Ten Paradoxes Of Our Age

Hoover Institution ^ | 6 June 2018 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Politically Correct]

The 21st century is reminding of us of some uncomfortable truths. Abroad, recent controversies over the rise of Chinese mercantilism, the specter of Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons, tensions in the European Union, the calcified Palestinian question, mass migrations, and the resurgence of Islamic terrorism all offer a number of lessons. At home, just as instructive is the strange juxtaposition between Obama’s suave progressivism and Trump’s coarse conservatism. Here are 10 takeaways from our current controversies.

The Western world is in turmoil largely because of the widening gap between what the people see as true and the “truth” that their governing classes impose on them for the purported greater moral good. The result is a schizophrenia like that seen before the collapse of the Soviet Empire, in which no one believed that the reality they lived had anything to do with the reality delivered by the media and the state. Trumpism and popular movements in Europe are simply symptoms of another problem—that what the ruling elite said was true was often a lie.

[Politically Correct]

Read the whole thing at the link!

[P.O.E.]

Proving that black lives do indeed matter is sometimes best achieved by ensuring the African-American unemployment rate is below 6 percent, and that traditionally neglected job-seekers gain leverage over employers.

[Telepathic Intruder]

"The great dangers to modern constitutional government and a free press come not from silly and easily identifiable right-wing racists and bumbling fascists, but rather, as George Orwell saw, from glib social utopians".

How long have conservatives been saying that? But, liberals still embrace socialism and see Nazis everywhere, hiding just around the corner.

[kallisti]

“The Western world is in turmoil largely because of the widening gap between what the people see as true and the “truth” that their governing classes impose on them for the purported greater moral good. The result is a schizophrenia like that seen before the collapse of the Soviet Empire, in which no one believed that the reality they lived had anything to do with the reality delivered by the media and the state. Trumpism and popular movements in Europe are simply symptoms of another problem—that what the ruling elite said was true was often a lie.”

[DazedVet]

30 years in the future historians will say that “Fake News” became the norm. Real news ceased to be reported because no organization had the guts to buck the liberal media complex.

[A_perfect_lady]

"The challenge is not just that Australians, Canadians, Europeans, and Americans increasingly cannot articulate the values that explain why throngs of immigrants migrate to their shores, but that even if they could, they feel that they probably should not."

I like VDH. I know he's not entirely on the Trump Train, but he's a true intellectual (in the best sense.)

[Lurker]

For later.

L

[JustaTech]

He used a lot of words to completely get it wrong about what the EU is after. It is not merely trying to transform Europe into a "continental pan-European national state". The EU is hell-bent to transform Europe into the genesis of a world-wide Muslim caliphate.

Muslims are the perfect population for a dystopian state because Muslims are naturally suited to submit to non-elected authority, and if there's an election they can be counted on to vote as a block.

If you're a true European with no third-world heritage, your rulers just want you to hurry up and DIE, because they've already selected your replacements and are in a hurry to complete their "upgrade".

[YogicCowboy]

Dead - emphasis on dead - right.