{"id":1287,"date":"2010-09-01T02:43:17","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T02:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2013-03-07T02:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T02:44:25","slug":"america-compared-to-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/america-compared-to-what\/","title":{"rendered":"America–Compared to What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n

PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n

While America debates whether a \u201cbridge-building\u201d Imam Rauf should erect his $100-million, 13-story outreach \u201cIslamic complex\u201d (is the name \u201cCordoba House\u201d now officially to be dropped? And if so, could Mr. Rauf or the media explain why?) next to Ground Zero, Islam seems to be at war with most of the rest of the world, or perhaps vice versa.<\/p>\n

Not So Nice Elsewhere<\/strong><\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine has a rare essay on the brutal Russian response to Islamic-driven terror. Apparently, 3,000 \u201csuspects\u201d have disappeared since 2000. Tens of thousands of others were killed in the Chechnyan wars. There are only three mosques allowed in Moscow. In short, Putin is leading a right-wing, nationalist effort in what might be charitably called a genocidal war against Islam \u2014 brought on either by Chechnyan-inspired terrorism, Russian social injustice, or both, or neither. We don\u2019t care much; I suppose our elites would say they expect as much over there.<\/p>\n

Authorities in Hamburg closed down a mosque used by the 9\/11 killers; there was good reason to do that. But it is the sort of preemptive action that had the U.S. done it, we would have earned another cowboy America story in the perpetually resentful Der Spiegel.<\/p>\n

In France, the burqa is now banned. Imagine doing that in the U.S. Well, don\u2019t. Europeans are so liberal that they do not even need habeas corpus or a Bill of Rights to protect them from tea party types. Heck, they don\u2019t even have tea party types.<\/p>\n

And then we come to the Chinese, who are systematically crushing the Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province. Well, wait, we never quite come to the Chinese. They have so much of the world\u2019s money, and are so well-known for tolerating no criticism, that our brave cadre of crusading journalists polices itself and keeps quiet (I don\u2019t think\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0columnists will be writing much about\u00a0another green revolution<\/a>\u00a0[1] or entrepreneurial zone in Tibet or Xinjiang).<\/p>\n

So Why the Double Standard?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readers, you all know why none of these stories make much international news in comparison to our ongoing psychodrama of a self-described Sufi healer trying to gain stature, publicity, Middle Eastern money, and Western guilt by building near Ground Zero. Let us review the reasons once more.<\/p>\n

1. Self-loathing<\/strong><\/p>\n

It starts at home. The so-called cultural elite \u2014 professors, those in the arts, the foundations, the establishment media, the Kerry-Edwards-Gore-Kennedy type, multimillionaire liberal politicos, the inherited Big Money, the doyens of the race industry \u2014 are now disconnected from material reality. Most have not a clue how hard it is to pump oil out of the ground, grow food, or build a bridge; all such largess is taken as givens, and produced by a money-grubbing distant \u201cthey\u201d who like this sort of icky, retrograde work. (Had a young Barack Obama put away the Panama hat and the federal money for a summer, he could have apprenticed on an oil rig or picked peaches and learned something.)<\/p>\n

The result is that millions of elites have the capital, the leisure, and the inclination to think utopia is within their grasp; that the blueprint of the Upper East Side, Palo Alto, Cambridge, Malibu, or Carmel can be extended throughout the world \u2014 if only there were just enough far-sighted caring people like themselves with clean fingernails, an exalted sense of self, and children at Amherst or Brown.<\/p>\n

So they hold the U.S. up to a standard that indicts us as bad since we cannot possibly be perfect. And like medieval churchmen who crossed themselves on the way to sodomy, lucre, and graft, so too they toss-off lines damning a Bush or Cheney or Halliburton, which are the new sorts of ritual entre necessary to join a faculty or work at a foundation or get hired at a newsroom.<\/p>\n

Of course, most Americans do not follow these views as they appear in theNew York Times<\/em>, the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>, the\u00a0International Herald Tribune<\/em>, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, or PBS. But the world, I think, does. So it takes its harsh-view talking points about the U.S. from our own harshest critics. (My favorite example was Dr. Zawahiri, an apparently avid Noam Chomsky aficionado, who railed at the U.S. for not signing Kyoto and not passing campaign finance reform \u2014 all hot topics of concern apparently in the debating caves of Waziristan.)<\/p>\n

Note that the elite, secretly at least, understand that no one should take them all that seriously. A Guantanamo was a Stalag under Bush but now a mere complex dilemma, and not to be shut down under Obama (e.g., one of those released terrorists might show up in Brentwood).<\/p>\n

