Victor Davis Hanson For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labor and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them. νῦν γὰρ δὴ γέος ἐστὶ σιδήρεον: οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἦμαρ παύονται καμάτου καὶ ὀιζύος, οὐδέ τι νύκτωρ φθειρόμενοι. χαλεπὰς δὲ θεοὶ […]
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Victor Davis Hanson We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture
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Victor Davis Hanson Nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus. “We can endure neither our vices nor the remedies for them.” Livy There are unfortunately other barometers of U.S. ossification. America’s great strength was also its security. We were protected by two oceans and a similar English-majority speaking and constitutional state on our northern border.
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Victor Davis Hanson And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias” I say America is in serious
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Victor Davis Hanson Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget! Rudyard Kipling, “Recessional” There is proverbially a lot of rot in any great nation, which accordingly
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Victor Davis Hanson The architects of decivilization are the supposed elites who come out of our purported top schools, with allegedly impressive alphabetic degrees after their names. A Pete Buttigieg is a good example of their pomposity and incompetence, as he lectures us about racist freeway clover-leaf ramps, but cannot deal with an imploding air
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Victor Davis Hanson The Biden administration, with assent from California politicos, bureaucrats, Indian tribes, and green activists, is partnering with the state to destroy four major dams on Northern California’s Klamath River. Their ostensible idea is to facilitate better salmon runs, in part due to concessions to Native American lobbyists. The government brags that the
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Victor Davis Hanson We are the most powerful country in civilization’s history but not invulnerable. Even America will finally bleed out if we continue to open our own veins. Was it $40, $50, or $60 billion in equipment, weapons, supplies, and infrastructure that the U.S. simply abandoned in Afghanistan? That was that—no problem? We had
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Victor Davis Hanson Yet at that ancient time of such misery, I remember then thinking of the pep talk of Aeneas who tried to lift the spirits of his defeated Trojans, scattered by storm and defeat. I had just read Book 2 the prior week—Aeneid Book 2, Line 203—when the hero riles up his exhausted
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Victor Davis Hanson One baleful symptom of approaching 70 is spending more time thinking of the past than of the future—supposedly a tic that is incompatible with healthy aging and longevity. In fact, such retreats into the past are dangerous: siren-like they lure you away from the present conundrum and suck you into the past
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