"Therapeutic" culture and the decline of the west....

[Colpy]

Victor Davis Hanson

A historian.....typically men with a much longer, clearer view of the world (except for Iggy, Dammit)

This is SO dead on; I am impressed, and intend to seek out more from this guy.

After Jimmy Carter failed not only to rescue the U.S. economy, but set in motion a deleterious series of foreign policy fiascos, voters turned to Ronald Reagan’s promise to fight Communism again, and free the hostages. The seriousness and credibility of Reagan’s threat of power was enough: Tehran released its remaining captives minutes after his inauguration. The tragic view of the world, he says, insists that keeping tyrants in check means raising the price of their mischief to an intolerable point.
“You have to be resigned to the fact that at some point, what makes Iran not shoot a missile at Israel, or North Korea cross the 38th parallel, is their fear of repercussions,” he says.
After Obama, Mr. Hanson predicts, Americans will surely remember the importance of a leader who intimidates the United States’ rivals. It may not feel as therapeutic, but, he believes, a world ruled by an unrepentantly hegemonic America is a lot less tragic a result than the alternatives.

Read more: The Saturday Interview: Victor Davis Hanson ?therapeutic? culture heart of U.S. problem

Oh, and I say "decline of the west" because , make no mistake, the decline of the USA IS the decline of the west. And that means you, and me, and our culture, and practically everyone on these threads.

And the alternatives are no less than horrendous.
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[Unforgiven]

Then he moves on and you have a **** storm of psychos wanting to fly planes into buildings, blowing their vans and themselves up just to get a piece of you. Typical of the short sighted right wing.

 

[Colpy]

Then he moves on and you have a **** storm of psychos wanting to fly planes into buildings, blowing their vans and themselves up just to get a piece of you. Typical of the short sighted right wing.

Of course!

We should cease defending the greatest societies ever to exist on the face of the earth, for fear of retaliation!

Why didn't I think of that?????

 

[Cliffy]

Of course!

We should cease defending the greatest societies ever to exist on the face of the earth, for fear of retaliation!

Why didn't I think of that?????

Because it is BS. Any civilization has flaws and the bigger the civilization, the more flaws it has. The west is in decline because it has become based on speculation and not reality. It floats on a bubble of false hopes and the repression of "lesser" third world countries. The lifestyle of the west is unsustainable and we are now seeing just how unsustainable it is as we self implode. There will be no recovery from this Disneyesque hegemony. Like all empires, the fall is inevitable, history repeats itself because we fail to heed the warnings of the past. We are on a downhill roll and the bottom is still far away.

 

[Just the Facts]

Then he moves on and you have a **** storm of psychos wanting to fly planes into buildings, blowing their vans and themselves up just to get a piece of you. Typical of the short sighted right wing.

They do it to get a piece, alright. But not of "you". lol :lol:

 

[CUBert]

Hanson is a military historian, he's a war-mongering imbecile who blows a load in his pants at the thought of any kind of military confrontation.

 

[Tonington]

I'm sure there were similar intellectuals advising for more war in the final years of the Roman Empire too.

 

[Colpy]

Hanson is a military historian, he's a war-mongering imbecile who blows a load in his pants at the thought of any kind of military confrontation.

"a war mongering imbecile"....

the Classics........

Guess what? War has oft been the decisive factor in human development.

The simple fact is that there are always wolves at the door, and an enemy at the gate.

We have simply become so spoiled by prosperous peace, brought to us through the blessings of western civilization, that we forget that fact. To our detriment. The very success of our culture may prove its downfall.

Hanson simply has a more refined view of the progression of history.

I'm sure there were similar intellectuals advising for more war in the final years of the Roman Empire too.

Funny, I haven't seen Hanson promoting "more war".

Just winning the ones we are in.....

 

[petros]

How is getting your own people hooked on crack then using that money to buy arms from Israel for Iran in order to free hostages a good thing under Reagan or any other politician?

Lots of the Brits believe these arms for drugs for hostages deals is what lead to the Lockerbie incident.

Did anyone really benefit?

Crack is still around, the arms sales haven't slowed and Israel/IranUSA relations are still a big ol pile of ****.

 

[Tonington]

Funny, I haven't seen Hanson promoting "more war".

Just winning the ones we are in.....

You can't win a war on terror with sabre rattling, when the opposing side is ideologically firm, willing to give their lives and without compromise. Nine out of ten Afghan men don't know that the West is in their country because of the precipitous events of 9/11.

 

[Unforgiven]

Of course!

We should cease defending the greatest societies ever to exist on the face of the earth, for fear of retaliation!

Why didn't I think of that?????

You haven't the slightest idea what defence even means Colpy. We haven't defended ourselves for over 60 years. What we have done is Japan did at Pearl and what Germany did in Italy. But you can't say we've defended ourselves any more than Iraq "defended" Kuwait just before the Gulf war.

The simple fact is that there are always wolves at the door, and an enemy at the gate.

When you have to go to their country and build the gate to say the enemy is at the gate, we cease to be a part of and defending the greatest societies ever to exist on the face of the earth.

