Showing posts with label Victor Davis Hanson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victor Davis Hanson. Show all posts

Thursday, April 23, 2015

But Like Michael Moore She's Only Filthy Rich On Paper

April 23, 2015 Hillary Clinton , Presidential Election 2016 0 Comments
Victor Davis Hanson: Clinton vs. Clinton

Source:  Flickr.com
By Victor Davis Hanson, Apr. 23, 2015, Townhall.com

Hillary Clinton apparently plans to base her presidential campaign on the noble goals of greater fairness and shared sacrifice.

She has already lambasted vast differences in compensation. "The average CEO makes about 300 times what the average worker makes," Clinton warned.

She is right -- but can best appreciate that fact from her own career and family.

Recently, Clinton has demanded up to $300,000 for brief 30-minute speeches. She apparently believes in the free-market theory that on the lecture circuit, speakers -- like CEOs -- should be paid as much as the market can bear.

At UCLA recently, Clinton's fee worked out to about $165 per second. In three minutes of autobiographical chitchat, Clinton pulled in more than the average full-time fast-food worker makes in a year. Note that, directly or indirectly, universities pass such charges on to their student customers, who are currently collectively in debt to the tune of more than $1 trillion.

Read the full story:  www.townhall.com

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Thursday, February 5, 2015

Obama Doctrine

February 05, 2015 Domestic Terrorism , ISIS 0 Comments
Victor Davis Hanson: Appeasement As Narcissism
By Victor Davis Hanson, Feb. 4, 2015, Townhall.com

Members of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. Jihad is a "legitimate tenet of Islam." And "violent extremism," "workplace violence" or "man-caused disaster" better describe radical Islamic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is just as likely caused by returning U.S. combat veterans, according to one report by a federal agency.

What is the point of such linguistic appeasement?

The word "appeasement" long ago became pejorative for giving in to bullies. One side was aggressive and undemocratic; the other consensual and eager to avoid trouble through supposedly reasonable concessions.

But appeasement usually weakened the democratic side and empowered the extremist one.

The architect of appeasement -- for example, Neville Chamberlain, former prime minister of Great Britain -- was predictably a narcissist. Chamberlain believed that his own powers of oratory, his insights into reason and his undeniably superior morality would sway even a thug like Adolf Hitler.

Read the full story:  www.townhall.com

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Thursday, January 15, 2015

Required reading

January 15, 2015 Barack Obama , Free Speech 0 Comments
Victor Davis Hanson: Offenders of the Western Faith

Davis Hanson, Jan. 15, 2015, Townhall

So far Obama has remained mum about the remarkable Cairo speech of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who called on imams and Islamic clerics to speak out against terrorist violence in their midst and to inculcate greater tolerance among Muslims. In Obama's own 2009 Cairo speech, he invited the illiberal Muslim Brotherhood to attend in order to hear mostly half-true claims about the historical glories of Islam, while Obama cited Western colonialism, globalization and the Cold War as understandable incitements to Muslims.

Read more: www.townhall.com

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Thursday, September 25, 2014

Self-imposed death panel

September 25, 2014 Age , Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel 0 Comments
Victor Davis Hanson: OCare Architect Says 75 Is Ideal Age To Die 

By Victor Davis Hanson, Sept. 25, 2014, Townhall.com

Normally, no one would care that in a recent Atlantic essay -- "Why I hope to die at 75"-- 57-year-old Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel argued that living to be 75 years old was long enough for anyone. After 75, Emanuel suggests, "We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.

But Emanuel is no garden-variety crackpot. Nor is he a wannabe science-fiction writer dreaming of a centrally planned planet of robust youthful humanoids. Unfortunately, he was one of the chief architects of the troubled Affordable Care Act and a key medical advisor to the Obama administration.

The ACA's conservative critics have long knocked Obamacare as a first step toward medical rationing. Read Emanuel's diatribe against living too long, and suddenly Sarah Palin's attack on Obamacare's "death panels" does not seem so far-fetched.

Emanuel's main point is that those who live beyond 75 inordinately gobble up collective health resources -- like flu shots. Emanuel asserts that at age 75 and beyond, he will decline nearly all medical tests and treatments. ("What about simple stuff? Flu shots are out.") He claims he won't take antibiotics either.

