{"id":11803,"date":"2019-05-01T14:25:39","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T21:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11803"},"modified":"2019-05-01T14:25:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T21:25:47","slug":"why-go-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-go-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Go West?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The harshest critics of the West in general and the United States in particular are the best arguments for it. Take the latest iconic critic, 29-year-old Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. She has a predictable list of complaints against America, past and present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet fortunately for her, her paternal grandparents and mother had experienced firsthand the antitheses of mainland America. And thus they were obsessed with what was right, not wrong, with the continental United States \u2014 and with getting there as quickly as possible. If they had once been critics of America, such animus was seemingly not great enough to prevent them moving to a place with a different language, ethnic majority, and traditions from those of their home, itself a territory of the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They apparently assumed that a free-market economy and transparent government gave them economic opportunities unknown in Puerto Rico, an otherwise naturally rich landscape. They wisely stayed in North America, apparently because they felt as supposed minorities that they would have far more cultural, social, political, and economic opportunities than they would as part of the majority in Puerto Rico. The fact that her father was a second-generation immigrant and architect, that AOC herself grew up in affluent Westchester County, that she received scholarships to attend pricey Boston University, and that she was elected to Congress bore out her parents\u2019 correct assumptions of a meritocracy, not a caste state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mutatis mutandis, the same could be said of two other chronic ankle-biters of America, newly elected Representatives Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.). Their families correctly (but internally rather than publicly) had apparently once assumed that Muslims and the so-called nonwhite would enjoy a higher standard of living, more religious protection, and greater political freedom as minority citizens of the U.S. than as part of the majority in either Somalia or the Palestinian territories . Omar and Tlaib both know that if they were to redirect commensurate animus to the government and society of Somalia or the Palestinian territories, their freedoms, if not their very lives, would be in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2019\/04\/immigration-western-civilization-leftist-complaints\/\">Read the full article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The harshest critics of the West in general and the United States in particular are the best arguments for it. Take the latest iconic critic, 29-year-old Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. She has a predictable list of complaints against America, past and present. Yet fortunately for her, her paternal grandparents and mother [&hellip;]<\/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":[1223,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-34n","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11648,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/progressives-pulling-a-bait-and-switch-with-medicare-for-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":11803,"position":0},"title":"Progressives pulling a bait-and-switch with &#8216;Medicare for All&#8217;","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Please read this piece by my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory in The Hill Politicians are known to misrepresent themselves to get elected, but Sen.\u00a0Bernie Sanders\u00a0(I-Vt.) is supposed to be an exception. It is said that he has remained true to his socialist convictions through thick and thin. Surely, such a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bernie Sanders&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bernie Sanders","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/bernie-sanders\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11810,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-socialist-is-bernie-sanders\/","url_meta":{"origin":11803,"position":1},"title":"How Socialist Is Bernie Sanders?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Please read this piece by my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory published\u00a0by\u00a0Hoover\u00a0Institution The candidacy of Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination raises the real prospect of an avowed socialist as President of the United States. Notably, Sanders reveals little about what socialism means to him, other than giving many things away\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bernie Sanders&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bernie Sanders","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/bernie-sanders\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12764,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/defenders-of-civilization\/","url_meta":{"origin":11803,"position":2},"title":"Defenders of Civilization?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The year 2020 witnessed a long series of writs lodged against an America beset with plague, quarantine, recessions, riot and arson, and the most contested election since 1876. What was strange was not so much the anarchist Left\u2019s efforts in the present to wipe\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11895,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-modest-immigration-proposal\/","url_meta":{"origin":11803,"position":3},"title":"A Modest Immigration Proposal","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 12, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) believes that American detention centers that house illegal aliens \u2014 over 1 million illegal arrivals during the last six months alone \u2014 are similar to \u201cconcentration camps.\u201d A storm of criticism met her historically fallacious comparisons. Ocasio-Cortez doubled down\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11763,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/with-mueller-hopes-gone-so-goes-progressive-unity\/","url_meta":{"origin":11803,"position":4},"title":"With Mueller Hopes Gone, So Goes Progressive Unity","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The Democratic Party has lots of radical new ideas, and lots of radical presidential candidates and politicos. But the common hatred of President Donald Trump has united otherwise quite disparate Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); former Vice President Joe Biden;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;2020 Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"2020 Election","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/2020-election\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13425,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-does-the-left-hate-israel\/","url_meta":{"origin":11803,"position":5},"title":"Why Does the Left Hate Israel?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness As over 3,000 rockets are fired into Israel by Hamas, the establishment of the Democratic Party seems paralyzed over how to respond to the latest Middle East war.\u00a0 It is not just that they fear that the squad, Black Lives Matter, the shock troops\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-does-the-left-hate-israel\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803"}],"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=11803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11804,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803\/revisions\/11804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}