Professor Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow in military history at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said in an opinion piece Friday, April 2, that there are 10 radical new ideas currently changing America.
The following is a translation of his article.
There are ten new ideas that are changing America, perhaps permanently.
First, money is a product
It can be created out of thin air. Annual deficits and total national debt no longer matter.
Previous presidents had allowed the country to rack up huge deficits every year, but would at least acknowledge that the money was real and had to be paid back. Now it’s different. As our national debt approaches $30 trillion, or 110% of annual GNP, our elites either make a cascade of debt irrelevant with perpetual zero interest rates, or assume that the larger the debt, the more likely we will be forced to address needed income redistribution.
Second, the law is no longer binding
Joe Biden vowed to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” but he has deliberately rendered federal immigration laws completely ineffective. Some rioters have been prosecuted for violating federal law, while others have not been prosecuted. Arrests, prosecutions, and trials have been erratic. Ideology controls when the law remains the law.
Crime rates don’t necessarily matter. If someone is abducted, beaten or shot, yet it is understood that this victim is as much at fault as the perpetrator. The victim was either too lax, didn’t mind his own business, wasn’t vigilant, or pissed off his attacker. How useful crime is to the left’s agenda determines whether the victim is really victimized and the persecuted really persecuted.
III. “Racism” is now acceptable
We are defined first by our race or religion, and secondly (if at all) by our commonality as Americans. The explicit exclusion of whites from college dormitories, places of safety, and federal aid programs is now uncontroversial. This is either retribution for our past crimes or a form of “good” racism. Those who are stigmatized as “racist” are more guilty than those who stigmatize others as “racist.
Fourth, the opposite of a guest – immigrants are more desirable than national citizens
Unlike the hosts, the new guests will not be tainted by the sins of the founding and history of the United States. Currently, most citizens must comply with quarantine regulations and social isolation, stay away from schools, and obey all laws.
However, those who enter the United States illegally do not have to follow these apparently superfluous quarantine rules. Their children will attend school immediately and should not worry about being quarantined. Immigrants do not have to worry about their illegal entry or stay in the United States. Our elites believe that illegal aliens are more like the “founders” than legal citizens, about half of whom they consider irredeemable.
V. Most Americans should be treated like children
They cannot be required to provide proof of identity to vote. The “noble lies” of our elites about immunization rules are essential to protect “rigid, old-fashioned Neanderthals” from them.
Americans should be freed from the pressures of grades, standardized tests and school behavior codes. Why spending more money on gasoline, heating and air conditioning is good for them is still unknown to them.
Sixth, stop criticizing others for hypocrisy, it’s a cliché
The trend now is to show virtue. Climate change activists are flying private jets. Fighters for social justice live in fancy neighborhoods guarded by security guards. Billionaire elites dress up as victims of sexism, racism and homophobia. The elite need these exemptions to help the helpless. The important thing is not to tell others about your own life, but to educate others about how to live.
Seven: It is better to leave the homeless alone than to house them properly
Allowing thousands of homeless people to live, eat, defecate, and use drugs on public streets and sidewalks is more “humane” than approving new affordable housing, forcing the mentally ill to be hospitalized, and creating enough public shelters.
VIII. McCarthyism is good
Save more lives and jobs by indiscriminately destroying them. The “culture of abolition” and Twitter’s reign of terror can bring about this change.
Now that Americans know that one wrong word, act or dress can cost them their livelihood, they will be more cautious and will act in a more enlightened way. The guillotine of social media is a “humane and scientific” tool for the “woke ones.
Ignorance is better than knowledge
Bringing down historical statues, changing names, or the “1619 Project” does not require any evidence or historical knowledge. The heroes of the past are simply an image. Undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees reflect credentials, not knowledge. What matters is the banner, not the purpose behind it.
The Awakening is a new religion that is growing faster than Christianity
It has more clergy than clergy and exercises more power. Silicon Valley is the new Vatican, and Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter are the new “gospel.
While the American people worry about these new rules in private, they seem to accept them in public. They may be short-lived and reactive, but perhaps they are close to being permanent and institutionalized.
These ten ideas will determine whether our constitutional republic will continue as it always has, or whether it is headed for consequences never imagined by those who came up with it.
Note: Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative commentator, classicist and military historian. He is a professor emeritus at California State University, a senior fellow in classics and military history at Stanford University, a fellow at Hillsdale College and a distinguished fellow at the Center for American Greatness. Hansen is the author of 16 books, including The Western Way of War, The Field Without Dreams and The Trump Case.
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