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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.

Victor Davis Hanson

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Victor Davis Hanson
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: September 5
Classical Scholar
Historian
Journalist
University Teacher
Fowler
California
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Land
Shortage
Interest
Perceptions
Rather
Perceived
War
Fuel
Fear
Perception
Often
Starting
Pretexts
Self
Honor
Shortages
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I think people are beating each other up in the halls of Congress, as they did in the late 1850s.
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Unhappy voters thought the anemic economy, Obamacare, the collapse of U.S. foreign policy, the scandals in government, and the incompetent handling of everything from the Islamic State to Ebola were the only real issues. Democrats'€™ refusal to acknowledge them did not make these failures go away.
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Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want.
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The president who is most slandered as Hitler will probably prove to be the most zealous advocate of democratic government abroad, the staunchest friend of beleaguered Israel, and the greatest promoter of global individual freedom in our recent memory.
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It's radical Islamic terrorism. And yet, when you see the last eight years, something's gone wrong to call it violent extremism or man-caused disasters. It would be as if we were looking at [Adolf] Hitler in the 1930s. And we were afraid to say that he was a Nazi.
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Can-do Americans courageously go about their duty in Iraq - mostly unafraid that a culture of 2,000 years, the reality of geography, the sheer forces of language and religion, the propaganda of state-run Arab media and the cynicism of the liberal West are all stacked against them.
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Western elites - the beneficiaries of 60 years of peace and prosperity achieved by the sacrifices to defeat fascism and Communism - are unhappy in their late middle age, and show little gratitude for, or any idea about, what gave them such latitude. If they cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all.
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Politicians in their hubris who believe they can ignore debt or wish it away are sorely disappointed - as we see now with the plummeting approval ratings of both the administration and Congress.
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Almost every key indicator of the current economy - unemployment, deficits, housing, energy - argues that Obama's reactionary all-powerful statist approach has only made things far worse.
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Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world.
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[People] are alike in a sense that the Bernie Sanders anger at Hillary Clinton was that she was a so-called progressive and yet had managed to make $125 million.
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