Freedom and the Erosion of Decorum

This is going to be an extremely busy month. I have to watch one hundred and four soccer games, follow the pre game, the post game, yell useless opinions at the TV. It's a li So I knew that when it comes to screening for colon cancer, the choice was clear. The Cola Guard plus test. It can be used at home and can only take fifteen minutes so I can do it during halftime and not miss any action If you are forty five or older or and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with the cololgard test. You can also request a prescription at cololgard. com Youe a laptop that's built to perform and designed to last all day? Select Windows eleven PCs starting at four dollars ninety nine dollars ny nine cents are now at Best Buy. Learn more at bestestbuy dot comot Best Buy. Imagine that. Conists were not objecting to British free market capitalism. They were not objecting to the role of religion. Jefferson said the country was based on the nuclear family and the independent agrarian. He was self supporting, and these were the ideal citizens to be entrusted in making their own laws. You want autonomy and to be self governed. It was a republic of virtue. That's how we survived for two hundred and fifty years. Hello and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in hisis own Words. We're on the Saturday Eedition and it is july fourth, so happy july fourth to everybody out there. We're going to talk about the early Republic and the two hundred fifty years of the survival of the Republic created by our founders But we'll look at a few news stories first and we're going to do some of the international news since Friday. We talked a lot about domestic issues. So stay with us and we'll come back to talk about the Iran war and the Ukraine war after these messages. 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Mountitano Media publishes single works and compilations of the greatest works of Western civilization, for education at all levels, and for independent lovers of learning and culture. Finding our words words that made America a great book For our two hundred fiftieth and always is available now in paperback cardcover, Kindle, Audible and even in Spanish. Get your copies at Amazon and on the Mountitano media website. That's Mountitano T I T A N Mountitano media dot com visit WWW Mount Titano media Welcome back. Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor's the Martin and Nilly Anderson senior fellow in military history and cllassics at the Hoover Institution and the Waynena Marsha Busky distinguished fellow in history at Hillsdale College. You can find him at his website, Victorhansen. comot So Victor, let's talk a little bit about what's going on with the war in Iran. There's been some a few missiles shot at ships and the issue of the Straits of Hormuz seems to be one of the things with Trump's peace agreement with the Iranians. But I think myself that the conflict and the problems going on between Hezbollah and Israel seem to overshadow that because that is an active war And two things though with Israel, not just that war, but I was reading an article, I think in the Jerusalem post that Hamas is coming back and starting to reform their military. And so they have grave concerns on that front as well. So essentially Israel can destroy Hamas and Hezbollah can't stop them. if they're unleashed. So Iran keeps trying to bring into the negotiation Hezboah Hezbollah Hezbollah. They're the most powerful. They were the premier terrorist group And they were shattered not only by the pager explosions, but They've lost most of their arsenal. they've lost Nasrala. they've lost most of their leadership And the Lebanese government is starting to come out of the shadows and saying maybe we have a country again Thanks to the Israelis. they can't say that publicly, but So they are back channeling with the Israelis and raandism Hezbollah says, well, how about us? Aren't you going to include us? We need to be saved And Iran is sort of, well, we're going to say we're going to save you, but they're worried that If that explodes too much, the Israelis will just, without the United States, hit them and they have the ability to hit them hard that War itself We're now almost fourour months to the day to the midterms. Donald Trump is pulling about forty percent Republicans are about minus five in the generic poll. Democrats have caught up on fundraising almost And the war is unpopular. And gas is still over three dollars a gallon. It's gone way down from four So Donald Trump And the Iranians know that he has a vulnerability because he wants to get out Get a negotiation and tell people the straits are open and they don't have a nuclear weapon. mission accomplished at a very low human cost, and that will be in time recognized as a victory And so the Iranians keep trying to draw it out because they want to tit for tat and keep his polls down and the price of gas down and the straight uncertain Donald Trump knows what he must do, and that's hit them hard So they stopp that. But that means reopening that can of worms and people. People's attitude is not pro or U Anti war It's more or less I don't like the Middle East, That's what they say collectively. I don't like Iran in particular. and they're not worth the life of one Marine to go into that