Victor Davis Hanson Quotes
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Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.
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War seems to come out of nowhere, like rust that suddenly pops up on iron after a storm.
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A France or a Belgium is not quite a sovereign nation any more, and thus does not have complete control over its national destiny or foreign relations.
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In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.
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Any time the Western way of war can be unleashed on an enemy stupid enough to enter its arena, victory is assured.
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Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want.
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History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.
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The fact is, beneath the hype, Iraqis will soon appreciate American help and idealism far more than French perfidy. It is never wrong to be on the side of freedom - never.
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Often, the pretexts for starting a war are not real shortages of land, food or fuel, but rather perceptions - like fear, honor and perceived self-interest.
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States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking.
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The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites, rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel, or to maintain adequate defense.
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This bloody past suggests to us that enemies cease hostilities only when they are battered enough to acknowledge that there is no hope in victory - and thus that further resistance means only useless sacrifice.
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Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world.
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In truth, elite education has become a cattle brand. It signifies lots of things other than knowledge: for some, politically correct certification; for others, good test scores and grades that got them in; for a few, later entry into the alumni ranks of high business, law, academia, government, and the media.
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The Confederacy was so entwined with the idea of preserving slavery that the flag, even today, can evoke racial polarization...
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Vladimir Putin is a thug and a killer who in the grand tradition of Russian autocracy has no intention ever of holding free elections.
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On most of the major issues of the last 40 years, what we were told by economists, foreign-policy experts, pundits, and the media has proven wrong - and doubly wrong given the emphases placed on such assertions by the supposedly better-educated professional classes.
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War itself is not a mere science but a more fickle sort of thing, often subject to fate or chance, being an entirely human enterprise...
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It is time to step back from the apartheid brink...
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As a general rule, whatever Europe is now doing, we should do the opposite - for our very survival in an increasingly scary world.
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Free-market economics and tolerance for Chinese violations of trade and commercial protocols did not result in either the liberalization or the democratization of China. Over the past two decades, we have been told that the Japanese, the European Union, and the Chinese successively would eclipse America with their respective superior paradigms.
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Our top schools are obsessed with race, class, and gender but apparently not rigorous in cross-examining the fables and pop fads of their students.
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If we were to take a newly arrived illegal alien, and enroll him in a typical Chicano Studies course, he would logically wish to return across the border as soon as possible.
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What bothers the New York Times is not racism per se, but who is the racist and who are her targets.