I wouldn’t normally find myself reading something called Right Wing News, but I’ve sought out more Victor Davis Hanson. One subject covered in a recent interview is the frequent comparisons of the US to imperial Rome:
Politically they are absurd. We do not send proconsuls to demand taxes to pay for basing troops. In fact we do the opposite — pay lavishly for bases that protect others. The imperial senate was impotent, and civil war was common after AD 200 — we have a stable Congress and little strife. For all the European venom, George Bush is not a Caracalla or even Diocletian. The classical topos of luxus, decadence brought about by affluence and leisure — read Petronius, Suetonius, or Juvenal — well, that is a real concern. Self-loathing and smug cynicism from an elite are the first symptoms and we see that clearly among those pampered and secure, who nevertheless ridicule the very system under which they operate in such a privileged fashion — most notably in the arts, on the campuses, and in the media. A Jessica Lange or Barbra Streisand is right out of a Petronian banquet or perhaps sounds like a Flavian princess spouting off at dinner before returning to Nero’s Golden House. Norman Mailer is a modern day Eumolpus bellowing on spec, and a Michael Moore a court-jester brought in to stick his tongue out at his benefactors for their own sick amusement.
At some point in the near future, I reserve the right to spout: “Hah! She sounds like something straight out of a Petronian banquet!”
I also enjoyed Davis’s take on US-Europe relations:
The cold war was an aberration. Note how quickly the Europeans turned on America once 400 hostile divisions were no longer on their borders. They make up a big continent with a big population that deserves pride and power commensurate with their economy and population; so it is time for both of us to recognize that, bring the troops home or redeploy them in more friendly eastern European countries, and as friends let them develop their own military identity. Keeping 200,000 troops abroad to protect a rich continent is unhealthy for all parties involved.
His take on terrorism?
The antidote is well known and works — overwhelming power, an articulated policy that explains the moral issues involved, and a strong sense of national purpose and resolve. The sicarri, the great Mahdi, the assassins, the kamikazes, they all ended up badly — though they were terrifying at the time. Al Qaeda will share their fate, and bin Laden will be a footnote to history, no better known than Isama Cho, who was the rage of 1930s in Japan, and whose ideology was felt to frightening and unstoppable. The U.S. Marines took care of him and his brood on Okinawa, and they will again with the far less dangerous Islamic fundamentalists. The United States Air Force and Special Forces are much more capable warriors than killers with head bands and hoods.
His historical allusions leave me feeling woefully undereducated.