Words Matter

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 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.

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

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