hellhole. We like the Iranian people all goodood wishes to them to rebel, but that regime in the whole forty seven years leaves a bad taste in her mouth, especially after Afghanistan and Iraq So Trump's instincts are right. basically saying the people don't want us here, but I had to get in here to stop that weapon I've done that, and now I've got to find a way to get out and punish them so they can't make another one And I am letting them know that if they violate the strike for each time they do, I will be disproportionate, but not disproportionate to a way that hurt me. So that's where we are More importantly, the georategic, Trump is saying The Middle East isn't not important to us anymore The Saudis have been fickled. They were sort of backsliding. They're stabbing us in the back. They wouldn't let us close straight from the use of their bases. They're afraid of the Iranians Um, we're just not atible with that part of the world Israel is now taking care of its own business, itss nuclear, it can handle itself if we support it. He's trying to basically pivot to where it really counts. and that is Asia to a lesser extent Europe, but Asia and China. And he wants to make sure we have the resources to help Australia, South Korea, Taiwan pound And so That's where the war is and He's He's right on that. and if he if he can get through The next four months without a major war. and I'm talking about forty days of bombing or something and the gas price goes down to Tw dollars, two fifty a gallon then All of these things All the things that made the betting markets and the poll say he's going to lose with seventy five percent surety are no longer quite true because of the A redistricting bothoth racial gerrymandering taboo by the Supreme Court and more red state legislatures in blue, they might pick up total five to ten seats. there are alone. number two gas and the economy might be a lot better than it is now. It's starting to improve. unemployment rate fell this month, the four point two Inflation didn't really go that much higher. if he can get inflation down and say the unemployment rate below four and the record stock market, GDP, he may the economy may not be the issue and the war may not be the issue. They can probably out fundraise the Democrats, but not overwhelmingly so And then there's two other developments that are very important. Nber one This isn't the Democratic partarty that's running in the House. These are socialist da communists And every time one of them wins and gives a victory speech and start screaming and yelling, and they lose votes candidates in Colorado, they have candidates in New York, they have candidates in New Jersey. and collectively they say basically, white women are ugly and white supremacy and I wipe my hands on the flag and we despise Israel and we're pro Hamas in Hezbollah. I mean, it's just completely out of the norm And they're going to play those. That's going to be if the Republicans are smart, O the best commercial was the Vim of twenty twenty four. They them, they them, the trans words, and then I'm therefore they them, I'm for you And they can run all of those and then with good statistics They can show they've been doing and they think they will improve. So I would say it's more like a fifty, fifty chance if the war doesn't completely break out after the midters are over evenven if he loses And Iran has been acting up and has not been disproportionately hit enough to knock some sense in through them He's got all kinds of cards He can arm the Kurds. He can arm the he can send weapons into the people of Iran stealthily. He can hit them, he can hit dual use bridges, He can hit dual use energy. He can bring that regime to its knees. If he loses terms his attitude will be, what do I have to lose And if he wins the win tourn, he says that's it, last election I'll ever face So Iran knows that and they're going to try to finesse it, but in four months from now, they're going to have zero cards to play It seems like the ceasefire was a red line though. And if you if they keep breaking it, it seems well, let's hope that he uses, as you've put it, disproportionate response to breaking the cease. He's hit them twice and he's been disproportionate not disproportionate enough to stop them from doing it again because they know that there is a limit to his disproportionality and that is don't get U don't get a flurry of missiles into the Gulf to stop the oil production don't get disproportionate enough so that somehow They were able to hit tankers and scare them off with their missile fleet. If they had no missiles See, we were told in the first forty days, ninety percent, ninety percent, ninety percent, ninety percent, ninety percent of the missiles were taken out. true neverever given the denominator ninety percent of what. thousand, ten thousand, five, three thousand. So that ten percent S it was six thousand missiles. That's six hundred missiles. And they probably launched another three hundred. they can have three hundred missiles right now pointed at all of the oil producers and all of the cargo ships and shut down the strait So You know He's got to be very careful until after the midter after the midtermss, we're self sufficient in oil. He's already mad at Saudi Arabia because they've been double dealing. Qadar has been double dealing There's another