History

Explaining the Democrats’ Success

by Bruce Thornton FrontPage Magazine The election postmortem has identified all manner of causes for the Republicans’ defeat, from the “woman problem” and the “Hispanic problem,” as Peggy Noonan put it, to Romney’s fat cat persona and his inept campaign. But there’s a simpler reason, one consistent with the critics of democracy starting in ancient

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Sophocles in Benghazi

by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media What separated the great Athenian tragedian Sophocles from dozens of his contemporaries — now mere names attached to fragments and quotations — were his unmatched characters, an Ajax, Antigone, or Oedipus whose proverbially fatal flaws ultimately led to their own self-destruction. Share This

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One Nation, Under God?

by Bruce Thornton Defining Ideas The role of religion in American social and political life is an ever-present element in our civic conversation. The recent controversy over the contraception mandate ignited a smoldering conflict over just this issue. Share This

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The New Reactionaries

by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Starting in the 1930s and continuing after the war, the Democrats offered a liberal critique of, or perhaps enhancement to, the Republican vision of rugged individualism. A modern American state now had the capital and the moral ambition to smooth the rougher edges of capitalism by insisting on

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Are We Doomed?

by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Sometimes societies find themselves in pernicious cycles in which the perceived medicine seems worse than the known disease. The Roman satirist Juvenal lamented the ill effects of free food and free entertainment for the masses (“bread and circuses”) in part because he knew there was no remedy for

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When Land Is History

by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media This winter I watched a new owner of the farm parcel next to mine bring in enormous Caterpillar equipment and land-levelers. He ripped out every living tree and bush. He changed the very contours of the land, flattening even the once rolling hills. Within days, arose a postmodern almond

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