Meet the Richerals

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by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

The new millennium has also given us a new American profile — the hip richeral. Richerals are, of course, well off. But they are even more cool and liberal. The two facts are not so much incompatible, as Stack_of_moneycomplementary.

For some, big money allows three things: wealth’s cocoon enables you to dream safely about utopia rather than being laid off and broke; it exempts you from worrying much about the high taxesand regulations needed to pay for your redistributionist fantasy agendas; and it gives you the influence, capital, and opportunities to flee from the messy ramifications of your own ideology.

The other side of being liberal is just as important for the richerals. Guilt is a primordial human emotion — usually in civilization’s history assuaged by religion and the accompanying fear of damnation in the hereafter. But richerals are more likely than average to be either agnostic or atheistic. Yet that fact does not mean that they feel any less guilty about unfairness and inequality. So they do have deities of sorts — a hip Continue reading “Meet the Richerals” →

When Failure Is Success

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For Obama’s supporters, what matters is not what he does, but what he says and represents.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

Losing a job is freedom from job lock. A budget deficit larger than in any previous administration is austerity. A mean right-wing video caused the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Al-Qaeda was long ago washed up. The Muslim Brotherhood is secular. Jihad is a personal journey. Shooting people while

Preston Kemp via Flickr
Preston Kemp via Flickr

screaming Allahu akbar! is workplace violence. Unaffordable higher premiums and deductibles are the result of an Affordable Care Act. Losing your doctor and your health-insurance plan prove you will never lose your doctor and your health-insurance plan — period! Being a constitutional lawyer means you know how to turn the IRS and the FCC on your enemies. Failure is success; lies are truth.

President Obama’s polls are creeping back up again. They do that every time the latest in the series of scandals — the IRS, AP, NSA, Benghazi, and Obamacare messes — recedes into the media memory hole. The once-outrageous IRS scandal was rebranded as psychodramatic journalists being outraged. The monitoring of AP reporters and of James Rosen is mostly “Stuff happens.” The NSA octopus was Bush’s creation. You can keep your doctor and your health plan — period — begat liberation from “job lock” and the ability to write poetry because you don’t have to work.

There will be more momentary outrages on the horizon, as a president who would fundamentally transform America continues to circumvent the Constitution to do it. The latest are the failed efforts of acting FCC director Mignon Clyburn — daughter of a Democratic stalwart, Representative James Clyburn. She dreamed about monitoring news outlets to ensure that they prove themselves correct in matters of race/class/gender thinking. Continue reading “When Failure Is Success” →

Kidnapped Nuns No Longer Bear the Cross

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by Raymond Ibrahim // World Magazine 

A new video of the twelve Christian nuns kidnapped in Syria recently appeared.  In it, the nuns are taped sitting in a room and being questionedSYRIA_-_Maaloula_sisters_n.2 by an unseen man, presumably a member of the kidnappers.  He asks them how they are, if they’ve been mistreated, etc.

They respond that they are being treated fine, that they very much look forward to being returned to their convent, that they heartily thank the world for its concern, and that they continually pray that God grant peace to all nations.

Their words say one thing, their expressions and demeanor another.  Put differently, as female captives of Islamic jihadis, what else could they say but what they were told to say?  (See, for example, how the nun in glasses had to be forced to face the camera at 1:46.)  Even if one of them dared to Continue reading “Kidnapped Nuns No Longer Bear the Cross” →

The Outdated Business Model of Diversity, Inc.

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In today’s divided society, universities would be wise to stress unity and academic rigor.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

Diversity has become corporatized on American campuses, with scores of bureaucrats and administrators accentuating different pedigrees and

Americophile via wikicommons
Americophile via wikicommons

ancestries. That’s odd, because diversity  no longer means “variety” or “points of difference,” in the way it used to be defined.

Instead, diversity has become an industry synonymous with orthodoxy and intolerance, especially in its homogeneity of political thought.

When campuses sloganeer “celebrate diversity,” that does not mean they encourage all sorts of political views. If it did, faculties and student groups would better reflect the U.S.’s political realities and might fall roughly into two equal groups: liberal and conservative.

Do colleges routinely invite graduation speakers who are skeptical of man-made global warming, and have reservations about present abortion laws, gay marriage, or illegal immigration — if only for the sake of ensuring diverse views?

Nor does diversity mean consistently ensuring that institutions should reflect “what America looks like.”

If it did, all sorts of problems could follow. As we see in the NBA and NFL, for example, many of our institutions do not always reflect the proportional racial and ethnic makeup of America. Do we really want all institutions to weigh diversity rather than merit so that coveted spots reflect the race and gender percentages of American society?

Does anyone care that for decades the diverse state of California’s three most powerful elected officials have been most undiverse? Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara Boxer, and Senator Dianne Feinstein are all mature women, quite liberal, very wealthy, married to rich professionals or entrepreneurs, and all once lived within commuting distance of each other in the Bay Area. Continue reading “The Outdated Business Model of Diversity, Inc.” →

New York Times Biased Coverage on Muslim Persectution

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by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com 

The New York Times has finally found a victim of Islamic aggression in Nigeria worth reporting on: homosexuals.   In a big spread complete with pictures appearing last week, the NYT’s Adam Nossiter wrote “Wielding Whip and a Hard New Law, Nigeria Tries to ‘Sanitize’ Itself of Gays.” Continue reading “New York Times Biased Coverage on Muslim Persectution” →

Let’s Save California Now!

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by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media 

Just a handful of legislative acts might still save California. Here are 12 brief examples:

1. The Hetch Hetchy Smelt and Salmon Act

This so-called “Skip a Shower, Save a Smelt Act” would transfer control of the Hetch 800px-Flag_of_California.svgHetchy reservoir releases from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The legislation would dismantle sections of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct west beyond the San Joaquin River, stop the present unnatural diversion of fresh water to San Francisco, and allow instead Hetch Hetchy fresh water to resume natural flows to the San Joaquin River — thus allowing the San Joaquin River and Tuolumne River to recover their salmon populations.

In addition, the transfers of fresh Hetch Hetchy water into the delta and beyond to the Pacific Ocean would preserve delta smelt populations.  To make up the losses, the law Continue reading “Let’s Save California Now!” →

Lessons of World War I

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Much of what we think we know is false; what really happened matters desperately to us today.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

This summer will mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, and we 800px-Royal_Irish_Rifles_ration_party_Somme_July_1916should reflect on the “lessons” we have been taught so often on how to avoid another such devastating conflict. Chief among them seems to be the canard that the Versailles Treaty of 1919 that officially ended the war caused a far worse one just 20 years later — usually in the sense of an unnecessary harshness accorded a defeated Imperial Germany.

But how true is that common argument of what John Maynard Keynes called a “Carthaginian peace”? Continue reading “Lessons of World War I” →