 

[Colpy]

You haven't the slightest idea what defence even means Colpy. We haven't defended ourselves for over 60 years. What we have done is Japan did at Pearl and what Germany did in Italy. But you can't say we've defended ourselves any more than Iraq "defended" Kuwait just before the Gulf war.



When you have to go to their country and build the gate to say the enemy is at the gate, we cease to be a part of and defending the greatest societies ever to exist on the face of the earth.

First of all, we were long a member of the NATO alliance, which was created as a defense against the Soviet Union, and fulfilled that role extremely well. Despite the fact the Americans carried us after Trudeau turned our military into the world equivalent of a boy scout troop.

Secondly, we don't need to be a big player, you are quite correct. What we do need to do is live up to our agreements and our alliances.........so far we have been doing that with honour....but it needs to continue. And that means working in concert with or friends, brothers, protectors, and closest allies, the United States. And it means keeping, in a small way, weapons of very high quality........what if it comes to war in Korea?? Or with China?? Or in a thousand ways we can't foresee??

Do you avoid having a fire extinguisher because your house is not aflame right now?????

The gate is world wide. Islam exists by the sword, it was spread by the sword, it resents the turning back of the Islamic tide in the 15th century....the radical elements want SPAIN back, fer God's sake. It is by nature expansionist. And I'm sorry, I don't see how paying inflated prices for oil to an Arab cartel is exploiting them.........

And the other wolf....China. Take a long, hard look and tell me then China doesn't constitute a threat.......and that we should let the USA handle her (as they have so far refused to do) on their own..

Driving your head into the sand HARD does not change the realities of geo-politics.

BTW....I thought I was in the F-35 thread.......OOPS....but I'll let the arguments stand.

 

[Bar Sinister]

The may be some point to Mr. Hanson's position, but the question is will the USA continue to pour trillions into the defence of the world? The US doesn't really don't get a lot of thanks for the things it does; not even from its own population, and frequently as it the case of Iraq, it interferes in the wrong places for the wrong reasons. It is all very well to want your country to play the role of the world's policeman, but that role comes with a high price both in therms of cash and lives.

In addition, there are clearly some errors in Mr. Hanson's interpretation of history and possible current threats. For example, the invasion of Vietnam by China was a military disaster for the Chinese with the well-trained Vietnamese military cutting the poorly trained Chinese forces to ribbons. Also, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan ended in a debacle and the communist threat in Central American was grossly exaggerated. Certainly the Sandanista takeover of Nicaragua posed very little threat to the USA as was seen a few years later when the Sandanistas abided by the results of a democratic election and allowed the opposition to take power. As for radical Islam being a threat anyone who has studied the situation knows that most Muslim radicals are minorities even in their own countries and are much better at killing their fellow Muslims than anyone else.

It is also worth noting that weak nations like North Korea or Venezuela are hardly a real threat to the USA. China will deal with North Korea as it always has; and Hugo Chavez might make a lot of noise, but he is really not capable of doing much more than that. The same can also be said of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who was forced to manipulate the electoral process in Iran in order to fraudulently cling to power. Mr. Hanson appears to be seeing threats where there aren't any.

As for the other bogeyman in the closet, China; there is not now and probably will not be in the future, any threat from that nation. China's economy is inextricably tied to the West. The last thing it wants is to cripple the hand that feeds it. Historically China has tended to only respond when threatened and has shown very little interest in expanding beyond its traditional sphere of influence which is the area around China and China itself. China's current military budget is a fraction of that of the US. Unless it goes on a major military spending spree it is really not capable of doing more than defending its borders. Given the fact that such spending would seriously harm its efforts to upgrade and modernize its infrastructure that is not likely to happen.

Currently the US is in serious decline due to the mismanagement of its economy by some of the presidents he so lavishly praises. Reagan started the decline with his runaway military spending and low tax policies that placed the US on the edge of a fiscal abyss. Most recently GW Bush continued those policies with the result that the US is now in no position to play the role Mr. Hanson wishes it to have.

History shows that great nations decline when they can no longer maintain their former levels of military strength. This was one of the major reasons for the decline of Britain and France following World War II. The US now faces a similar dilemma. If it wishes to maintain its position as world leader it needs to first put its own house in order.

 

[petros]

Currently the US is in serious decline due to the mismanagement of its economy by some of the presidents he so lavishly praises. Reagan started the decline with his runaway military spending and low tax policies that placed the US on the edge of a fiscal abyss. Most recently GW Bush continued those policies with the result that the US is now in no position to play the role Mr. Hanson wishes it to have.

Reagan was too whacked on valium and vicodin. It was Don Regan who started the deregualtion of the banking and insurance industries. He handed the country's finances over to a bunch of crooks who are still raiding the cookie jar and snorting the remaining crumbs in a lunatic frenzy of debauchery.

 

[Cliffy]

Reagan was too whacked on valium and vicodin. It was Don Regan who started the deregualtion of the banking and insurance industries. He handed the country's finances over to a bunch of crooks who are still raiding the cookie jar and snorting the remaining crumbs in a lunatic frenzy of debauchery.

Nice turn of phrase! ;-)
Too bad it is true.

 

[petros]

Thank you! Yeah you're right it is all too true. When the anti-depressants and cheap booze wear off the Americans are in for one **** of a hangover.