issue that I have to be very careful how I mention it The Wall Street Journal had a big article U in the last few days about meembers of the Trump family in terms of crypt, The Trump family has made about a billion dollars mostly Don Jr., but to an another extent Eric Trump and there are some people that and Lchnig's family as well. The Secretary of commommerce. Yeah, because they're investing in crypto. They're investing partart of the problem is when they Arab Gulf states said they were going to make these massive investments. and usually when they say that, just Cut it in half members that are associated with members of the been investing. In other words if Kuwait or Oman says I want a trillion dollar investment What should I do They can steer them to companies that have contracts with the U.S. government. say in missiles or missile defense drones And then they can get a cut for that direction. and maybe they can invest on the bottom floor of those stocks before they have a Anderal is a good example. Only certain people had access to that type of stock. And so are they using their position president to make money they otherwise would have not. Now every person who's been in the White House, Lyndon Johnson's brother, Don Nixon, Nixon's brother I don't need to mention Billy Carter Billy Carter George H. W Bush's brother George George W. Bush didn't have too many problems at all. Obama had he only have a half sister, but he had no real family. but there were members of the bom, you know, there were Tony Reskco and all that stuff earlier It's especially dangerous to Trump because Two things. The economy is an issue now And they went after rightly so Hunter Biden Hunter Biden was flagrant, but he was a crack kid He was incompetent. So he would just brazenly get on a plane and buffoonishly call a Chinese guy up on his phone. could eas These guys are a lot more subtle and they're making a lot more money Now you think that and they're much more conscious staying within the bounds of the law. I'm not talking about illegality I'm talking about unethical. behavior as it appears to the voting public So when you have everybody glued to economy, the worry is that the Democrats worries during the campaign, they're going to say You can't afford gas, but the Trump family and they're going to show them on a private jet flying into, you know UAE or something and then they're going to say billion dollars there And then that hurt some because of the word affordability that everybody's struggling with affordability, but the Trump family's not That's what they're going to say. And then They went after Hunter Biden. So they've got to really, I think for the next four months and afterwards, they've really got to read the riot act to any member of the family or associated member that you have to be like Caesar's wife beyond suspicion It seems to me that that's why the Democrats are shrieking billionaire, trillionaire all the time. They don't want to say millionaire because they're all millionaires. But that is making that message from theocratic deemocratic socialists in particular, but stronger among the especially young population, as we said on Friday, but They They're doing that also for two other reasons. One, their're funders are billionaires But Mr. Singhman's in Cunist China, noobody knows who he is. And George Searles is just hated by everybody. so he's not really an issue anymore. They just take money. He has so many foundations And Reid Hoffman is in the Epstein files He was the one that funded the Ge Carroll suit against Trump So They're talking about billionaires and billionaires because theirir billionaires are below the radar The second reason they're talking about them is They They used to love them When Molly Ball wrote that time essay, she bragged about all of the money that was coming into the twenty twenty Biden campaign from Wall Street, et cetera That was when Mark Zuckerbergs Foundation gave four hundred nineteen million dollars to take over the registrar's work essentially, and they said they were augmenting or complementing it in the swing states. four hundred nineteen millionars half a billion bucks almost And then there was Edon And I think he's on record that he voted for Biden in twenty twenty And then of course There was Jeff Bezos and the Google people And Google and Apple were just hiring all of the Obama people as they rotated out of office. So they love billionaires. But when And Dreesen and Den Horwitzs flip And David Sachs flip And you could say, U People at Pentter flip and join the Peter join the Peter Till group then the billionaires became bad because they were no longer left wing and funding them. In other words, the Democrats relied on them so much tone down their attacks on billionaires. in exchange for getting their financial support. But when these guys took a good look at the Democrats and saw they're not Democrats, they're socialists And they're going to take our money and they're going to have billionaire taxes. They fled said we're not with you anymore. Then and only then have they started talking about billionaires So when they say billionaires are running the country and oligarchs and all this, no, billionaires Oligarchs are running the country and we used to love them and now we scared the blank out of them and now they don't like us and they're