Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
Let me know if you want in or out
Posted on 09/08/2005 4:30:17 AM PDT by Tolik
"In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes."
So the historian Thucydides explained, some 2,400 years ago, the grotesque rampages during a revolution on the island of Corfu.
Arson, looting, shooting at helicopters, random murder, gang rape and stampede supposedly only occur elsewhere —in Baghdad or Rwanda, as if Americans are exempt from the frailty of culture simply because we live in the United States.
We are not, as we saw in New Orleans. And when the protocols of American civilization vanished through storm and flood, the devolution to our instinctual savagery proved only minutes away.
Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina and the breaching of the Lake Pontchartrain levees above New Orleans ushered in not one, but successive storms of human and natural brutality.
First, we pressed nature one too many times. America forgot that there are very few cities extant on the planet that are below sea level. And to add to that, New Orleans is positioned on a gale-prone coast, aside the delta of one of the largest rivers in the world, and at the mercy of a huge lake damned right above the city.
<-snip->
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Let me know if you want in or out
VDH ping...
This [those successive storms of human and natural brutality] is enough for many to take up the "sword" and off some heads.
As I am not personally involved with the rescue and re-building efforts, I will calmly and deliberately, polish, hone, and oil my sword that it will be ready when the time comes.
Build their gallows high
bump
VDH Rocks......
Are there enough socks in all the world to shut these jerks up?
I just saw Houston Mayor Bill White speak on TV. What a contrast to Nagin.
I guess Mayor White proves that not all Democrats are insane.
I think I read somewhere Victor Davis Hanson voted for Clinton. How such a clear-thinker could make such a mistake is beyond me.
bump - tolik, did VDH actually vote for Clintoon?
Mr. Hanson wrote:
"Jurgen Trittin, Germany's environmental minister...preened that the ruination of New Orleans was duly earned for our neglect of the global atmosphere. This was from a government that counts on exporting thousands of its luxury gas-guzzling Mercedes, Audis and BMWs to the United States."
It sounds like it is time for the US to apply the same clean-air standards to those imports that the US applies to US-manufactured cars.
Oh? What's that? Those short-production-run cars can NEVER meet US clear-air standards?
Well, that IS a shame now, isn't it?
Now that Herr Trittin has made his environmental sensitivities so public, I should think the failure of German-made autos to meet US clean-air standards would be HIS problem...
I don't remember seeing him telling how he voted. It is very much possible that he did vote for Clinton or Perot. With candidates like Bush Sr and Dole, many people went astray.
...and NBA championships.
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