{"id":12329,"date":"2020-04-24T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12329"},"modified":"2020-04-23T11:39:09","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T18:39:09","slug":"its-a-free-country-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-a-free-country-brother\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a Free Country, Brother\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\u00a0this current crisis, the longest if not the first complete shutdown in U.S. history, the freedoms of American democracy are being tested in ways we scarcely ever imagined. Out of nowhere little Napoleonic governors arise to enact decrees prohibiting gardening or strolling on an empty beach \u2014 decrees that seem to have little purpose other than to reflect that they can do so. Snitches volunteer to out felonious social deviants who are seen cooking in the backyard with a neighbor. A little horned-devil virus seems to be trying to do what those Russkies never could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Experts with all sorts of Ph.D.s, M.D.s, and J.D.s after their names lecture from authority about what we must right now do \u2014 or else! \u2014 on the principle that they have a scientific or technocratic prerogative to impress critics of their modeling or their demand that we shut down a $22-trillion economy for \u201c18 months,\u201d if need be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A supposedly disinterested media \u2014 found by media watchdogs to be 93 percent negative in its presidential reportage before the virus crisis \u2014 envision their coverage of the Trump demon as an endless zero-sum game in which any morsel of good news for him is instantly bad for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, if American democracy were to fail to sustain itself under myriad pressures, then this would be the moment. For some, the Sixties can at last be made manifest \u2014 especially given that its aging children just impeached an American president on articles nowhere found in the Constitution, after weaponizing the FBI, CIA, and DOJ in an attempt to abort a presidential campaign and then presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How fortunate, then, that in this current crisis, when one questions the logic of using a misleading denominator to ascertain viral lethality, and thus the logic of basing existential public policies on resulting case-to-fatality rates that admittedly cannot be true, one can (at least for now) keep raising skepticism without being sent to a Chinese-like reeducation camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/04\/coronavirus-crisis-bill-of-rights-protects-freedoms\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In\u00a0this current crisis, the longest if not the first complete shutdown in U.S. history, the freedoms of American democracy are being tested in ways we scarcely ever imagined. Out of nowhere little Napoleonic governors arise to enact decrees prohibiting gardening or strolling on an empty beach \u2014 decrees that [&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":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3cR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6816,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-study-exposes-scandalous-fatwas-of-brotherhood-and-salafis-in-egypt\/","url_meta":{"origin":12329,"position":0},"title":"New Study Exposes Scandalous Fatwas of Brotherhood and Salafis in Egypt","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ Gatestone Institute As the full ramification of the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s year in power continues to be exposed, a new study by Al Azhar\u2019s Fatwa Committee dedicated to exploring the fatwas, or Islamic decrees, issued by the Brotherhood and Salafis\u2014the Islamists\u2014was recently published. Al Azhar, in Cairo,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Egypt&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2966,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/been-there-done-that-policy-in-the-middle-east\/","url_meta":{"origin":12329,"position":1},"title":"Been There, Done That: Policy in the Middle East","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services With much fanfare, President Barack Obama announced a new effort to end the endless Israeli-Palestinian struggle \u2014 by naming a brand-new Middle East envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell. The announcement was underwhelming, to say the least. For 40 years, we've seen such serial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;February 2009&quot;","block_context":{"text":"February 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/february-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6295,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/brotherhood-torture-chambers-finally-exposed\/","url_meta":{"origin":12329,"position":2},"title":"Brotherhood Torture Chambers (Finally) Exposed","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine Some time ago, Fox News published\u00a0a report\u00a0titled \u201cEgyptian mosque turned into house of torture for Christians after Muslim Brotherhood protest.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The report opens by explaining how: Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into [a] torture chamber for Christians who had been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Muslim Brotherhood&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Muslim Brotherhood","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/muslim-brotherhood\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2676,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-history-channels-distortion-of-the-crusades\/","url_meta":{"origin":12329,"position":3},"title":"The History Channel&#8217;s Distortion of the Crusades","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch I\u00a0recently taped and am watching a documentary, \"The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross,\" on the History Channel. While it is more or less historically accurate \u2014 names, dates, figures \u2014 it suffers from two weaknesses, weaknesses that often take center stage whenever Islam is discussed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Raymond Ibrahim&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2845,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-wisdom-of-crowds-in-ancient-greece\/","url_meta":{"origin":12329,"position":4},"title":"The Wisdom of Crowds&#8211;In Ancient Greece","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Forbes.com A review of\u00a0Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athensby Josiah Ober (Princeton University Press, 2008, 362pp.) Ancient Greek society had seen nothing quite like the myriad of classical Athenian bureaucracies, boards, courts, offices and voting bodies that redistributed private capital, brought status to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Reviews&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2739,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/an-american-versailles\/","url_meta":{"origin":12329,"position":5},"title":"An American Versailles","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The liberal message ia all style and impotence. by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Editor\u2019s Note: What follows is a collection of recent\u00a0Corners\u00a0from VDH. The Shape of 2012 to Come The outburst from Iran\u2019s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the so-called Shanghai Cooperation Organization should close the chapter on the much bandied\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Civilization&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Civilization","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/civilization\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12329"}],"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=12329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12331,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12329\/revisions\/12331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}