by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
There is a different sort of racialist derangement spreading in the country — and it is getting ugly. Continue reading “The New Racial Derangement Syndrome”
A Short History of Amorous Generals
by Victor Davis Hanson
Defining Ideas
Many were as pursuant of women as they were of the enemy — and the former rarely impaired the latter.
“You’re a very bad man.” So yelled Dorothy at the Wizard of Oz, once the imposing, larger-than-life face on the screen was revealed to be a mere projection of a tiny old man behind a curtain fidgeting with levers and knobs. Continue reading “A Short History of Amorous Generals”
Conservative Populism
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
The conservative failure in 2012 was not an inability to appeal to hyphenated groups on the basis of ethnic, gender, and age identification. Instead, there was a general cluelessness about how to reach the middle and working classes of all races and ethnicities by explaining how conservative principles are not just for the rich. Continue reading “Conservative Populism”
Modern Wisdom from Ancient Minds
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
The Tragic View
Of course we can acquire a sense of man’s predictable fragilities from religion, the Judeo-Christian view in particular, or from the school of hard knocks. Losing a grape crop to rain a day before harvest, or seeing a warehouse full of goods go up in smoke the week before their sale, or being diagnosed with leukemia on the day of a long-awaited promotion convinces even the most naïve optimist that the world sort of works in tragic ways that we must accept, but do not fully understand. Continue reading “Modern Wisdom from Ancient Minds”
Let the Real Fat Cats Pay Their Fair Share
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
Who exactly were the rich who, as the president said, were not “paying their fair share”? The rapper Jay-Z (net worth: nearly $500 million)? The actor Johnny Depp (2011 income: $50 million)? Neither seems to have heard the president’s earlier warning that, “at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” Continue reading “Let the Real Fat Cats Pay Their Fair Share”
It’s Hard to Screw Up California–But We Try Our Best
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
There is a sort of upbeat New York Timesarticle arguing that California — in part, thanks to passing the highest sales and income taxes in the nation — might be coming back, a sort of recovery that can guide the rest of the US to a renewed faith in the Obama/EU/blue-state way. Continue reading “It’s Hard to Screw Up California–But We Try Our Best”
Race Matters, Actually
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Lots of public officials and Washington, DC, insiders do not want UN Ambassador Susan Rice to be nominated as secretary of state. Most of these critics think she irrevocably lost credibility by going on five Sunday-morning television shows on September 16 to deny any connection between radical Islamic terrorists and the fatal assaults on the US consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi. We know now that when Rice voiced the administration talking points five days after the attack, she and others in the Obama administration already had access to intelligence sources that suggested that the assault was the preplanned work of al-Qaedist terrorists, not a spontaneous protest by a mob angered over an obscure two-month-old video. Continue reading “Race Matters, Actually”
A Nation of Takers Hurtles Toward the Fiscal Abyss
by Bruce Thornton
Frontpage Magazine
The on-going negotiations over avoiding the tax hikes and spending cuts we call the “fiscal cliff” are simply the latest act in a farce of self-serving political denial. For decades now both parties have overseen and nurtured the expansion of the entitlement state all the while ignoring the slow-motion economic implosion whose predictable end can be seen today in a bankrupt Greece currently surviving on EU handouts. Continue reading “A Nation of Takers Hurtles Toward the Fiscal Abyss”
War’s Paradoxes: From Pearl Harbor to the Russian Front to the 38th Parallel
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
From time to time, I take a break from opinion writing here at Works and Days [1] and turn to history — on this occasion, I am prompted by the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Here are a few of the most common questions that I have encountered while teaching the wars of the 20th century over the last twenty years. Continue reading “War’s Paradoxes: From Pearl Harbor to the Russian Front to the 38th Parallel”
Democracy Promotion or Islamist Promotion?
by Bruce Thronton
Frontpage Magazine
The hope that democracy would bloom in Egypt following our collusion in removing Hosni Mubarak looks more and more delusional every day. Even our foreign policy wishful thinkers are no longer peddling the canard that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is “secular” and “moderate,” thus proving that Muslims devoted to the global expansion of Islam and illiberal Sharia law can be liberal democrats friendly to our interests. But despite being mugged by the Islamist reality, too many democracy promoters in the West still refuse to acknowledge that the Iranian Revolution, not the American Revolution, is the likely model for the so-called “Arab Spring.” Continue reading “Democracy Promotion or Islamist Promotion?”