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Our Institutions, If They Do Not Erode Entirely, Can Survive Periods Of Decadence Brought On By Our Material Success, Eras When The Whole Notion Of Civic Militarism Seems Bothersome, And In Which Free Speech Is Used To Focus On Our Own Imperfections Without Concern For The Ghastly Nature Of Our Enemies.

-Victor Davis Hanson

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Our Institutions, If They

Victor Davis Hanson

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Our Institutions, If They Do Not Erode Entirely, Can Survive Periods Of Decadence Brought On By Our Material Success, Eras When The Whole Notion Of Civic Militarism Seems Bothersome, And In Which Free Speech Is Used To Focus On Our Own Imperfections Without Concern For The Ghastly Nature Of Our Enemies.

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Approval Rating

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Of Course, The Clintons Are Not Only Corrupt But Cynical As Well. They Accept That The Progressive Media, The Foundations, The Universities, The Bureaucracies, Hollywood, And Silicon Valley Honor Power More Than Trendy Left-wing Politics; They Well Understand That Their Fans Will, For Them, Make The Necessary Adjustments To Contextualize Clinton Criminality Or Amorality.

It Is Never Wrong To Be On The Side Of Freedom...never .

War Seems To Come Out Of Nowhere, Like Rust That Suddenly Pops Up On Iron After A Storm.

The Wisdom And Spirit Of Churchill Not Only Saved Britain From The Third Reich But Saved Western Civilization From A Nazi Dark Ages When No Other Nation Was Willing To Take Up That Defense. Churchill Was The Greatest Military, Political And Spiritual Leader Of The 20th Century.

We Have Had Raucous Moments In Our History. And I Think We're In One Now. But It's Not Going To Endanger The Future Of Democracy.

The Shutdown May Have Temporarily Sidetracked The Republicans, Yet Obamacare Threatens Much Worse For The Democrats. By 2014 The Former Will Be Ancient History, While The Latter Will Be An Ongoing Mess.

Apologizing For Our Past Sins May Reveal Character And For A Time Lessen Anti-americanism Abroad, But If It Is Done Without Acknowledging That The Sins Of America Are The Sins Of Mankind, And That Our Remedies Are So Often Exceptional, Then It Only Earns Transitory Applause—and A More Lasting Contempt That We Ourselves Do Not Believe In The Values We Profess.

I Think People Are Beating Each Other Up In The Halls Of Congress, As They Did In The Late 1850s.

The Fact Is That We Have Been Consistent In A Predictable 60-year Commitment To National Security, While Our Friends And Former Enemies - By Intent Or Default - Have Followed Different Paths Since 1989. We Stayed Mostly The Same As They Became Hypopowers That, To Take A Small Example, Would And Could Do Nothing Should A Madman In Korea Wish To Kill Millions.

Stalin And Mao Killed Over 80 Million And Did Not Make Omelets Despite The Broken Eggs.

Racial Inequality Has Gotten Worse In The Last Years Because Any Time You Have A Moribund Economy, The People Who Historically Have Had More Problems Getting Jobs Have Suffered. And That, I Think, Is Triggering A Lot Of The Animosity.

Donald Trump, He Didn't Dismantle Eastern European Missile Defense. He Didn't Go To Geneva And Press A Plastic Red Button. He Didn't Make Fun Of Romney For Saying Russia Was An Existential Enemy. He Didn't Have A Hot Mic Exchange With A Russian President Saying That He Would Be More Flexible With The Russians After The Elections.

The Columnist Like Myself Or People At Stanford University Don't Wake Up In The Morning And See Their Job Outsourced. Yet We Promote Free Markets. But We're Not Sensitive To What That Does To Other People Who Don't Have Our Privilege.

Stanford University

Popular Culture Is Simply A Reflection Of What The Majority Seems To Want.

I Wish I Could Attribute The Absence Of Any Conventional Arab Offensive In The Last 20 Years To A Change Of Political Climate Or A Willingness To Abide By Past Accords. But Unfortunately It Is More Likely That The Egyptians Or Syrians Concluded That The Next Time Their Tanks Headed To Tel Aviv, There Was Nothing Stopping The Counterassaults From Ending Up In Downtown Cairo Or Damascus.

It Is Rather The Nature Of America - Our Freewheeling, Outspoken, Prosperous, Liberty-loving Citizens Extend Equality To Women, Homosexuals, Minorities, And Almost Anyone Who Comes To Our Shores, And Thereby Create Desire And With It Shame For That Desire. Indeed, It Is Worse Still Than That: Precisely Because We Worry Publicly That We Are Insensitive, Our Enemies Scoff Privately That We In Fact Are Too Sensitive - What We Think Is Liberality And Magnanimity They See As License And Decadence. If We Don't Have Confidence In Who We Are, Why Should They?

There's Just No - Nothing Like This Country, Which Is The Only, Really, Multiracial Country That's Tried To Share In A Common Culture In The History Of Civilization That's Pulled It Off. A Lot Of The Times, We Want Perfection. If We're Not Perfect, We're Not Good.

I Think There's A Group Of Students - Whether It's The Micro-aggression Or The Safe Space Or The Trigger Warning That Garner A Lot Of Attention - But That The Fundamental Issues That They're More Interested In Are - And I'll Be Very Frank Here - How Much Money Do I Pay For A Unit? And What Is That Unit Going To Do For Me When I'm Graduating?and Even Though This Is Mostly In A Progressive Landscape, They're Asking Questions That Have Not Been Asked Of The University. And The University Can't Supply Answers To Them.

Asking Questions

Multiculturalism Is A Good Reminder That When Standards Are Relative, There Are No Standards At All.

Multiculturalism

Illegal Immigration Is Praised Only By Those Who Benefit Directly From It, Whether In The Familial Sense Of Inexpensive Nannies, Cooks, Or Gardeners; Or In The Corporate Interest Of Cheap Labor In The Hospitality Industries, Agriculture, And Construction; Or In The Political Sense Of New Liberal Constituents; Or In The Tribal Sense Of Expanding The So-called La Raza Base. But The Vast Majority Of Americans Accept That When Federal Law Is Ignored, Chaos Ensues.

I Think Everybody Realizes Some Things Went Wrong In The Middle East And That Most Of The Terrorism Is Emanating From That Area.

Western Societies From Ancient Athens To Imperial Rome To The French Republic Rarely Collapsed Because Of A Shortage Of Resources Or Because Foreign Enemies Proved Too Numerous Or Formidable In Arms - Even When Those Enemies Were Grim Macedonians Or Germans. Rather, In Times Of Peace And Prosperity There Arose An Unreal View Of The World Beyond Their Borders, One That Was The Product Of Insularity Brought About By Success, And An Intellectual Arrogance That For Some Can Be The Unfortunate Byproduct Of An Enlightened Society.

Intellectual Arrogance

A Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, George Soros, Or Al Gore Looks - No, Acts - Like He Either Came Out Of A Hairstylist's Salon Or Got Off A Gulfstream.

I Saw More Stupid People In Graduate School And Three Decades In Academia Than I Ever Did Who Ran 100 Acres Without Going Broke.

Stop Seeing Socialists And Anti-americans As Democrats. When A Michael Moore Compares Beheaders To Our Own Minutemen And Laments That Too Many Democrats Were In The World Trade Center, He Deserves No Platform Alongside Wesley Clark Or A Seat Next To Jimmy Carter Or Praise For His Pseudo-dramas From High Democrats.

So Why, After Prior Successes, Did Obama's Race/class/gender Attack Finally Sputter Out Like The French At Waterloo?

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