on the Egyptian revolution: one that sees it as a wonderful expression of “people-power” that, left alone, will naturally culminate into some sort of pluralistic democracy, and another that sees only the Muslim Brotherhood, […]
What’s the Matter with Egypt?
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media In the Stars or in Them? So what’s the matter with Egypt? The same thing that is the matter with most of the modern Middle East: in the post-industrial world, its hundreds of millions now are vicariously exposed to the affluence and freedom of the West via satellite television, […]
Bewitched Animals and the Muslims Media
by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York Conspiracy theories emanating from the Muslim world are nothing new — a decade ago, Israel was accused of perpetrating the strikes of 9/11, today it is accused of perpetrating the bombings of a Coptic church — they tend to be dismissed in the West.
Thoughts on Chaos, Revolution, and Radicalism
by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s The Corner Everywhere But Iraq? No one quite knows all the causes of the unrest in Tunisia, now spreading to Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, or how this will all end, and whether this seemingly middle-class revolt dovetails to the 2009 demonstrations in Iran and the Cedar Revolution earlier […]
Proteus-in-Chief
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Barack Obama 1.0 had a solid record of hard-left governance as an Illinois state representative and US senator. He voted for partial-birth abortion, wanted all troops out of Iraq by March 2008, and proved himself the most partisan of the 100 members of the Senate, even to the […]
The Loud Passing of the Old Order
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services American reality has been turned upside down in just 20 years.
Free Men Have Free Tongues
by Bruce S. Thornton RightNetwork.com Every time a crazy person perpetrates irrational mayhem, we immediately start demanding explanations that gratify our ideological assumptions. For liberals, something in the environment drives people to such acts.
Obama’s Mandela Moment
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Anatomy of an Obama Moment In a news-obsessed culture, sometimes the media simply ignores profound stories, such as the cause of the almost inexplicable — and quite brilliantly constructed — recovery of Obama’s poll ratings.