giving money, so we hate them attite. Well Victor, I like that new watch that you have on and we have a new sponsor. It is Ver choose. We tend to forget that civilizations are remembered less by their politics than by what they made. the tools, the objects, the things built well enough to outlast the people who built them. For most of the last century America made things then, like much of the old productive economy, watchmaking packed up and moved overseas Today's sponsor and that is Ver V A E R is trying to bring back a piece of that past. V That's VAER is a Los Angeles watch company whose goal is pretty straightforward, Bring America W making backack. They now assemble watches across California, Arizona, Rhode Island, and Alabama with leather straps made in Illinois and Florida. And these aren't fashion accessories, they're proper tool watches, sapphire crystals, premium materials and full waterproof warranties. meaning you can actually swim or dive with them on. VDH has been wearing a VS C five Korean feele solar If you could put it up to the camera, Victor Davis Hanson, there you go. nice a modern take on the watches worn by American soldiers during the Korean War. and it's the kind of watch you could wear for decades and then pass it on. There has already earned over ten thousand five star reviews and it's become one of the largest independent watch assemblers in the United States. If you value things that are rugged, made to last and built here at home, take a look. Go to therewatches dot com slash Victor That's V A E R watches C slash VD H Again, that's Fwatches d. com slash V D H and various pronounced V A E R And we'd like to thank Bear Watches for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen showhow on this Fourth of July weekend. And we hope everybody's enjoying their Fourth of July So Victor, let's turn to the Ukrainian war or the war in Ukraine And it's apparently not so much in the Ukraine anymore. And this is what's surprising me because it is un stunning that the Ukrainians are taking this war all the way to Moscow and sending drones in and blowing up. especially gas facilities, and now the Russians have long gas lines out there fueling. Yeah I didn't understand the first This war, remember U started in February of twenty twenty two So we're over. four years, We're going into the fifth year I don't know whether the American or NATO advisers had told them in twenty twenty three they needed a traditional tank u offensive what the Russians were prepped for The point is that they got bogged down worrying about the territory in the Donbass and the Crimea that in twenty fourteen had been expropriated and expanded in twenty twenty two by the Russians So it was like a psalm or Verdon. When you have a psalm or Vverdun, loog it favors the country that has times the GD four times the population and it has ten times the area and I think it's got almost eight times the GDP. So Little Ukraine didn't have a chance And I kept wondering why are they doing this? Well part of the reason was that the drone teechnology hadn't really taken off in Ukraine yet Other parts, the Biden administration was afraid of a nuclear exchange or something because they had forbidden them to take hit deeply into Russia. or they' have they also didn't have the drone capacity. They had to sneak drones inside Russia and launch them from there. They don't have that problem anymore. so now they're doing the only thing that a smaller power could do They' sending drones on long range, It's kind of like B seventeen missions in World War two that finally had fighter escort and they broke the back of Germany and they went in all the way to Germany. These drones now are targeting the one thing that Putin needs for foreign exchange and that is oil exports. So they're hitting refineries. They're hitting pipelines, they're hitting distribution. And one of the effects of it, they've noticed is Russia had no real reserves as far as domestic storage, like we do. They don't have a strategic petroleum reserve. so the people have no gasoline and they're in line and line lines And so that's going to weaken public support for the war. The only The only knownown, unknown that's dangerous is Putin thinks he's losing the war And if he thinks there's going to be a coup, and if he thinks the Russian people are going to rebel And if he has six thousand five hundred nuclear weapons among some tactical. Is he going to go down O is he going to give them an ultimatum You either stop kitting inside Russia I'm going to send a tactical nuke, and then what would we do or what would NATO do That's dangerous. So we'll see what happens, but Ideally, Russia would just say Let's cut a deal and then Ukrainians would say, well, the deal is not what it was a year ago that we have a battle line frozen in place and that's the DMZ. We're going We want you to go back somewhat to where you were maybe Um in twenty twenty. three or twenty twenty four or twenty twenty two. some They're going to get a better deal than they did. And that's always true of Boy. N nobody ever really talked about that Negotiations, everything depends on the pulse of the battlefield. The reason that the Iranians are even talking to us is they lost big and they know better than we do, they've lost probably a half a trillion dollars of infrastructure We didn't do that