Victor Davis Hanson Joe’s campaign handlers had three surrogate campaign messages: 1) Joe Biden was the old Joe Biden from the 1970s who was a “centrist Democrat” (He was not then nor is he now.). 2) He at least was not the left wing’s boogeyman Donald Trump (but rather a known plagiarist, prone to racist […]
Victor Davis Hanson In a much-heralded Washington Post column, David Ignatius recently called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris not to run again. But to justify such a Draconian call, he first reviewed their tenures and concluded of Joe, “In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.” Consider the logic: the more successful
Victor Davis Hanson So what happened? In a word, too much astounding wealth and too much abject poverty created a medieval keep surrounded by a village of peasantry outside the high walls. California in general, and in particular the Bay Area, ushered in the greatest concentration of wealth in civilizational history, with some nine-trillion dollars
Victor Davis Hanson Who were to blame for the San Francisco Inferno? Anarchistic leftwing state laws and ballot initiatives that green-lighted criminal activity? Grasping city, county, and state governments that both raised taxes to the nation’s highest levels and passed crushing regulations—and yet gave the taxpayers mediocre services in return? Radical and inept city attorneys
Victor Davis Hanson It should have been impossible to wreck San Francisco. It is the world’s most naturally beautiful city, with perhaps the most ideal bay, harbor, and ports of any coastal metropolis. San Francisco is America’s premier window on the East. It serves as the natural conduit of commercial and cultural exchanges with the
Victor Davis Hanson Then about six months after I had discovered them, the weasels had vanished! Or rather their entire hill on the property line above our orchard disappeared with them in it! One day they were neurotically busy as usual, then the next afternoon, two huge war surplus caterpillars were leveling the hill itself
Victor Davis Hanson My grandfather with a sentence or two had dismissed the idea that I could see a weasel, since he saw everything on the farm and had found no stoats, ferrets, or weasels. “Now Victor, I’ve never seen a weasel out here for years. You may. But I bet the coyotes ate them
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
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
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.