Why Do Societies Give Up?

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Why do once-successful societies ossify and decline?

Hundreds of reasons have been adduced for the fall of Rome and the end of the Old Regime in 18th-century France. Continue reading “Why Do Societies Give Up?”

The Tangled Web of Race

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

A number of commentators have openly sympathized with multi-murderer Christopher Dorner, who shot seven innocent people, killing four of them. Apparently, the late Dorner was a voice in the wilderness crying out against the racist injustice of the “system.” Continue reading “The Tangled Web of Race”

The Face of Things to Come

by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

Campaign Rhetoric

The campaign contour is pretty clear: The Obama reelection team will not make the case for the advantages and popularity of Obamacare, for the Chuian advantages of $4-a-gallon gas, for the dynamism of a 1.7 percent GDP growth rate, for the stimulatory effects of adding $5 trillion in new debt, or for why 8 percent unemployment does not qualify under the old rubric of a “jobless recovery.” Continue reading “The Face of Things to Come”

The Super Bowl Farmers

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Chrysler’s Super Bowl Ram Truck commercial praising the American farmer was an unexpected big hit and is still being replayed around the country on talk radio. Rich Lowry[1] and Peggy Noonan[2] both contrasted the authenticity of that commercial fantasy with the falsity of the real event. Continue reading “The Super Bowl Farmers”

Obama’s Hypocritic Oath

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Barack Obama has a habit of identifying a supposed crisis in collective morality, damning straw men “them” who engage in such ethical lapses, soaring with rhetorical bromides — and then, to national quiet, doing more or less the exact things he once swore were ruining the country. Continue reading “Obama’s Hypocritic Oath”

Brennan’s Testimony and Waterboarding Misinformation

by Bruce S. Thornton

FrontPage

The Senate Intelligence Committee last week grilled Obama’s pick to head the CIA, John Brennan, on all sorts of issues. Democrats worked him over about the CIA’s interrogation, detention, and droning of terrorist suspects, while Republicans were concerned about leaks of classified information. Continue reading “Brennan’s Testimony and Waterboarding Misinformation”

Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama once called for a “reset” policy with Iran. Supposedly, the unpopularity of the Texan provocateur George W. Bush and his administration’s inability to finesse “soft power” had needlessly alienated the Iranian theocracy. Continue reading “Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0”

It’s a Mad, Mad World

by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

Dorner Debacle

It is hard to remember worse coverage of a catastrophe than what we are given about the ex-cop Christopher Dorner’s murdering rampage. Some reprehensible pundits, ever so easily, fall into blaming LAPD and its “history of racism,” in a sorta, kinda contextualizing of Dorner’s brutal killing of innocents by the specter of Rodney King. Continue reading “It’s a Mad, Mad World”

Incoherent Immigration Reform

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up. Continue reading “Incoherent Immigration Reform”

Diplomacy: What Not To Do

by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

1980 Redux

We are in scary times. The horrific photos of Ambassador Stevens bring to mind memories of Mogadishu or Fallujah, and make us ask why were there not dozens, if not vastly more, Marines around him in his hour of need. By preemptively caving into radical Islam and not defending the US Constitution and our traditions of protecting even uncouth expression, the Cairo embassy’s shameful communiqué only invited greater hostility by such manifest appeasement. Continue reading “Diplomacy: What Not To Do”