When Obama was talking to them, everybody saidays, this is just like the first Iran deal. It has nothing to do with the first Iran deal. because They were intact and aggressive And Obama was begging them as was Biden. Now, they're begging us to talk because they've been slacked and they know they'll get it again. But everybody should remember that. Negotiations reflect the power battlefield and the pulse of the battlefield. Yes. Well, Putin is an interesting person given that reality right now. He's not No, he's not in a good place because He's overextended, he's lost his foothold with the Sad regime in Syria, he has no influence now in Venezuela. He has no influence Oh in Iran at all North Korea is plan of China. China is looking at this huge, the largest country in the world by area. with only one hundred and forty five million people It's got a smaller territory with one point four billion. and they have a long history of a disputed border So He's not in a good position. No, he sounds like he's in a corner to me, which is very dangerous. All right. so Victor, let's start with a question you know what? let's go to a break and then come back and we'll start with our questions on this fourth of July. Stay with us and we'll be right back after these messages We must all hang together Or most assuredly, we shall all hang separate They knew that this would be Rearded by the King and Parliament as an act of treason So the people who signed that We're basically saying we're revoling against the most powerful country in the world The Declaration of Independence reminds Americans who they are Its words are ingrained in our memory. Its virtues are etched into our character. Its principles are impressed upon our destiny Its signers carved out a new nation in the new world For two hundred and fifty years The Declaration of Independence has inspired their descendants to defend their liberties Liberty doesn't want pass from one generation to the next through the bloodstream. It has to be fought for, defended, won with every generation. But There's nothing more important for which we would give our lives But history has a way of making the unthinkable seem inevitable But the Declaration of Independence was never inevitable. The Declaration of Independence is the culmination of one of the greatest political traumas in history. As ideas clash, as armies gather, as the fate of a continent hung in the balance. The hopes of millions wanting independence rested with a small group of statesmen willing to risk everything they have their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor. This is the story behind America's Declaration of Independence The story of how a Declaration became a nation Sacred honor. presented by the Daily Sal Premiering on YouTube, july second twenty twenty six Welcome back to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor has an X account. His handle is at VD Hansen, and he is on Facebook at Hansen's morning Cup His website is called the Blade of Perseus. I know I announced the URL victorhansen dot com earlier, but the name of the website is the Blade of Perseus. And on the fourth of July, I'm not really sure whether it's going to be at midnight before the fourth or midnight of the fourth, we are going to launch the new website. So I hope everybody takes some time on the fifth to have a look at our new website So Victor, I guess the first question and maybe we could discuss is how have we made it in two hundred and fifty years this republic, a rare thing historically, that a republic could go for so long Well the secondary reasons are we had primary, but I'll get get over very quickly review the secondary We had a huge North American continent. It was richly endowed with natural resources, farmland, et cetera. We didn't fragment into European warring states, but we were the size of Europe, but we were one complete nation Thanks to people like James Polke and Jefferson and other people who saw that we needed to have the whole continent or end up like Europe Number two, we had two oceans So we were protected from what was going on in Asia and Europe. But that is secondary to Constitution So we took the Spartan Creton and then Roman ide do of a Constitution, a legislative executive and judicial brands But unlike someome of the mixed constitutions, we put a number of checks and balances. So the whole point of it was to slow down radical changes through the president's power to veto legislation, the Congress's power to impeach him Pident's power to pick judicial appointments the Congress not to approve them the judicial to strike down lawses, you know unconstitutional, the president and they canpeach the legislative body can impeach judges, the president U cannot appoint people he thinks would be bad judg. It's all intricate checks and balances. Number two is we were the only country that really have a bill of rightights. So there were certain issues in other countries that have never been up for I mean, they're nuances and everybody reinterprets them, but they're not up for discussion as far as eliminating them Bill of Rights the ability not to have your house searched and seized the right to bear arms U the right not to have to testify against yourself, the right of haabagasct. That's all documented And then with the amendment system, we have further rights