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California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries-and squandered that gift within a generation.

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
Politics
Investment
Touchstones
Within
Noble
Bounty
Natural
Valuable
Resting
Country
Generation
Cemetery
Hard
Gift
Inherited
Work
Generations
Warning
Cemeteries
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Rarely
Squandered
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California
Touchstone

More quotes by Victor Davis Hanson

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There's just no - nothing like this country, which is the only, really, multiracial country that's tried to share in a common culture in the history of civilization that's pulled it off. A lot of the times, we want perfection. If we're not perfect, we're not good.
Victor Davis Hanson
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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.
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.
Victor Davis Hanson
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Donald Trump, he didn't dismantle Eastern European missile defense. He didn't go to Geneva and press a plastic red button. He didn't make fun of Romney for saying Russia was an existential enemy. He didn't have a hot mic exchange with a Russian President saying that he would be more flexible with the Russians after the elections.
Victor Davis Hanson
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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.
Victor Davis Hanson
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We're in a very Orwellian situation where when we - we've slashed defense. And we've raised taxes. And we consider $600 billion annual deficit success because it's not $1 trillion.
Victor Davis Hanson
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War seems to come out of nowhere, like rust that suddenly pops up on iron after a storm.
Victor Davis Hanson
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Globalization has enriched the planet beyond belief, leading to ever-increased demands of perfection. And thanks to 24/7 communications, we all instantaneously know when these expectations aren't met.
Victor Davis Hanson
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We may casually talk of all sorts of new programs and 'stimulus,' but the vast trillion-dollar collective national debt and rising annual deficits will insidiously hamstring almost everything we plan to do.
Victor Davis Hanson
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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.
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.
Victor Davis Hanson
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So why, after prior successes, did Obama's race/class/gender attack finally sputter out like the French at Waterloo?
Victor Davis Hanson
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This is something that Donald Trump has been very effective at exploiting because throughout our history, one of the things that was important to galvanize the country against a perceived threat has been philology.
Victor Davis Hanson
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Entertainers wrongly assume that their fame, money, and influence arise from broad knowledge rather than natural talent, looks, or mastery of a narrow skill.
Victor Davis Hanson
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Stop seeing socialists and anti-Americans as Democrats. When a Michael Moore compares beheaders to our own Minutemen and laments that too many Democrats were in the World Trade Center, he deserves no platform alongside Wesley Clark or a seat next to Jimmy Carter or praise for his pseudo-dramas from high Democrats.
Victor Davis Hanson
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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.
Victor Davis Hanson
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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.
Victor Davis Hanson
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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.
Victor Davis Hanson
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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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It is a hard thing for intellectuals to acknowledge benefits from their rich moral inferiors who never so intended it.
Victor Davis Hanson