Affirmative action means taking a law school spot from some hard-working white clueless guy from Idaho State or a nerdy straight-A Asian kid in San Mateo, not from a well-connected elite who has the contacts, family lineage, or money to side-step state-sanctioned discrimination. (Has anyone heard a wealthy liberal demand an end to legacy or other such special admittances based on criteria other than merit? or for that matter, complain that tuition rises faster than the rate of inflation or that part-time lecturers are treated less well than Wal-Mart greeters?) Hating charter schools and teacher merit pay does not mean sending Johnny to the D.C. schools during a government sabbatical in the Obama administration.<\/p>\n

For evidence of why we should not take this bunch as too principled, wait until the Obama tax hikes hit the lower tier of the cultural elite. (Not all are in the Kerry class \u2014 and even Kerry, remember, felt, for all his tax talk, that he could not quite resist skipping out on a $500,000 tax bite on his yacht.)<\/p>\n

Soon we shall read sophisticated and contorted reasoning how and why a Manhattan or Chevy Chase $500,000-a-year-income is not that much when one has to buy a brownstone, or send Buffy to Sidwell Friends (cf. the Michelle \u201craise the bar\u201d trope of 2008). Remember, there will be no IRS law that says those who voted for Obama do not get hit with 40% on their upper bracket income, or can opt out on the healthcare surcharge, or can get out of California\u2019s or New York\u2019s 10% state tax (will there be an article soon suggesting those who live in such caring, high-tax blue states already do enough for world justice so as to be exempt from the new federal tax hikes?), or can receive exemption from the cap on income exposed to FICA taxes being lifted (that will be the largest tax hike in U.S. history)? Is it really fair that a caring and committed progressive in high-tax San Francisco or Manhattan has to pay at the same federal rates as a Neanderthal reactionary in selfish, low-tax Boise or Carson City?<\/p>\n

2) We Hate What We Want<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are held to such Orwellian standards also because of a foreign elite that loves to be educated here. Now this is weird, so bear with me. I have had, here and abroad, a zillion conversations with America-hating elite Greeks, Mexicans, Arabs, Iranians, and Koreans. Without pause or worry of sounding insane they (1) tell me how bad my country is and (2) how they went to Stanford or Yale, and not Texas Tech or UC Riverside.<\/p>\n

I have been lectured to by European elites how horrific the U.S. is for (1) its global crimes and (2) making it harder than ever to enter and stay. I cannot count the number of Mexican nationals residing here who (1) praise Mexico and (2) damn the U.S. for even considering sending their less fortunatecompadres\u00a0<\/em>back to a much praised Mexico.<\/p>\n

I am always amused by the Indian, Pakistani, Arab, or South American journalist, who comes to the U.S. to be educated, stays, marries an American, begins writing in places like\u00a0Time<\/em>,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, or theWashington Post<\/em>, starts lecturing red state\/middle America about its blinkered prejudices, praises in the abstract his godforsaken and long since abandoned homeland \u2014 and since arrival has mastered the proper phraseology and referents to please an entrenched elite left who hired and alone reads him. America is always to be judged in the abstract, never in the sense of \u201ccompared to what?\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Envy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then there is the oldest and strongest of emotions, envy \u2014 what the Greeks (Hesiod in particular) called the instinctual, the really bad type,\u00a0phthonos<\/em>(anguish induced by the good fortune of others). We talk of American decline, yet our military remains more powerful than the next ten combined. We talk of American recession and an emerging China, yet 1 billion Chinese in booming times account for an annual gross product of under $5 trillion, while 300 million Americans in a deep recession created nearly $15 trillion last year. In other words, a third as many people produce three times as many goods and services. In terms of culture \u2014 sports, entertainment, the arts, the media, etc. \u2014 there is almost no rational explanation why five percent of the world\u2019s population dominates global attention. Or as another Greek intellectual once told me, \u201cI am so sick of America \u2014 American money, American sports, American movies, America this, American that. I have America on the brain and it\u2019s driving me crazy!\u201d<\/p>\n

We simply do not understand our gargantuan footprint, being mostly inward looking and not too worried whether a guy in Peru or a professor in Belgrade likes us or not. (Most out here in Selma would shrug and say something like, \u201cOK, the guy in Peru and Belgrade hate us, so what the f\u2014?\u201d)<\/p>\n