Read the full story:  www.townhall.com

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Friday, August 15, 2014

Selective outrage

August 15, 2014 Greek Cyprus , Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 0 Comments
Victor Davis Hanson: Occupation of Cyprus Underscores Hypocrisy Of Gaza Outrage

By Victor Davis Hanson, Aug. 14, 2014, Townhall.com

LIMASSOL, Cyprus -- Cyprus is a beautiful island. But it has never recovered from the Turkish invasion of 1974. Turkish troops still control nearly 40 percent of the island -- the most fertile and formerly the richest portion.

Some 200,000 Greek refugees never returned home after being expelled from their homes and farms in Northern Cyprus.

The capital of Nicosia remains divided. A 112-mile demilitarized "green line" runs right through the city across the entire island.

Thousands of settlers from Anatolia were shipped in by the Turkish government to occupy former Greek villages and to change Cypriot demography -- in the same manner the occupying Ottoman Empire once did in the 16th century. Not a single nation recognizes the legitimacy of the Turkish Cypriot state. In contrast, Greek Cyprus is a member of the European Union.

Why, then, is the world not outraged at an occupied Cyprus the way it is at, say, Israel?

Nicosia is certainly more divided than is Jerusalem. Thousands of Greek refugees lost their homes more recently, in 1974, than did the Palestinians in 1947.

Turkey has far more troops in Northern Cyprus than Israel has in the West Bank. Greek Cypriots, unlike Palestinians, vastly outnumbered their adversaries. Indeed, a minority comprising about a quarter of the island's population controls close to 40 percent of the landmass. Whereas Israel is a member of the U.N., Turkish Cyprus is an unrecognized outlaw nation.

Read the full story:  www.townhall.com

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Thursday, July 31, 2014

"[M]ess...made worse by growing U.S. indifference and paralysis"

July 31, 2014 George W. Bush , President Barack Obama 0 Comments
Victor Davis Hanson: Obama And The Road Not Taken 

President Barack Obama
Source:  www.blogs.telegraph.co.uk
By Victor Davis Hanson, Jul. 31, 2014, Townhall.com

The Obama administration often denies any responsibility for the current global chaos or claims that it erupted spontaneously. Yet most of the mess was caused by, or made worse by, growing U.S. indifference and paralysis.

Over the last five and a half years, America has had lots of clear choices, but the administration usually took the path of least short-term trouble, which has ensured long-term hardship.

There was no need to "reset" the relatively mild punishments that the George W. Bush administration had accorded Vladimir Putin's Russia for invading Georgia in 2008. By unilaterally normalizing relations with Russia and trashing Bush, Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only green-lighted further Russian aggression that has now spread to Crimea and Ukraine.

There was no need for Obama, almost immediately upon assuming office, to distance the U.S. from Israel by criticizing Israel's policies and warming to its enemies, such as authoritarian Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and Hamas.

Any time Israel's enemies have glimpsed growing distance in the U.S.-Israeli friendship, they seek only to pry it still wider. We see just that with terrorists in Gaza who launch hundreds of missiles into Israel on the expectation that the U.S. will broker a favorable deal that finds both sides equally at fault.

Read the full story:  www.townhall.com

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Friday, April 18, 2014

Who Are The Real Saboteurs Of Immigration Reform? By Victor Davis Hanson --Plenty of blame to share--both parties

April 18, 2014 Democratic Party , Democrats 0 Comments
By Victor Davis Hanson, Apr. 17, 2014, Twonhall.com

Solving the illegal immigration problem should not be hard. No one knows how many foreign nationals are residing illegally in the United States -- estimates range from 11 million to 20 million. But everyone understands that it is an untenable situation that must be addressed.

The two extreme positions of the Left and Right probably have little public support -- on the one hand, blanket amnesties and open borders, and on the other, deportation of all foreign nationals who reside here without legal authorization.

Polls show that most Americans want something in between.

Close the border. Allow entry only to those who have legal permission. Ensure that employers hire only those foreign nationals who have valid green cards. Permit those who have resided here for a while, who are without criminal records and are employed, to apply inside the U.S. for either a pathway to citizenship or legal residence.

Require that those residing here unlawfully pay a fine for breaking the law and wait in line until immigrants who followed the law are first processed. Reform legal immigration to make it ethnically blind and predicated on skill sets and education rather than on proximity to our borders or on family connections to those residing here unlawfully.

Most would agree with those sensible reforms, but I doubt that we will see any such grand bargain. The trouble is not, as the Democratic and Republican establishments allege, because of xenophobic and nativist bigots. Only a minority now favor sending every undocumented immigrant home without a chance for the hard-working and law-abiding to stay here while they apply for citizenship.

