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Victor Davis Hanson: The 10 radical new rules that are changing America

1. Money is a construct. It can be created from thin air. Annual deficits and aggregate national debt no longer matter much.
Prior presidents ran up huge annual deficits, but at least there were some concessions that the money was real and had to be paid back. Not now. As we near $30 trillion in national debt and 110 percent of annual GDP, our elites either believe permanent zero interest rates make the cascading obligation irrelevant, or the larger the debt, the more likely we will be forced to address needed income redistribution.

2. Laws are not necessarily binding anymore. Joe Biden took an oath to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." But he has willfully rendered federal immigration laws null and void. Some rioters are prosecuted for violating federal laws, others not so much. Arrests, prosecutions and trials are all fluid. Ideology governs when a law is still considered a law.
Crime rates do not necessarily matter. If someone is carjacked, assaulted or shot, it can be understood to be as much the victim’s fault as the perpetrator’s. Either the victim was too lax, uncaring and insensitive, or he provoked his attacker.
How useful the crime is to the larger agendas of the left determines whether a victim is really a victim, and the victimizer really a victimizer

3. Racialism is now acceptable. We are defined first by our ethnicity or religion, and only secondarily — if at all — by an American commonality. The explicit exclusion of whites from college dorms, safe spaces and federal aid programs is now noncontroversial. It is unspoken payback for perceived past sins, or a type of "good" racism. Falsely being called a racist makes one more guilty than falsely calling someone else a racist.

4. The immigrant is mostly preferable to the citizen. The newcomer, unlike the host, is not stained by the sins of America’s founding and history. Most citizens currently must follow quarantine rules and social distancing, stay out of school and obey all the laws.
Yet those entering the United States illegally need not follow such apparently superfluous COVID-19 rules. Their children should be immediately schooled without worry of quarantine. Immigrants need not worry about their illegal entry or residence in America. Our elites believe illegal entrants more closely resemble the "founders" than do legal citizens, about half of whom they consider irredeemable

5. Most Americans should be treated as we would treat little children. They cannot be asked to provide an ID to vote. "Noble lies" by our elites about COVID-19 rules are necessary to protect "Neanderthals" from themselves.
Americans deserve relief from the stress of grades, standardized testing and normative rules of school behavior. They still are clueless about why it is good for them to pay far more for their gasoline, heating and air conditioning.

6. Hypocrisy is passé. Virtue-signaling is alive. Climate change activists fly on private jets. Social justice warriors live in gated communities. Multibillionaire elitists pose as victims of sexism, racism and homophobia. The elite need these exemptions to help the helpless. It is what you say to lesser others about how to live, not how you yourself live, that matters.

7. Ignoring or perpetuating homelessness is preferable to ending it. It is more humane to let thousands of homeless people live, eat, defecate and use drugs on public streets and sidewalks than it is to green-light affordable housing, mandate hospitalization for the mentally ill and create sufficient public shelter areas.

8. McCarthyism is good. Destroying lives and careers for incorrect thoughts saves more lives and careers. Cancel culture and the Twitter Reign of Terror provide needed deterrence.
Now that Americans know they are one wrong word, act or look away from losing their livelihoods, they are more careful and will behave in a more enlightened fashion. The social media guillotine is the humane, scientific tool of the woke.

9. Ignorance is preferable to knowledge. Neither statue-toppling, nor name-changing, nor the 1619 Project require any evidence or historical knowledge. Heroes of the past were simple constructs. Undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees reflect credentials, not knowledge. The brand, not what created it, is all that matters.

10. Wokeness is the new religion, growing faster and larger than Christianity. Its priesthood outnumbers the clergy and exercises far more power. Silicon Valley is the new Vatican, and Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are the new gospels.
Americans privately fear these rules while publicly appearing to accept them. They still could be transitory and invite a reaction. Or they are already near-permanent and institutionalized.
The answer determines whether a constitutional republic continues as once envisioned, or warps into something never imagined by those who created it

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/radical-new-rules-changing-america-victor-davis-hanson

Sad but true.

vdh is brilliant. as a scholar of classical greece he knows how civilizations fall.

Victor Davis Hanson can go to hell. He hates the South and lies about history.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/victor-davis-hanson-and-southern-racism/

Victor Davis Hanson and “Southern Racism”

By Paul H. Yarbrough on May 4, 2020

The political structure in the United States is often portrayed by the media and its guests via a histrionic history of federalism. However, it seems, no historian or commentator can speak without referencing Southern (and only Southern) racism. And history is always linked, era to era, as Conservative vs Liberal vs Southern. It is often linked as Republican versus Democrats vs Southern Democrat and/or Southern Republicans. This is a philosophical catch-all. This “catch-all” wants Southern votes but not conservative philosophy. No Neo-Confederates allowed–whatever that is–according to Victor Davis Hanson.