The other things Um or more intangible, but that revolution was never a French revolution. Yeah, one moment though, just to clarify for the audience that the Bill of Rights for the United States is the first ten amendments, and then they flow after. There's seventeen other ones that followed And they're very hard to pass. You need a two thirds of Congress vote and then you need quarters of the state legislatures. So unless it's something like the Teen year old vote or women's suffrage. are repealing prohibition It's very hard to do get an amendment. And you were saying that it's not like the French Revolution, I. No, it's not like the French Revolution because it was limited. In other words, the colonists were not objecting to British free market capitalism. They were not objecting to the language. They were not objecting to the role of religion They were not rejecting claiming that they they wanted po to take over from the they were not angry the British colonialist and the lararge landowners like Washington and Jefferson. Okaykay So it was basically a one dimensional political revolution. and it said, we want autonomy and to be self governed We do not want to be a colony of Britain and have no say in taxation or representation, etcetera, etcetera That was a much easier revolution But what I'm saying is it kept intact Oh the strengths of the British system, the British enlightenment. And so when we became a nation There was Christianity, there was anl, there was all these religions, they were all tolerated. Nobody had gone out in the countryside and lynched nuns or theheed priests as had happened in the French Revolution. There was no year zero. There was no renaming the months, the days. There was no god called Ratio that everybody bowed down to. There was nothing like, I mean, Thomas Payne was the most radical the founders, but he was nothing like the Robespierre brothers. He wasn't even like Danton. He was a much more reasonable person in comparison So that was a big step that we kept the traditions of the Anglosphere except political. And then cultural things that were embedded from the beginning. onene of them was that There was no peasantry, there was no serfdom. se were European ideas. So Jefferson especially said the country was based on the nuclear family and the independent agrarian, the farm And that person was self sustained. He was autonomous, self supporting. He could feed his own family from his farm. He could control his own destiny. And these were the ideal citizens then to be entrusted with voting and making their own laws and their own affairs, so it was a republic of virtue. and that through that in the United States, nobody I'm not Sir Hanson You're not lady Sammy. And we have no class distinctions formally. We have fluidity of classes. Wealthy people have children that are bad seeds or they don't want money and they get poor. pooor people have children and they become millionaires. So there is fluidity. But we are not based on class We're not based on race. We champion the middle class, but we don't institutionalize. Nobody asks in America Where was your father born? How many acres does your grandfather have what was your parents' education? Maybe the east coast or west cooast elites do, but that's not American tradition. And then finally We're a nation of emulation, not envy. So we're not like the British And I've said that before in this broadcast. It was the old maxim that if you go to Britain and somebody sees a Bentley, they want to kick it in and come to America, they want to know how much Cadillac and maybe now it would be a BMW or some cost and how do you finance it And I can remember when I was a young person, We had no money. We lived in a eleven hundred square foot home. My mom stayed home with us. My dad was a high school teacher initially and then a JC teacher, but he was a coach And he tried to form on the side But we would get in cars when we went to Disneyland or we went up to San Francisco and my mom insisted we drive through wealthy neighborhoods. and not to say, oh my gosh, look at that Look at how much money the getettys have or something, you know what I mean? She was saying, o wow I love those cypress trees that way they've done that. That's a good idea, Bill. We should when we get home let's plant some. Or then she would say I love those U colors that gray and white I like that match or she'd say Wow, some of those Victorians are They're overdone with that gingerbread cut. I don't want that. In other words, that was a very common thing That's why the Wall Street Journal gets away or I guess shouldn't say it gets away. It's one of its most popular features or mansions USA People love to go in there and look at these Beautiful Lakes and tennis courts and gables and they look like then they look at the price or You know, Montecito, thirty million. It's not that they can ever buy it They get little ideas so that say that they're in Fresno with a fifteen hundred, sixteen hundred square foot track house. And then they go there and they look in there and they see the little videos or they they said, wow I like how they park their car there, or mayaybe I can make a little version of it So it's in Europe, I don't think they That would be the aristocracy and you'd say that we should burn those houses down I'm kind of worried because that is