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Victor Davis Hanson: Eye of the Beholder
The American Enterprise ^ | May 2006 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 04/10/2006 7:55:53 AM PDT by quidnunc

War-torn Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million. The former is a violent and impoverished landscape, the latter said to be paradise on Earth. But how you envision either place to some degree depends on the eye of the beholder, and is predicated on what the daily media appear to make of each.

As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California — yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about “Nearly 200 poor Californians butchered again this month!”

How about a monthly media dose of “600 women raped in February alone!” Or try, “Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!” Those do not even make up all of the state’s yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.

Iraq’s judicial system seems a mess. On the eve of the war, Saddam let out 100,000 inmates from his vast prison archipelago. He himself still sits in the dock months after his trial began. But imagine an Iraq with a penal system like California’s with 170,000 criminals — an inmate population larger than those of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Singapore combined.

Just to house such a shadow population costs our state nearly $7 billion a year — or about the same price of keeping 40,000 Army personnel per year in Iraq. What would be the image of our Golden State if we were reminded each morning, “Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals!”

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at taemag.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: iraq; vdh; victordavishanson
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1 posted on 04/10/2006 7:55:54 AM PDT by quidnunc
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To: Tolik

FYI


2 posted on 04/10/2006 7:56:47 AM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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To: quidnunc

VDH BUMP!


3 posted on 04/10/2006 8:09:58 AM PDT by MEG33 ( GOD BLESS OUR ARMED FORCES)
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To: quidnunc
SPUE (Society for the Prevention of Unnecessary Excerpting; check the list) to the rescue once again:
Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million. The former is a violent and impoverished landscape, the latter said to be paradise on Earth. But how you envision either place to some degree depends on the eye of the beholder, and is predicated on what the daily media appear to make of each.

 

As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California—yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about “Nearly 200 poor Califor­nians butchered again this month!”

 

How about a monthly media dose of “600 women raped in February alone!” Or try, “Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!” Those do not even make up all of the state’s yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.

 

Iraq’s judicial system seems a mess. On the eve of the war, Saddam let out 100,000 inmates from his vast prison archipelago. He himself still sits in the dock months after his trial began. But imagine an Iraq with a penal system like California’s with 170,000 criminals—an inmate population larger than those of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Singapore combined.

 

Just to house such a shadow popula­tion costs our state nearly $7 billion a year—or about the same price of keep­ing 40,000 Army personnel per year in Iraq. What would be the image of our Golden State if we were reminded each morning, “Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals!”

 

Some of California’s most recent prison scandals would be easy to sensa­tionalize: “Guards watch as inmates are raped!” Or “Correction officer accused of having sex with underaged detainee!” And apropos of Saddam’s sluggish trial, remember that our home state multiple murderer, Tookie Williams, was finally executed in December 2005—26 years after he was originally sentenced.

 

Much is made of the inability to patrol Iraq’s borders with Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. But California has only a single border with a foreign nation, not six. Yet over 3 million foreigners who snuck in illegally now live in our state. Worse, there are about 15,000 convicted alien felons incarcerated in our penal system, cost­ing about $500 million a year. Imagine the potential tabloid headlines: “Illegal aliens in state comprise population larger than San Francisco!” or “Drugs, criminals, and smugglers given free pass into California!”

 

Every year, over 4,000 Californians die in car crashes—nearly twice the number of Americans lost so far in three years of combat operations in Iraq. In some sense, then, our badly maintained roads, and often poorly trained and sometimes intoxicated drivers, are even more lethal than Improvised Explosive Devices. Perhaps tomorrow’s headline might scream out at us: “300 Califor­nians to perish this month on state highways! Hundreds more will be maimed and crippled!”

 

In 2001, California had 32 days of power outages, despite paying nearly the highest rates for electricity in the United States. Before complaining about the smoke in Baghdad rising from private generators, think back to the run on generators in California when they were contemplated as a future part of every household’s line of defense.

 

We’re told that Iraq’s finances are a mess. Yet until recently, so were California’s. Two years ago, Governor Schwarzenegger inherited a $38 billion annual budget shortfall. That could have made for strong morning news­cast teasers: “Another $100 million borrowed today—$3 billion more in red ink to pile up by month’s end!”

