Comments on: Crazy World

By: Mark William Paules

Mark William Paules — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:09:53 +0000

Brian,

The good professor has posted your comments, I would assume verbatim ac litteratim. If I’m wrong, please correct me. He won’t answer your diatribe, but I will. And you can post my response wherever you like. Freedom is not a concept to be sneered at. Free thought, freedom of inquiry, and free expression provide the foundation for Western Civilization. The process tends to be contentious, but the results are remarkable. Modernity and progress are the children of debate.

If you think conservatives are philosophically monolithic, then you know nothing about your political opposition. We debate policy each and every day. The conservative movement is generally more divided than it is unified by a common ideology. We contend within our own group for the best ideas and the best policy, ongoing and everyday.

See you to the same, brother. Give us a mote of respect in the debate and we’ll reciprocate. Civil discourse is always welcome, especially by the opposition, but snide remarks will get you nowhere. Are you up to the task? If so, prove it.

By: Blake

Blake — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:51:55 +0000

Brian J., thank you very much. Although relatively few who read this blog need to be convinced of the immature thought process held by many liberals, your flippant response to Mr. Hanson (which completely missed much of what he was trying to say) is a text book example.

By: narciso

narciso — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:59:01 +0000

Of course, you were referring to Londinistan and their left wing
associates like Kaletsky, Pilger,
Fisk, hell the whole Guardian &
Independent/Observer Group

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:05:26 +0000

You want better airline service? Re-regulate the airlines so that they compete on amenities and have a price structure we can understand. It honestly surprises me that so many right-wingers don’t recognize the profit motive behind the diminution of service, amenities, and maintenance.

Whoever you are, please don’t ever vote. But if you must, do not ever run for office. Thank you.

The De-regulation of the airline industry is one of the only good things to come out of the Carter Administration. Instead of having just 10% of the people do 90% of the flying (which is what we had in the early 70s) now you have 50% of the people in this country doign 90% of the flying. The only reason why they fly is because they can afford it. They only reason why they can afford it is because it was De-regulated. To RE-regulate it would be the worst thing you could do (but the best thing you could do for the airlines as they are free to secure any profit that they want.)

The Free Market has dictated that airline travel is NOT a brand. It is now a commodity. That is what it is, like it or not. People in this country put up with long security lines, terrible serivce, tremendous restrictions, and being treated like cattle being herded into the slaughterhouse because they like the price. The price is right. They will pay no more than that. To regulate it means to RAISE the price. You have just DENIED air travel to millions and millions of would be air passengers.

You don’t get to do that. Shame on you for even suggesting it.

Victor Hanson can put up with the lousy service at the airport if it means that more people are afforded the privledge of flying. We just need to stop looking at it as anything special. Taking the plane for Domestic travel in these United States, is nothing more than taking a really fast commuter bus that travels through the air. That is all that it is, and that is all that the market demands it to be.

By: Mike O'Connor

Mike O'Connor — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:23:30 +0000

SPEAKING OF A CRAZY WORLD…

I just read Mr. Hanson’s very good article “Hypocrisy That Undermines Civilization”. I’m trying to get someone who is influential, such as him, to draw attention to a certain reality pertaining to the war and… New Orleans (the city of my birth). Just bear with me for a moment or two and you’ll see the point.

If you GoogleNews the string “tulane 96 murder new orleans” you’ll find several articles that all say the same thing: that the murder rate in New Orleans is 96 per 100,000 per year.

Applying that rate to 26,783,383 Iraqis (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iz.html), that would be 25,712 per year. Dividing by 365 days per year gives us an estimate of now many Iraqis would be dying per day of homicide if they were in New Orleans: 70 per day.

Currently CNN at http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/31/iraq.main/ says that “More than 1,800 Iraqi civilians died in sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq in March”, according to the Interior Ministry. Dividing 1,800 by 31 days gives us 58 per day.

The point isn’t that the murder rate in Iraq is slightly less than the rate in New Orleans. No. The point is that the rates are, or I should say `have been’, roughly the same. So to me the situation is insane. How is it that the Left is allowed to declare that all is lost in Iraq, when in fact New Orleanians are quietly coasting along with a higher murder rate? For heaven’s sake, they just had a successful tourist-ridden Mardi Gras there! We have National Guardsmen there too, you know. How do journalists get away with their nonsense?

By: Gaius

Gaius — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:54:23 +0000

I like the new Blog Dr. Hanson. I will spread the word.