Unlike the professor or correspondent who makes his money by often going abroad and so wants to be liked by the envious (that makes cappuccino time far easier), the farmer, welder, and clerk don\u2019t much care, at least in comparison to financing the boat, getting a rug, or ensuring that at least one kid somehow makes it through college. Do you wish to get a Frenchman, Greek, Mexican or Iranian angry? (I know, I\u2019ve done it.) Then simply in the midst of his normal dressing down of America, meekly reply, \u201cWell, er, I don\u2019t think Americans much like your country either.\u201d Anguish, shock, real hurt all follow \u2014 as in \u201cHow could you be so cruel to say that?\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, imagine a 3-bedroom-2-bath-house type of neighborhood in a so-so location. Suddenly this new mega-salesman moves in (1776-2010 is new). He tears down about four tract houses, and plops down in their place a faux-Florentine palazzo McMansion, as crass as it is comfortable. It towers over the rest and is full of glitzy appliances, with a five-car garage and pool, fake columns and domes \u2014 the whole bit. Then the proud new owner walks nightly down the neighborhood sidewalk with his white tennis shoes and a baseball cap, and smiling with his hand out-stretched, blaring out now and then to strangers \u2014 in sincere and heartfelt fashion as the nice guy he is \u2014 \u201cHow are you fellows doing? Real nice to meet you. Call me if I can help at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

I doubt the impressed neighborhood crowd would say, \u201cThanks so much. Please show me how you made such money to buy such an impressive house.\u201d More likely at night, local youths would throw trash on the lawn, and spray graffiti on his stone wall \u2014 while during the day their parents would finagle how to marry at least one of them off to the rich salesman\u2019s pom-pom daughters.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s sort of America \u2014 and the world. End of story.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media While America debates whether a \u201cbridge-building\u201d Imam Rauf should erect his $100-million, 13-story outreach \u201cIslamic complex\u201d (is the name \u201cCordoba House\u201d now officially to be dropped? And if so, could Mr. Rauf or the media explain why?) next to Ground Zero, Islam seems to be at war with most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[515],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-kL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1372,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/islam-idiots\/","url_meta":{"origin":1287,"position":0},"title":"‘Islam Idiots’?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner One might understand why Newsweek recently sold for a dollar and apparently went the way of\u00a0Harper\u2019s\u00a0from David A. Graham\u2019s \u201cThe Islam Idiots.\u201d As a self-proclaimed nuanced expert on Islam, he bashes conservative critics of the Ground Zero mosque project (among them Andy McCarthy and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2010"","block_context":{"text":"August 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/august-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1279,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-teachable-mosque-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1287,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Teachable Mosque Moment","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Interview by Jamie Glazov FrontPage Magazine Frontpage Interview\u2019s guest today is Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of\u00a0The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. FP:\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. I would like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jamie Glazov"","block_context":{"text":"Jamie Glazov","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/jamie-glazov\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1379,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-cynical-brilliance-of-imam-rauf\/","url_meta":{"origin":1287,"position":2},"title":"The Cynical Brilliance of Imam Rauf","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Almost everything about the proposed Ground Zero mosque was cynically brilliant. Start with the notion of a \u201cCordoba Initiative.\u201d In the elite modern Western mind, Cordoba has been transmogrified into a mythical Lala Land of interfaith tolerance. To invoke the city is to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2010"","block_context":{"text":"August 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/august-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6223,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syrias-graphic-beheading-videos\/","url_meta":{"origin":1287,"position":3},"title":"Syria’s Graphic Beheading Videos","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine Based on a widely circulated video and statements from the Vatican, it was believed that Fr. Francois Murad, a Catholic Syrian priest, was recently beheaded in Syria. It was not long before others \u201cvigorously denied\u201d the story, saying that the Christian priest was actually shot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/religion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/article-0-1A998E68000005DC-987_306x423.jpg?fit=306%2C423&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1249,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/an-apologetic-911\/","url_meta":{"origin":1287,"position":4},"title":"An Apologetic 9\/11?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Words Not Spoken I listened carefully to the president\u2019s commemorative speech and many of the other public statements from our elected officials. This year\u2019s anniversary marked a somewhat new tone, tentative, near apologetic \u2014 as if the Ground Zero and Pentagon attacks were wholly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2010"","block_context":{"text":"September 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/september-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1259,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/enough-already-with-reverend-jones\/","url_meta":{"origin":1287,"position":5},"title":"Enough Already with Reverend Jones","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's The\u00a0Corner Everyone is trying to outdo one another in righteous condemnation of the Reverend Terry Jones and his micro-flock, to assure the world that 50 people out of 300 million does not a majority make. That is altogether fine and good, and yet we all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2010"","block_context":{"text":"September 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/september-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287"}],"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=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1288,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}