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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
               Pajamasmedia:   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

“Paths taken and not

We are all a sum total of what we’ve read, how we’ve been taught, where we lived, what we’ve done and not done. Given our tragically short-lives it really is a zero-sum game, in which each choice entails a choice not to do something else. I grant that in theory sitting in front of a sofa watching sit-coms could be a bad choice if done serially. But then so could be acting in that silly sit-com day after day a bad choice of time, even if such performance sometimes brings one the money and status to fool others that it is not.”
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NOW THAT WE ARE A NATION, PRESUMIBLIITY OF 40,000,000 IMMIGRANTS, CHIEFLY FROM MEXICO, DURING THE LAST 20 YEARS,

We have a whole new set of pigeonholed interests, many do use the systems to obtain, free medical care, free schooling, free food stamps and social security, free college benefits more ... so since they are the recipients of welfare largess; they are largely going to vote Democratic. They came here with a mind set for wanting socialized everything ... so it is a fit.

Rush said, during the Clinton years, that when we crossed the line of more than 50% of the people either working for the government at some level or on the welfare, and entitlement programs ... we (conservatives) would not have much of an opportunity to win in the elections.

We see this is right where we are. Unless we can fire up the sensible old time Democrats to vote for John McCain/ Palin which we must, then the process for change is not available to us.

Understand the education systems favor socialism, global warming, one world order etc. all the years of our children's education. So how do we turn this around? Where is our American ingenuity?

This is not a game we can lose.

There needs to be a public discussion of the ideology and puppet masters behind Obama and his cult. Maybe some of the Straussians at The Weekly Standard would also take an interest in it before we become a People's Republic (if they are paying attention)?

Let's break this down into its parts:

The Saul Alinsky theories of Community Organizer Social Agitation

Karl Popper's "Open Society" theories which Obama benefactor, George Soros, subscribes to

The Richard Hofstadter class theories of American politics, painting conservatives as "bitter" and alienated malcontents

The Communist Beatnik poetry of Frank Marshall Davis

The crackpot Black Power Liberation theology of Obama's reverend and spiritual mentor (a full 20 years of his adult life)

Critical Legal Studies, value-free positivism, and moral relativism at Harvard Law School (rendering Obama incapable of determining whether a moving infant "born alive" in a botched abortion was a human "child" deserving of constitutional rights)

This is the content of an "elite" Columbia/Harvard education. Things have drifted rather far from the days of Charles William Eliot and George Santayana. Or as one observer summed it up, "full of wacky ideas many bordering on, if not in the realm of, pure idiocy."

"The elitist always fails to appreciate,
"(1) that his existence, and his much cherished rarified world, are impossible without others that are as smart and as skilled as he, and thus due commensurate thanks and acknowledgment, and
"(2) that in the zero-sum game of life, hours spent at the piano, Smyth’s Greek grammar, the Sunday morning opera, or the Guggenheim Museum are a tragic trade-off in which one forfeits commensurate time invested in the physical challenge of chain-sawing limbs, the aesthetic sense of accomplishment in weeding an overgrown garden, or the satisfaction of re-roofing a house.
"The elitist, in contrast, simply cannot imagine that such tasks are as necessary as his own, or that such muscular experience can reflect upon character and knowledge as much as those interests of his own softer and more sophisticated world.
"Again, knowing how to chain-saw or hammer may be more valuable in dealing with Chavez or Putin than distinguishing Virgil from Horace."

the elitist seems to think that his Harvard Law Degree or Stanford PhD, or Victorian on Pacific Heights instantly makes him a far better guide to human nature, diplomacy, warmaking, and governance—almost anything—than does the sheet-rocker or crane operator (cf. the Obama sermon on clinging Pennsylvanians). That is, the elitist does not understand that his admirable hours spent investigating French provincial furniture or understanding the pedigree of good silverware may be of no more utility in cultivating logic, good judgment, and moral character than in mastering checkers.

My favorite lines.

Not being elite, I have to bookmark this for further study.

The Smart People, like Paulsen and Bernanke, seemingly weren't able to raise the alarm to a high-enough level until we were on the verge of collapse. How smart are they, really? Are they corrupt and evil, or just plain stupid?