The problem instead is that the establishments of both parties talk in high-minded fashion but in fact act selfishly. Unfortunately, identity-politics elites and Democratic Party activists, along with employers of undocumented workers, do not support such a grand bargain.

Read the full story: www.townhall.com
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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Study Finds More Immigrants Equals More Democrats ---And More Losses For GOP --You think?

April 17, 2014 Byron York , Democratic Party 0 Comments
By Byron York, Apr. 15, 2014, Washington Examiner

Republicans are famously divided on immigration reform, but Democrats pretty much unanimously support it. There's a reason for that.

In stark, partisan political terms, continuing the high level of immigration of recent decades, and certainly increasing immigration as envisioned by many reformers, will result in more Democrats winning more elections in coming years.

"The enormous flow of legal immigrants into the country — 29.5 million from 1980 to 2012 — has remade and continues to remake the nation's electorate in favor of the Democratic Party," concludes a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes comprehensive reform proposals like the Senate "Gang of Eight" bill. "As the immigrant population has grown, Republican electoral prospects have dimmed, even after controlling for alternative explanations of GOP performance."
Read the full story:  www.washingtonexaminer.com
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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

"Loud + Weak = War-- China & Russia Are No More Impressed With Empty Bluster Today than Japan was in '41"

March 25, 2014 Admiral , China 0 Comments
Victor Davis Hanson
By Victor Davis Hanson, Mar. 25, 2014, National Review 
The Roosevelt administration once talked loudly of pivoting to Asia to thwart a rising Japan. As a token of its seriousness, in May 1940 it moved the home port of the Seventh Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor — but without beefing up the fleet’s strength.
The then-commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral James O. Richardson, an expert on the Japanese Imperial Navy, protested vehemently over such a reckless redeployment. He felt that the move might invite, but could not guard against, surprise attack.
Richardson was eventually relieved of his command and his career was ruined — even as he was later proved right when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Britain at the same time promoted a loud Singapore Strategy, trumpeting its Malaysian base as the “Gibraltar of the Pacific.” But London did not send out up-to-date planes, carriers, or gunnery to the Pacific.


Japan was not impressed. It surprise-attacked the base right after Pearl Harbor. The British surrendered Singapore in February 1942, in the most ignominious defeat in British military history.

Read the full story:  www.nationalreview.com
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Wednesday, March 19, 2014

"Technology is not Wisdom" by Victor Davis Hanson

March 19, 2014 Byzantine Greek , Google 0 Comments
By Victor David Hanson
Americans now have more computer power in their smart phones than did the Pentagon in all its computer banks just 30 years ago. We board a sophisticated jet and assume that the flight is no more dangerous than crossing the street.
The downside of this complete reliance on computer gadgetry is a fundamental ignorance of what technology is. Smart machines are simply the pumps that deliver the water of knowledge -- not knowledge itself.
What does it matter that millions of American students can communicate across thousands of miles instantly with their iPads and iPhones if a poorly educated generation increasingly has little to say?
The latest fad of near-insolvent universities is to offer free iPads to students so that they can access information more easily. But what if most undergraduates still have not been taught to read well, think inductively or have some notion of history? Speeding up their ignorance is not the same as imparting wisdom. Requiring a freshman Latin course would be a far cheaper and wiser investment in mastering language, composition and inductive reasoning than handing out free electronics.
Technology also confuses us about the vast power and force of nature that remains more formidable than Yahoo or Google. Computer models assured us that the Earth would be now be getting really hot. But over the last 17 years, when carbon emissions reached historic levels, temperatures mysteriously have stayed the same or cooled. Nature remains fickle, complex and unfathomable, and can defy even computer-enhanced theorizing.
When wind-chill temperatures fell to 40 degrees below zero in the frigid Midwest this winter and there were occasional storm-related power outages, was it better to have a computer-controlled central heating system or an ax, some wood and a cast-iron stove?
The politicos who peddled the Affordable Care Act did so not just on the impossible logistics of giving more coverage to more people at less cost. They also hyped their new user-friendly website that would make getting health care no different from buying shoes on Amazon.
Yet behind the cheery web pages on our laptops lie millions of hours of complex computer programming -- as arcane a task as deciphering Byzantine Greek manuscripts. Technological failure has all but sidetracked Obamacare. And the resulting shock is not surprising, given how something so difficult to do was sold to us as if it were already done.
Read the full story:  www.townhall.com

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