The Last Generation of the West and the Thin Strand of Civilization

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by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media 

Had the Greeks lost at Salamis, Western civilization might easily have been strangled in its adolescence. Had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union, the European democracies would have probably remained overwhelmed. And had the Japanese just sidestepped the Philippines and Pearl Harbor, as they gobbled up the orphaned Pacific colonies of a defunct Western Europe, the Pacific World as we know it now might be a far different, far darker place. Continue reading “The Last Generation of the West and the Thin Strand of Civilization” →

Gen. Sisi: ‘Religious Discourse Greatest Challenge Facing Egypt’

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by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com 

According to Egyptian media, during his recent speech at the Dept. of Moral Affairs for the Armed Forces, Gen. Abdul Fateh al-Sisi—the man who ousted former President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood in response to the Continue reading “Gen. Sisi: ‘Religious Discourse Greatest Challenge Facing Egypt’” →

The Israel Double Standard

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The prejudice against Israel in diplomatic matters is as troubling as more cruse bigotry agains Jews.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

An obscure academic organization called the American Studies Association not long ago voted to endorse a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli universities. The self-appointed moralists were purportedly outraged over the Israeli

MathKnight and Zachi Evenor
MathKnight and Zachi Evenor

government’s treatment of Palestinians.

Given academia’s past obsessions with the Jewish state, the targeting of Israel is not new. Yet why do the professors focus on Israel and not Saudi Arabia, which denies women the right to drive and only recently granted them the right to vote? Why not Russia, which has been accused of suppressing free speech, or Nigeria, which has passed retrograde anti-homosexual legislation?

The hip poet Amiri Baraka (a.k.a. Everett LeRoi Jones) recently died. He was once poet laureate of New Jersey, held prestigious university posts, and was canonized with awards — despite being a hateful anti-Semite.

After 9/11, Baraka wrote a poem that suggested Israel knew about the plan to attack the World Trade Center. One of his poems from the ’60s included this unabashedly anti-Semitic passage: “Smile, jew. Dance, jew. Continue reading “The Israel Double Standard” →

The Idol of Equality

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To put equality ahead of liberty is to war against human nature.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

447px-Alexis_de_tocqueville“There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”

—Alexis de Tocqueville

In his famous admonition about the tyranny of the majority, Tocqueville went on to warn that “Liberty is not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty, and if they miss their aim resign themselves to their disappointment; but nothing can satisfy them except equality, and rather than lose it they resolve to perish.” Continue reading “The Idol of Equality” →

Armenian Christians Pressured to Convert to Islam

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by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com 

Arabic language websites reported earlier this week that the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—which, throughout the course of the war against the Assad government has committed any number of atrocities, from decapitating “infidels” to burning churches—has successfully “forced” two Armenian Christian families to convert to Islam. Continue reading “Armenian Christians Pressured to Convert to Islam” →

The Rural Way

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by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media 

Hard physical work is still a requisite for a sound outlook on an ever more crazy world. I ride a bike; but such exercise is not quite the same, given that the achievement of

Richard Croft
Richard Croft

doing 35 miles is therapeutic for the body and mind, but does not lead to a sense of accomplishment in the material sense — a 30-foot dead tree cut up, a shed rebuilt, a barn repainted. I never quite understood why all these joggers in Silicon Valley have immigrants from Latin America doing their landscaping. Would not seven hours a week spent raking and pruning be as healthy as jogging in spandex — aside from the idea of autonomy that one receives by taking care of one’s own spread?

On the topic of keeping attuned with the physical world: if it does not rain (and the “rainy” season is about half over with nothing yet to show for it), the Bay Area and Los Angeles will see some strange things that even Apple, Google, and the new Continue reading “The Rural Way” →

What Is It about Hubris Politicians Don’t Get?

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by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner 

Gage Skidmore via Flickr
Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Have any of them taken two hours to read one Sophoclean play?

A reelected and proudly iconoclastic Christie in recent months relished in his swagger, braggadocio, media celebrity, and often picked fights, apparently assuming that his first-persona laced speeches and gestures were immune from the sort of nemesis that now has finally caught up with Barack Obama. His only out is the “Obama defense,” which so far has been used so successfully with the IRS and AP scandals: Outrage is voiced; promises to get to the bottom of the mess are made; aides are sent before congressional committees and occasionally sacrificed; shock is expressed at any who would dare to suggest a culture and example were set by the man at the top. Continue reading “What Is It about Hubris Politicians Don’t Get?” →

Is China copying the old imperial Japan

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by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media 

In the 1920s, Japan began to translate its growing economic might — after a prior 50-year crash course in Western capitalism and industrialization — into formidable military power. Continue reading “Is China copying the old imperial Japan” →

The Fruit of Obama’s Abandonment of Iraq

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by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine 

Anbar province, the region of Iraq that 1,300 American soldiers died pacifying, is at risk of being taken over by al Qaeda jihadists and their affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Continue reading “The Fruit of Obama’s Abandonment of Iraq” →