The New Reactionaries

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by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Starting in the 1930s and continuing after the war, the Democrats offered a liberal critique of, or perhaps enhancement to, the Republican vision of rugged individualism. A modern American state now had the capital and the moral ambition to smooth the rougher edges of capitalism by insisting on unemployment and disability insurance, a 40-hour week, overtime pay, and what we now associate with the social safety net. Such entitlements, along with a rapidly growing economy, redefined poverty — so much so that whereas in 1930 malnourishment was endemic among the poor, by 2000 obesity was far more injurious to the nation’s collective health. Continue reading “The New Reactionaries” →

The Humpty-Dumpty Middle East

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by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

The United States is backing off from the Middle East — and the Middle East from the United States. Continue reading “The Humpty-Dumpty Middle East” →

It’s All Violence on Copts: From Sex Slavery to Calls of Genocide in Egypt

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by Raymond Ibrahim

Posts from Jihad Watch
Egypt’s Salafi Party Objects to Banning Sex Slavery

Considering that the abduction, enslavement, rape, and trafficking of Coptic Christian girls, especially minors, in Egypt is at an all time high — according to US lawyers, 550 such cases have been documented in the last five years — Egypt’s Constituent Assembly to the Constitution met yesterday to consider the inclusion of a new article, Continue reading “It’s All Violence on Copts: From Sex Slavery to Calls of Genocide in Egypt” →

The Academic Establishment Goes After Bruce Bawer

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by Bruce Thornton

Frontpage Magazine

Bruce Bawer, the intrepid international journalist and Freedom Center Shillman Fellow, has just published The Victims’ Revolution, an expose of “Identity Studies” in American universities. These are the programs predicated on the allegation that certain minorities in America, mainly women, gays, blacks, and Latinos, are victims of continuing prejudice, bigotry, sexism, and racism. Continue reading “The Academic Establishment Goes After Bruce Bawer” →

Liberal Chickens

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by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

It could not last — the attendee of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church sermonizing on tolerance; the practitioner of Chicago politics lecturing on civility; the most partisan voting record in the Senate as proof of a new promised bipartisanship; earlier books and speeches calling for hard-core progressivism as evidence of a no-more-red-state-blue-state conciliation. And in fact the disconnect did not last, and Barack Obama finds himself dealing with assorted chickens coming home to roost. Continue reading “Liberal Chickens” →

Eating America’s Seed Corn

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by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

As gas prices climb back toward $4 a gallon, the Obama administration — facing a tough re-election campaign and rising Middle East tensions — is once again considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. For years, administrations have bought and stored oil for emergencies, in fear of a cutoff of imported oil, as happened during the Arab embargo of 1973-74. Continue reading “Eating America’s Seed Corn” →

Three Democrat Women for Dependency

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by Bruce Thornton

Frontpage Magazine

The Democrats have announced that Massachusetts Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren and Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke will be on hand at the Democratic National Convention to hype the alleged Republican “War on Women” and promote “Julia,” the cartoon character that touts the numerous boons Democrats supposedly provide women. The Dems’ showcasing of these three women highlights what’s at stake in November if Obama wins — even more expansion of government power that will further entangle women and men alike in dependency and servitude. Continue reading “Three Democrat Women for Dependency” →

Graffiti on Trees, High-Speed Rail to Nowhere: The Wages of Liberalism

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by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Last week, while reading about an insolvent California’s insistence on going ahead with the first leg of a proposed high-speed rail line (total cost of the system: an estimated $100-$300 billion), I heard the following story on a local ABC news affiliate about a nearby low-Sierra lake: Continue reading “Graffiti on Trees, High-Speed Rail to Nowhere: The Wages of Liberalism” →

Islam’s ‘Holy Month’ of Christian Oppression

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by Raymond Ibrahim

Investigative Project on Terrorism

The month of Ramadan, which ended earlier this week, proved to be a month of renewed Muslim piety on the one hand, and renewed oppression of non-Muslim minorities on the other. In Nigeria, for example, Islamic militants are living up to the assertion that “Ramadan is a month of jihad and death for Allah,” proving that killing Christians is not only reserved for Christian holidays — like Christmas and Easter, when militants bombed churches killing dozens — but is especially applicable during Islam’s Ramadan. Continue reading “Islam’s ‘Holy Month’ of Christian Oppression” →

Before the Culture Fades

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by Bruce S. Thornton

City Journal

A review of The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia by Roger Kimball (St. Augustine’s Press, 2012)

Roger Kimball has long been one of America’s most learned commentators on intellectual history, contemporary politics, fine art, and architecture. Continue reading “Before the Culture Fades” →