Victor Davis Hanson
Works and Days
Pajamas Media
6/13/2011
Sense Out of Nonsense — a ten-step plan
I’ve been following the news the last two weeks — Weinergate, the dismal “unexpected” economic news, the new wars in Libya and Yemen — from Europe while leading about 60 on a military history tour of Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. Even a brief hiatus abroad always gives one perspective and appreciation of the United States; reading various European papers accents the difference, and daily association, by chance and by design, with Europeans enriches the perspective. I offer some reflections this week on the American experience, and hope to be back on the farm in the U.S. by the time most read this. I note that the Mediterranean is a beautiful place, the study of which I have devoted much of my adult career; so my comments are not so much critiques of Sicilian or Roman life as much as thoughts on the U.S. through the benefit of both distance and connectivity with the 24/7 news.
1. We should not listen to journalists, politicians, or academics who lecture about overpopulation, looming environmental catastrophe, or general unsustainability — if they live in a house over 2,500 square feet and fly more than once a month. Unfortunately that covers most of our alarmists. Otherwise these megaphones simply are medieval grandees seeking indulgences and penances through loud lectures against what they enjoy in the flesh…
…6. Go to Europe and see the left-wing desired future for America: dense urban apartment living by design rather than by necessity; one smart car; no backyard or third bedroom; dependence on mass transit; political graffiti everywhere demanding more union benefits or social entitlements; entourages of horn-blaring, police-escorted technocrats racing through the streets on the hour; gated inherited homes of an aristocratic technocracy on the Mediterranean coast, Rhine, Danube, etc., exempt from much socialist and environmental law; $10 a gallon gas; sky-high power bills; racial segregation coupled with elite praise of illegal immigration and diversity; and unexamined groupthink on green issues, entitlements, and the culpability of the U.S. Drink it all in and you have the liberal agenda for an America to be…
…8. Do not listen to most of what is written or reported about America from abroad; instead look at global fashion, dress, travel, and immigration, and then see who is copying or emulating whom. America is as damned overseas as it is the favorite destination of Chinese students, the Oaxacan impoverished, Middle Eastern shopkeepers, and Russian doctors. The more Europe critiques the U.S., the more it finds safety in our military; Mexico hates America as much as it likes our $30 billion in remittances. Take away America, and even a socialist Strauss-Kahn has nowhere to visit his daughter or find a golden parachute. And why not? The suburban ranch 3/2 house of the middle class American, with its many appurtenances, is a mini-estate in Europe, a mansion in the Middle East, and a castle in Africa or most of Asia…
Read this excellent article at Pajamas Media.
H/T Blazing Cat Fur
