{"id":11259,"date":"2018-07-03T21:01:27","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T04:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11259"},"modified":"2018-07-03T21:01:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T04:01:27","slug":"angry-reader-07-03-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-07-03-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Angry Reader 07-03-2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

From An Angry Reader:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was hopeful to find insightful conservative thought for a change, however I was disappointed to find yet another partisan albeit under the guise of an academic. Your ideas are not original nor interesting in terms of advancing our country. Instead, all of your work seems to revolve (devolve?) to the standard conservative playbook. The west is truly doomed if this is all our thinkers can come up is replacing old rightest ideas with old leftist ideas!<\/p>\n

You provide the same old shtick and are not solving any problems. Your life must be really boring. Oh yeah, you are a historian. Of course.<\/p>\n

Sincerely<\/p>\n

Frustrated moderate engineer<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Dear Angry Reader and frustrated moderate engineer Steve DiGrazia,<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am afraid that your disagreements are not really over ideas that are not original or do not serve the public interest, but largely your anger is because they conflict with you own\u2014despite your self-described epithet \u201cfrustrated moderate engineer,\u201d whatever that exactly means. The ideas expressed here are pretty centrist: smaller rather than larger government, lower rather than higher taxes, secure not open borders, the melting pot rather than the salad bowl, a tragic view of human nature, not one therapeutic, deterrence rather than appeasement, and so on.<\/p>\n

But I fear your letter descends into incoherence\u2014odd for an engineer who normally deals with laws, facts, and data. After lamenting that the above is the \u201cold standard conservative playbook\u201d you finish with \u201creplacing old rightest ideas with old leftist ideas,\u201d which makes no sense: I\u2019d like to replace \u201cold leftist ideas\u201d with traditional ideas that have worked for centuries and do not lead to a Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, or North Korea. And just when I thought you scored a respectable 1 or 2 on the Angry Reader scale, you zoom up to a 5 with the inevitable ad hominem at the end: \u201cYour life must be really boring. Oh yeah, you are a historian. Of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, I am blessed by living on a farm part of the week, and at Stanford the other few days: it gives one a scale by which to calibrate academic madness; in comparison to academics, farmers are mostly sane.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Non-frustrated historian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From An Angry Reader: I was hopeful to find insightful conservative thought for a change, however I was disappointed to find yet another partisan albeit under the guise of an academic. Your ideas are not original nor interesting in terms of advancing our country. Instead, all of your work seems to revolve (devolve?) to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2VB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11637,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-02-01-2019\/","url_meta":{"origin":11259,"position":0},"title":"Angry Reader 02-01-2019","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Dear Dr. Hanson, I am most definitely an \"angry\" reader, but in no way angry with your writing! I respect and value what you have to say, and read virtually everything you post on the Internet. Thank you for all you do. I address you because\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11242,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/06-25-18-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":11259,"position":1},"title":"06-25-18 Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: What is wrong with you? You see what Trump is doing over 3000 lies and yet you still can condemn Hillary! \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 Dear Angry Reader Rhonda Welsch, First, congratulations. You get only a 1 out of 10 on the Angry Reader Scale (for silly exaggeration [e.g.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9633,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9633-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":11259,"position":2},"title":"From an Angry Reader: The\u2026","author":"Megan Ring","date":"November 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: The new kind of Republican party is part 1930\u2019s Nazi and 1950\u2019s Dixiecrat. Raye Harper ------------------------------ Victor Davis Hanson's Reply: Dear Angry Reader Raye Harper, Since you assert rather than argue or explain, it is hard to fathom what you are getting at. But in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-7-a-response-to-the-liberal-aristocracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":11259,"position":3},"title":"Angry Reader #7: A Response to “The Liberal Aristocracy”","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Angry Reader #6 wrote:\u00a0\u201cMr. Hanson unfolds the conservative Procrustean hide-a-bed. If a Democratic president is wealthy, he's a hypocrite. If a Democratic president isn't, then he's guilt of envy and class warfare.\u201d VDH replied: This is a childish snark. My point is not that wealthy liberals should not enjoy the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12593,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-08-30-2020\/","url_meta":{"origin":11259,"position":4},"title":"Angry Reader 08-30-2020","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Hello Professor Hanson, First let me say, I am a regular reader and viewer of yours. I relish your take on the important issues. This evening on Tucker Carlson Tonight with Brian Kilmeade 7\/16\/2020 you used some imprecise language that caused both me and my bride\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10322,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10322-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":11259,"position":5},"title":"From an Angry Reader: Dr.\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: Dr. Hanson, Years ago, especially right after 9 \/ 11, I enjoyed your essays on NRO. One piece I especially liked was your column, in late 2001, titled (if memory serves), \"I'm Glad We're Not Fighting Us.\" Pardon my brusqueness, but what the hell has happened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11262,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11259\/revisions\/11262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}