I know this is not on your blog topics, but when is your novel coming out? You mentioned it on Booktv a couple of years ago.

Thanks

By: Kevin Merkelz

Kevin Merkelz — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:25:04 +0000

This will not be the most intellectual of responses, Mr. Hanson but I just wanted to let you know that sometimes I most enjoy reading the sections of your blog that deal with your everyday life. There’s something about reading your grumpy complaints concerning airport security that makes you seem more… Down to earth. More “accessible”, if that’s the right term. I truly enjoy it whenever you mention your farm, your kids, or what you’ve been off doing for the past week. Feel free to step off the academic and political lecturn to fill us in on little things that are happening in your life. I, for one, am always interested!

Also, I thought you might like to know that I made another addition to my growing library of Victor Davis Hanson books last weekend: I picked up “Mexifornia” at a big used book sale here in suburban Chicago. Considering the times, and the bill attempting to be put through Congress, your book’s subject matter is more potent than ever. I am excited to dive into it!

Kevin Merkelz
Monkey2ewok@comcast.net

By: ivanhoe

ivanhoe — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:36:41 +0000

How in the world do you manage to fly internationally on only 2 or 3 beers? I quit drinking years ago, but am regularly tempted to throw sobriety to the wind due to the aforementioned behaviors even on short regional flights. The market will have its way and respond to these frustrations. We will see more expensive flights available to those that want to avoid the rainbow coalition of trash that populates most flights these days. If I were you, I would just add a few bucks to each book or speech and see if you can make other aerial arrangements. The rest of us will sit quietly in our seats next to the screaming kid seated in the fat lady’s lap, in front of the teenager kicking our seat in time with his blaring rap music, behind the guy who thought he could set up his office on the plane and wonder just how much time we would actually have to do in federal prison if we just gave all a sound in-air thrashing with a thick book on manners.
You are correct in sensing a new isolationism in the wind. Many of us are looking for a less interventionist foreign policy, not because we don’t believe in the American republic and western ideals but because we frankly don’t see that the rest of the world is worth the blood and treasure. If we are to be militarily engaged in a country that is truly a “clear and present danger” we would have a quarter-million troops trying to bring democracy to Mexico. As Mexico’s oil fields begin to decline in output, which is rumored to be already the case, and income that props up one of the more corrupt governments in the hemisphere evaporates, the stream of north-bound refugees will become a flood. The income stream “safety valve” provided by illegals in this country will not keep the lid on and Mexico will implode. Crazy? Perhaps. But no crazier than trying to bring western thinking to middle-eastern peoples that have no history, experience or desire for those values and are quite content slaughtering one another settling generations-old scores based on which fairy tale each group believes in.
Israel will endure, as we have wisely supported them over the years because they had the raw materials for a democracy. We have given them the nuclear equivalent of the Colt Peacemaker, ensuring them equal stature with the 350 million surrounding Arabs who would see them destroyed.
Finally, let’s be honest about what our strategic interests are in the miserable Middle East. If three-fifths of the worlds remaining oil reserves were not under the Arabs feet, we would leave it the donkey-powered dust bowl that it was before the French and British developed those resources. Worry not. As much as they hate us, the Arabs will sell us whatever oil remains. They have little else to offer the world.

By: Jimmy J.

Jimmy J. — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:14:25 +0000

The airline fiasco. Yes, the airlines were deregulated……..partially. The government still oversees the safety standards, regulates the training, regulates the maintenance, controls the airways where they fly, controls the airports where they land, sets rules for dealing with passengers, and controls the security measures in the terminals. What can the airlines do without government looking over their shoulder? Decide where they will fly (except for big airports like O’Hare, Atlanta, Kennedy, etc.), when they will fly, and how much they will charge for a ticket. Meanwhile, start up airlines can enter the field with low cost employee structures and all leased equipment and keep driving the fares down until no one can make a profit. Not exactly a business that anyone not blinded by the glamour of aviation would want to enter.

By: Brian J.

Brian J. — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:54:00 +0000

Let’s see here now…

You fantasize about turning the United States against *Great Britain*. Good luck, buddy. Have some Freedom Muffins for breakfast, use Freedom Leather aftershave, and when playing pool, put some Freedom on the ball. Maybe we’ll read about the success of your boycott in the London Business Review. (snicker)

I notice that not a single message met your muster for your last comment. But then, conservatism has increasingly become a philosophy of talking to oneself.