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Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson Books

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“...there is no certainty that as scientific progress accelerates and leisure increases, and as the world shrinks on our computer and television screens, there is any corresponding advance in wisdom or morality, much less radical improvement in innate human nature.”

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Book:The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation
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“The great hatred of capitalism in the hearts of the oppressed, ancient and modern, I think, stems not merely from the ensuing vast inequality in wealth, and the often unfair and arbitrary nature of who profits and who suffers, but from the silent acknowledgement that under a free market economy the many victims of the greed of the few are still better off than those under the utopian socialism of the well-intended. It is a hard thing for the poor to acknowledge benefits from their rich moral inferiors who never so intended it. (p.272)”

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Book:Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power
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“The same hubris that posits that complex tools of mass destruction can be created but never used, also fuels the fatal vanity that war itself is an anachronism and no longer an existential concern-at least in comparison to the supposedly greater threats of naturally occurring pandemics, meteoric impacts, man-made climate change, or overpopulation.”

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Book:The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation
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“War is probably the oldest human endeavor, and its face of battle is constantly changing, with new challenges prompting counterresponses. Its novel and unforeseen dangers can never be underestimated. If the twenty-first-century nations do not tolerate the enslavement of the defeated, they certainly promiscuously warn about incinerating them with nuclear weapons.”

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Book:The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation
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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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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“Even Hollywood millionaires are now clamoring for legal protections for their illegal-alien nannies and gardeners, though such elites would hardly countenance a similar legal laxity that would allow foreign film technicians, screenwriters, and actors to flood southern California to work in their industry for a fourth of their own pay.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“Gas prices in many parts of the country are nearing $4 a gallon; it could get even worse as unrest spreads throughout the oil-exporting Middle East. Yet the Obama administration once again seems to see no crisis. It has curtailed new leases for offshore oil exploration for seven years and exempted thousands of acres in the West from new drilling. It will not reconsider opening up small areas of Alaska with known large oil reserves.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“Behind every liberal philanthropist fortune is a huge capitalist score. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can afford now to be liberal - an expensive indulgence - because in their early incarnations they were no-holds-barred capitalists who made lots of enemies conducting business without mercy and in search of pure profit.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“Ancient wisdom: deal in personal trust; your word is your bond; avoid extremes; treat the money you invest for others as something sacred; don't take any more perks than you would wish others to take; don't borrow what you couldn't suddenly pay back; imagine the worse case financial scenario and expect it very may well happen; the wealthier you become the more humble you should act.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“Offering 'comprehensive' reform usually means years of arguing and horse-trading among pressure groups to get anything done. By the time all the special interests are appeased or bought off, the resulting elephantine legislation typically looks nothing like what was intended. In short, big-government medicine usually doesn't work on big-government sickness. If President Obama wants 'comprehensive' change, it would be better simply not to spend any more money we don't have.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“If the Democrats feel they have lost the public's confidence in their stewardship of national security, then the threat of Iran offers a Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, or John Kerry an opportunity to get out front now and pledge support for a united effort - attacking Bush from the right about too tepid a stance rather from the predictable left that we are 'hegemonic' and 'imperialistic' every time we use force abroad.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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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.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“It's very difficult, historically, to define what an elite is. But whatever it is, people are very angry at that idea, I think, not so much because of wealth or privilege as much as attitude that the populous masses, if I could use that overused term, feel that a particular government or cultural group is not subject to the ramifications of their own ideology.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“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.”

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Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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