By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
If it threatened to destroy its neighbor — China — the neighbor would act.
Think of the Korean Peninsula turned upside down.
Imagine if there were a South Korean dictatorship that had been in power, as a client of the United States since 1953. Continue reading “What If South Korea Acted Like North Korea?”
By Victor Davis Hanson
Defining Ideas
America is experiencing a diversity and inclusion conundrum—which, in historical terms, has not necessarily been a good thing. Communities are tearing themselves apart over the statues of long-dead Confederate generals. Controversy rages over which slogan—“Black Lives Matter” or “All Lives Matter”—is truly racist. Antifa street thugs clash with white supremacists in a major American city. Americans argue over whether the USC equine mascot “Traveler” is racist, given the resemblance of the horse’s name to Robert E. Lee’s mount “Traveller.” Amid all this turmoil, we forget that diversity was always considered a liability in the history of nations—not an asset. Continue reading “Diversity Can Spell Trouble”
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review
Narratives surrounding the DNC hack & Antifa reveal media bias and government bureaucracy at their worst.
U.S. intelligence agencies said Russia was responsible for hacking Democratic National Committee e-mail accounts, leading to the publication of about 20,000 stolen e-mails on WikiLeaks.
But that finding was reportedly based largely on the DNC’s strange outsourcing of the investigation to a private cybersecurity firm. Rarely does the victim of a crime first hire a private investigator whose findings later form the basis of government conclusions.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is many things. But so far he has not been caught lying about the origin of the leaked documents that came into his hands. He has insisted for well over a year that the Russians did not provide him with the DNC e-mails.
When it was discovered that the e-mails had been compromised, then–DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz weirdly refused to allow forensic detectives from the FBI to examine the DNC server to probe the evidence of the theft. Why did the FBI accept that refusal? Continue reading “Beware of Narratives and Misinformation”
The Corner- The one and only. // National Review
By Victor Davis Hanson
It is surreal to look at more than a dozen clips of Barack Obama in non-campaign mode prior to 2012 assuring the country (“I am not king”) that he simply could not usurp the power of the Congress and by fiat illegally issue blanket amnesties in precisely the fashion he would in 2012 — presumably on the assumption that new polls worded along the lines of “would you deport small children brought by their parents to the country as infants” showed a majority of Americans would not.
So, on the basis of both short-term gain in 2012 and long-term progressive interest in creating a new demographic reality in swing states in the southwest, Obama eagerly did exactly what he had said that he could not legally do — and not with reluctance, but with the self-righteous zeal of a convert, and in condemnation of anyone morally suspect enough to have agreed with his position prior to his reelection campaign. Such is identity politics. Continue reading “A Little DACA Honesty”
Angry Reader Sam Davidson
Victor,
I enjoy reading your articles in the National Review. I never understood why this country has statues that honor people that took up arms against the United States. I do not think there are any statues honoring Lord Cornwallis, General Santa Ana, Ludendorf, Tojo, or Hitler. The Confederates were lucky President Johnson was a Southerner and every officer over the rank of captain wasn’t shot. In my opinion this isn’t about slavery or state’s rights, it is about treason.
Best Wishes,
Sam Davidson
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Dear Kinda Angry Reader Sam Davidson,
To answer you, question why are Confederate statues somewhat different from those of a few monsters you list? Continue reading
Angry Reader Wes Bridgeman
Dear Mr. Hanson,
My father, Lt. Col. William Bridgeman (Retired), sent me the attached links and quotes that I would like to bring to your attention. This features the words of the figures themselves (Forrest and Lincoln), and I will let them speak for themselves.
Please consider a correction to your recent statements regarding Forrest, whereas he is factually innocent of “founding the KKK.” Forrest was actually a leader in civil rights, despite current dogma.
Thank you in advance,
Wes Bridgeman
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Dear Angry Reader Wes Bridgeman,
Forrest claimed that he had changed after the war (at a time when he was sick, bankrupt, and in need of commercial opportunities), but I address the issue at length in the chapter on Shiloh in Ripples of Battle; you might revisit that book and my section on Forrest and the Klan and I think you will find that he did in fact, at least stealthily, spearhead its origins.
Thank you,
Victor Hanson
By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
The love-hate relation with Putin, from the Obama-era red reset button to the current collusion hysteria, has been a disaster.
“They [the North Koreans] will eat grass but will not stop their program as long as they do not feel safe.”— Vladimir Putin, Beijing, China, September 5, 2017
China has put the U.S. into an existential dilemma. Its surrogate North Korea — whose nuclear arsenal is certainly in large part a product of Chinese technology and commercial ties — by any standard of international standing is a failed, fourth-world state. North Korean population, industry, culture, and politics would otherwise warrant very little attention.
Angry Reader Rich Laughlin
Mr. Hanson, please try using sentences with less words. Most recently, I read one of your articles that had a sentence with 44 words. Other sentences in the same article were almost as bad. Really.
You are loosing me with those lengthy paragraphs that contain so many examples of organizations, groups, etc., etc. One or two would, in most cases, satisfy the message. And, I find I have to keep a dictionary nearby while reading some of your articles.
Less is good!
Rich Laughlin
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Dear Angry Reader Rich Laughlin,
Perhaps I should agree with your Callimachean advice: μέγα βιβλίον μέγα κακόν.
Sincerely,
Victor Hanson
(and I do not get paid by the word, so my verbiage would be unprofitable and unnecessary).
Angry Reader Bob McCarthy
For one who loves to cast aspersions on political incorrectness in the use of words, maybe you should ‘splain to your readers your use of the term “Mexifornia” in decrying the Mexican “takeover” of California, as racist a piece as I’ve ever read. I find it shameful that The Bee chooses to run your right-wing screeds every Sunday. Jim Boren once defended you to me for being “local” as in Selma, as if that gives you special cred. It certainly doesn’t.
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Dear Quite Angry Reader Bob McCarthy,
Why the unhinged anger?
I do not have to “splain” anything to you, given that you clearly have never read the book Mexifornia. It was a call for legal, measured, and diverse immigration, a return to the melting pot of integration, assimilation, and intermarriage, and an immigration solution that would allow those who broke the law but who are employed, have not committed a crime, and have lengthy U.S. residence to apply for a green card and legal residence in exchange for a national policy of enforcing existing immigration law—in other words, the policies embraced by Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s. It championed a unifying multiracialism rather than a separatist multiculturalism. You have no idea of the origins of the word Mexifornia, which is not my own, but one borrowed from a preexisting and common Latino gang reference that was apparently meant to highlight ethnic tribalism. Continue reading
By Victor Davis Hanson//American Greatness
It is not healthy for a society to live two lives that are antithetical, as America has been doing in recent decades.
Disillusionment with government and popular culture arises at anger over two entirely different realities. One truth is politically correct and voiced on the news and by the government. It is often abstract and theoretical. And the other truth is empirical, hushed and accepted informally by ordinary people from what they see and hear on the ground.
Public orthodoxy signals virtue, private heterodoxy ensures ostracism. So Americans increasingly make the necessary adjustments, modeling their lives in some part as those once did in totalitarian societies of the 20th century. The reality they live is the stuff of the shadows; the falsity they are told and repeat is public and amplified.
Cynicism and eventual anger at the schizophrenia are always the harvests of such bipolarity.