Hanson’s is possibly the most vocal voice of histrionics hidden behind history in his affected ivory tower of Stanford lore.

Hanson cannot resist denigrating the South, particularly through his effete blustering about its racist attachment to the “Lost Cause.” His is a superficial study of the Southern cause, and its belief in the original political structure of the Union of States i.e. the States, United, A.KA The United States. This now seems to mean Democrats and Republicans.

Recently on Tucker Carlson’s program (4-14-20), Hanson used one of his favorite verbal shibboleths, “Neo-confederate.” He was referring, on Carlson’s program, to those mayors of cities in any state who acted outside federal direction. That is those mayors ordering people to stay at home. Most of these mayors happen to be Democrats.

These same mayors, Hanson implies, are acting in the same light as the secessionist South did in 1861.

However, he harps on racism but ignores his own racism. No? His comments typically refer to Jim Crow (a Northern creation– see the strange case of Jim Crow-Pulitzer prize winner) while assigning it (Jim Crow) to the South during and post 1861-65. In other words, racism to Hanson is a continuous stream from the past to the present with never a break in Southern thought about race. And, certainly, it is a Southern intrinsic characteristic to be a racist if the Southerner supports secession.

In other words, the South was both before and after the war, racist. Therefore, it is not conservative; at least not among decent Southerners. Conservatives need Southerners only for their votes it seems.

When Hanson says Neo-Confederate he means racist. And, he could never support racism, unless of course, the racist is Leland Stanford.

Hanson thrives upon his promoted position as being, “The Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.” So, though Leland Stanford died in 1893 he still must retain the stain of racism, just as the Southern people must. And, of course, Hanson’s devotees must as well, as per Hanson’s standards.

“To my mind, it is clear, that the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged by every legitimate means. Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population. Large numbers of this class are already here; and, unless we do something early to check their immigration, the question, which of the two tides of immigration, meeting upon the shores of the Pacific, shall be turned back, will be forced upon our consideration, when far more difficult than now of disposal. There can be no doubt but that the presence among us of numbers of degraded and distinct people must exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race, and to a certain extent, repel desirable immigration. “ Leland Standford speaking of Chinese people.

Hanson has aligned, as he often does, Southern secession with both an unconstitutional act and a racist one. Therefore, the South was traitorous and such treason was due to a racist society. They could not both keep and beat their slaves by leaving the union.

And this mischief has carried into the 21st century. That is, the South is and will always be racist. Such is inherent to the Southern people, be they Democrats or Republicans.

And non-racist conservatives like Hanson could never entertain secession today as did racist slave owners in the past like John Hancock. Hancock, of course, would be the big signature on the SECESSION document, The Declaration of Independence.

But then Hancock was not Southern. Therefore, he is guiltless and stainless in Hanson’s eyes, just as good old boy Leland is racism-spot-free. And Stanford was, and Hanson is, from California, the land of love, love, love.

And Hanson doesn’t seem to be bothered by Calexit. Go figure. Just a clever little “California Dreaming.”

If Hanson knows as little of the creation of the Constitution as he does of the Declaration of Independence, it is little wonder he doesn’t understand federalism.

If Hanson understood federalism, he would recognize that municipalities (mayoral authority) have no federal connection apart from state action upon that municipality. But Hanson’s animus toward the South and its racist folks possibly leads him blindly into history.

After all, the Constitution and the federal government were creations of those states—not the other way around. But the histrionics of Southern racism are more worshipful than accurate history. So, federalism must be disposed of because it is (down South) racist.

And, seemingly just as important, what does Hanson not understand about racism and the “Woke” monument mobsters?

Should Hanson not lead a protest march to remove such racists monuments as are structured at Stanford?

It shouldn’t be much trouble to round up some protest animals from Antifa, or The Southern Poverty Law Center, or the San Diego Zoo to tear down and remove the hideous racist monument: The Leland Stanford Mausoleum.

Have a nice day, Victor, you neo-federalist, racist, rascal you.

Ties it all together very succinctly. Unfortunately.

More southerners refighting the civil war. I'd say VDH's 10 radical rules are more to the point today.

Victor Hanson is the man! He has more common sense in his little finger than all the Biden administration has in their empty heads.

Directly applicable.

well i believe vdh is on point with the majority of what he says.

The depressing part is VDH ain’t some fringe loony, sensationalist or radical.

Most of Dan's show covered it.

Yarbrough BE FULL OF S HIT!!

Truth.

VDH just gave a bitter dose of truth. Less likely to kill ya than sweet lies.

Hanson ranks on Yarborough any time past, present or future.