Victor Davis Hanson: The Disenchanted American, Are we growing world-weary? [Imagine no USA]

NRO ^ | January 7, 2005 | Victor Davis Hanson

[wizr]

Ping me, please.

[Gritty]

Imagine a world in which there was no United States during the last 15 years.

I can imagine it. It would be called the World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!

Those of us who survived (very few would be those who inhabit FReerepublic) would wake up daily to our chains and gulags, thankful if the Black Marias didn't visit our apartment blocks this morning at 3 AM.

[technochick99]

Americans know all that — and yet they grasp that their own vigilance and military sacrifices have earned them spite rather than gratitude. And they are ever so slowly learning not much to care anymore.

100% agree!

[NaughtiusMaximus]

All of these ideas have about a million to one shot of ever being realized. But just beginning to discuss them would produce such conniptions among our enemies and false friends that it couldn't help but produce positive effects.

[jonestown]

Hanson writes:

--- We will finish the job in Iraq, nursemaid democratic Afghanistan through its birthpangs, and continue to ensure that bandits and criminal states stay off the world's streets.

But what is new is that the disenchanted American is becoming savvy and developing a long memory —

-- and so we all fear the day is coming when he casts aside the badge, rides the buckboard out of town, and leaves such sanctimonious folk to themselves.

_____________________________________


I don't get it. Why should we all fear that day?
Why not work for that day when the sanctimonious get their just reward?


-- We have our base in the middle east, as planned.
-- So why not let these tribal factions in Iraq kill each other. Let the Afghani's suffer birthpangs.
- And continue to ensure that bandits and criminals stay off of OUR streets.

It's time to face facts.. We cannot police the world. Let it suffice to kill our enemies.

[thejokker]

+1000

[FreedomPoster]

That guy is not a liberal; he is a NeoLib.

Use that, it drives them nuts.

[tarheelswamprat]

Where has investigative journalism gone? What governments, individuals, or organizations, have been financing, supporting, urging, and encouraging these cults for the last decades?

Go to Amazon.com and look-up "Treachery", by Bill Gertz, an investigative reporter for the Washington Times who specialises in intelligence matters. He has done the work. The more pertinent question is why is this information being ignored by the so-called mainstream media and our political leaders?

[MEG33]

"We do have the capability of sealing our country from the world and destroying anyone who would dare enter or attack."

LOL

[MEG33]

Hanson bump!

[Savage Beast]

Above all, the United States MUST remain powerful and strong and must defend herself and her allies--and remain capable of doing so. The American people must unite behind America's benevolent purpose and the American Dream. The anti-American Left--embodied in the Americacidal Democrat Party--must be dopped into the oubliette of history where it belongs--and all vestiges of the '60's hippy-tantrum along with it.

"Outside our shores there is a growing barbarism with no other sheriff in sight"

And its most destructive--and understandably anti-American--currents are Islam, European decadence, and Russian corruption. The violence-promoting rhetoric and self-serving propaganda of the American Left--including yesterday's inflammatory attack by Congressional Democrats on the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election--pour gasoline on the flames of worldwide anti-Americanism and further inflame America's enemies, both domestic and foreign.

"Muslim charities advertise to their donors that their aid goes to fellow Muslims — as if a dying Buddhist or Christian is less deserving of the Muslim Street's aid."

Do not forget. To the Muslim mind, Infidels are deserving of no justice, no rights, no help, and no mercy. Such is the nature of the god they serve.

The overt and declared goal of Islam is the establishment of a worldwide Islamic theocracy with the Koran as the only constitution, dhimmitude for all non-Muslims, and the shariah as international law. For this reason alone--the United States must remain the strongest and most powerful nation the world has ever known, and her resolve must be adamantine.

The world is dangerous. America is its greatest hope.

We must not fail.

[caseinpoint]

Hanson uses a good analogy. May I suggest another one to explain Europe and the United Nations? My coworker owns a large lot out in the country. It takes a lot of maintenance. He is getting up there in years and he hires a local young man who is borderline retarded but "strong as a horse". The young man earns some spending money to supplement his SSI and my coworker gets the hard, dirty work done without hurting himself. Win-win. The thing is, I believe that's what Europe and the United Nations wants the United States to do: the dirty work and leave the thinking to the smart ones (them). They are perfectly happy to see us maintain an expensive, high degree of readiness to serve or defend. They just want to be the ones to tell us where to go and what to do. Bypassing them makes them, of course, superfluous and "smart people" can't stand being considered superfluous. So Europe and the United Nations work overtime to convince our home-grown "intellectuals" that only Europeans and international diplomats can possibly understand world affairs. They characterize our efforts abroad as bull-in-a-china-shop disasters. They want us strong. They just don't want us uppity. As long as we are willing to act the part of brawn-without-brains, we are being a constructive part of the "world community", according to these "experts". Doing things on our own threaten their entire house of cards.

[dts32041]

Actually you maybe correct, he is a registered Demo rat, go to his web site and read a little of history.

[FreedomPoster]

Hanson is *far* from a NeoLib. He is a classical liberal, old-school Democrat, with more in common with a Zell Miller than the nutcases running the Dem party today.

I was referring to rhombus' university professor friend. See the replied to post, from my post.

[spodefly]

But what is new is that the disenchanted American is becoming savvy and developing a long memory — and so we all fear the day is coming when he casts aside the badge, rides the buckboard out of town, and leaves such sanctimonious folk to themselves.

Can't happen soon enough. We need to fortify our own walls and let the rest of the world fend for themselves for a few years.

[dts32041]

So maybe the term should be neolib as a new liberalism that is strong on defense, with some social conservatism, but not the liberalism of the FDR's and the Joe Kennedy's.

[FreedomPoster]

FDR and Joe Kennedy are conservative, compared to the nutcase NeoLibs running the Dem party today. And FDR was pretty strong on defense.

[dts32041]

FDR not really strong on defense and would have left germany alone if it had not attacked russia.

[Tolik]

Sure.

I like your tagline, btw.

[untenured]

VDH has touched on a fundamental fact of the cold-war world: free-riding. If you look at data on military spending from SIPRI you find that Germany, France and the UK are all spending considerably less in real terms on defense than in the early 1990s. Only the US among the NATO powers is spending more. Other nations are free-riding off the overwhelming military might of the US, both in terms of military spending and in terms of foreign-policy cheating. For the latter, think of France's extensive ties with Saddam, and the attempt by Germany, France and Russia to actively work against what the president of the US decided was a vital US national security interest in Iraq. Think also of the way other powers acquiesce to the deflection of blame by Araby for all of its dysfunctionality on America.

Global security is in economic terms a public good, and the other powers are behaving as economic theory predicts. We should get used to being unloved and indeed actively sabotaged for as long as we maintain the burden of preserving global order. In some sense it's a miracle that the UK and Australia have stood by us as steadfastly as they have.