 

So is California comparable to Iraq? Hardly. Yet it could easily be sketched by a reporter intent on doing so as a bank­rupt, crime-ridden den with murderous highways, tens of thousands of inmates, with wide-open borders.

 

I myself recently returned home to California, without incident, from a visit to Iraq’s notorious Sunni Triangle. While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m., was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones.

 

Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.


4 posted on 04/10/2006 8:12:32 AM PDT by upchuck (Wikipedia.com - the most unbelievable web site in the world.)
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To: upchuck
I myself recently returned home to California, without incident, from a visit to Iraq’s notorious Sunni Triangle. While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m., was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones. Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.

In Iraq the private citizen would have a right to a firearm to protect himself!

5 posted on 04/10/2006 8:29:45 AM PDT by cpdiii (roughneck (oil field trash and proud of it), geologist, pilot, pharmacist, full time iconoclast)
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To: quidnunc

Another great article by a writer who understands and utilizes the classical concepts of proportion and perspective- so necessary to the informed mind, to the true citizen.


6 posted on 04/10/2006 8:46:06 AM PDT by mtntop3 ("He who must know before he believes will never come to full knowledge.")
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To: mtntop3

Boy, you got that right. It is, though, much like throwing a brick in the Grand Canyon. For every Victor Davis Hanson, there are 5 Dan Rathers, with a LOT more exposure than VDH gets.

But I am glad that he, and people like him, keeps trying.


7 posted on 04/10/2006 9:04:38 AM PDT by rlmorel ("Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does." Whittaker Chambers)
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To: quidnunc; neverdem; Lando Lincoln; .cnI redruM; yonif; SJackson; dennisw; monkeyshine; Alouette; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links: FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson 
His website: http://victorhanson.com/     NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

8 posted on 04/10/2006 9:57:16 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: Tolik
BTTT

Cheers,

knewshound

Brew Your Own
9 posted on 04/10/2006 10:45:40 AM PDT by knews_hound (When Blogs are Outlawed, only Outlaws will have Blogs.)
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To: quidnunc

Brilliant!


10 posted on 04/10/2006 10:55:59 AM PDT by RobFromGa (In decline, the Old Media gets more shrill, thrashing about like a dinosaur caught in the tar pits.)
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To: zot; The Shrew; Nick Danger

VDH ping...


11 posted on 04/10/2006 11:15:27 AM PDT by Interesting Times (ABCNNBCBS -- yesterday's news.)
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To: quidnunc

Excellent article. I gives me pause, however, about returning for a HS reunion in October. And further worries about my 92 year old mother living there on her own.


12 posted on 04/10/2006 11:24:23 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: upchuck

Thank you.


13 posted on 04/10/2006 12:43:55 PM PDT by Brian Allen (How arrogant are we to believe our career political-power-lusting lumpen somehow superior to theirs?)
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To: mtntop3
Another great article by a writer who understands and utilizes the classical concepts of proportion and perspective- so necessary to the informed mind, to the true citizen.

Very well said.

14 posted on 04/10/2006 12:48:27 PM PDT by mark502inf
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To: Brian Allen
You're welcome.

IMHO, entirely too much unnecessary excerpting on FR these days.
15 posted on 04/10/2006 1:01:16 PM PDT by upchuck (Wikipedia.com - the most unbelievable web site in the world.)
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To: mark502inf

Thank you.


16 posted on 04/10/2006 1:44:16 PM PDT by mtntop3 ("He who must know before he believes will never come to full knowledge.")
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To: quidnunc

GO VDH ping!


17 posted on 04/10/2006 2:24:53 PM PDT by Syberyenta
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To: quidnunc

The voice of sanity. Thanks.


18 posted on 04/10/2006 2:26:16 PM PDT by hershey
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To: upchuck

<< IMHO, entirely too much unnecessary excerpting on FR these days. >>

Absolutely.

Excerpting, along with that other insidiously creeping aimlessness: our having become all things to all self-serving comers and thus effectively standing for nothing --and falling for everything -- has totally altered the very marrow of FR's bones.

The internet's first Washingtonian Society.


19 posted on 04/10/2006 3:13:34 PM PDT by Brian Allen (How arrogant are we to believe our career political-power-lusting lumpen somehow superior to theirs?)
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To: mtntop3

Excellent analysis of VDH's skills.


20 posted on 04/10/2006 8:22:46 PM PDT by dervish
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