Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
Let me know if you want in or out
Let me know if you want in or out
"we are not becoming naïve isolationists of 1930s vintage, who believe that we are safe by ourselves inside fortress America — not after September 11. "
Major flaw --- isolationism had NOTHING to do with Sept 11, 2001 - except that it could have prevented it.
We do have the capability of sealing our country from the world and destroying anyone who would dare enter or attack.
But, isolationism is NOT the answer - we must maintain our strength and power, and we also must keep our HONOR and COURAGE = unknown words to the leftists and lawyers.
Best piece yet by Hanson--and that's saying something!
America First, Last and Always! The secret of our strength is that we are one of the few nations on the planet which can go almost entirely self-sufficient. Let's fortify the borders, discourage foreigners and rebuild our exported industries to 21st century specs. Rebuild the metal and textile sectors. Vigorously defend against foreign knockoffs of our patents. Replace most in-country flight with high efficiency rail. Win the cultural war by smashing the Big Media cartels and instituting local and regional news/entertainment sources. We can do these things.
I love this man's mind.
Someone should write a book about what the world would be like if the United States had never existed. Or what it would be like if all Americans just disappeared. I've thought about doing it, but it's probably more than I could handle.
I will accept Hansen's notion of a large number of Americans who are finally tiring of the idiocies of the rest of the world when I see a groundswell of public opinion to get the hell out of the UN.
The analogy with "High Noon", "Shane" and other westerns works very, very well.
Great Article!
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.
100% agree!
Hanson bump!
"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.
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.
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.
An excellent VDH coinage.
bttt
Key point. What we are experiencing is the outrage of a corrupt class of professional administrators and media experts who feel that the only enlightened world order is one with them in charge. Kings at least had to fight for their "divine" right to rule. These folks claim it by virtue of claiming it.
Old article bump.
Imagine there is no USA...
If Hanson didn’t exist, he would have to be invented.