sort of the attitude of Los Angeles to Pacific Palisades Not that this was a great asset to have these beautiful homes. Oh, they lost their home toooo bad. Let's not rebuild them When we get to be an envious country, we won't We won't succeed. And by the way, when we used to nation build or any country used to nation build. They never said to Iraq or Afghanistan or South Korea or Vietnam or Europe itself after World War II We've got a really good system for you. It's called the a Senate, a lower House A Supreme Court, a president, and a bill of rightights. and here's how you do it with a two party system. No parliamentary system because it's much easier. Ours is a very complicated system. It's very hard to reproduce. It's designed on one principle or no blank good and if Many of the founders said if we were angels, we wouldn't need a cononstitution But it it assumes that unlike the French Revolution, Rousseau, you know, were all born into chains if we're not, we're all born evil that fallen the Christian notion, and we need to be redeemed. We need to curb our appetites and our excesses and one of the things we have to curve is the desire to power and to tyrannize others. So we're going to make a constitution where cannot have a dictator And they can say all they want about Trump, the closest we've ever had was FDR. He did he had because he had four terms, but he did things that' just unthinkable. You know, go to the New York Times and say, if you write another bad op ed at me, I'm going to pass anntitrust legislation or inheritance taxes that ruin your family And so it's a wonderful system, but it's very intricate and complex and it requires an educated populace and we don't seem to have that to the degree sufficient anymore. So I'm kind of worried That's how we survive for two hundred and fifty years Yes, I remember reading in the Federalist papers somewhere that the The idea of the checks and balances and All of the checks and balances all the way down to the individual was one man's ambition would counter another man's ambition as far as corruption went, right? That ambition of one man would be to expose the corruption of the other for the purpose of getting above him true, but at least the corption wasn't utopianism. It wasn't like Soviet Bolshewik res or the French R. It didn't say, give me enough power and I'll make a new man so he won't have those feelings So we said they're going to always have those feelings. So what we have to do is blunt them So that they can't hurt each other or destroy the system And it worked It worked pretty well when the When you see people who don't know the system, every time I listen to Hillary Clinton or who's supposedly a Yale trained lawyer or all these socialist communists. They all talk about the electoral college We're going get rid of the electoral cause We're going to rid of the elect Well why don't you first understand what it was designed for It was designed to preserve the state'sedal federalist system so that each state would be given representation in the electoral college based on the number of senators. and they all have at least two votes and representatives. But the point is Nobody would ever go out to Wyoming. They would just write off that ho rural area of America. They say, you know what? it's Wyoming is less than south Central LA. so why go So they would just the Presidential campaigns would be basically ten cities or fifteen cities So they were worried about that because they thought the rural people were more virtuous. They did. Jefferson said that. and they needed representation and they needed people to know about them The second thing is they were very worried about voter fraud voter fraud and they felt that if each of the states had their own and it's in the Constitution, except for unusual circumstanceces, eighteen year old vote, women's rights. The states are allowed to create their own balloting laws. and they're unique, then it would be very hard to throw an election because you'd have to go to all fifty states all fifty different systems and riged the vote Uh, and If you had a popular vote, you wouldn't have to do that. You would just changed the law one time and everybody would be the same O you just go to nine cities or ten cities, but these electoral votes are very close sometimes. so it' very hard to master the system and warp it if you have a the Electoral College So it was It also reemphasized state rights, not just regions that were rural, but it said all the powers invested in the federal government that are delineated shall be the domain of the fest. But anything not delineated shall revert back to the states And this was saying that we are the United States of America. We're not the United peoples of America. We are the United States. So each state shall be represented two unique ways. One, they will have two senators no matter what the population is And that so Montana will always have the same amount of clout in the Senate as California. and that's what drives the left crazy. They just want to make it into the house a big house And then number two, They will always have a say in the election of the president, even if they're Their votes can be just ignored popular votes. can't ignore their electoral electoral college vote We'll continue with some questions on the legislative, judicial and executive. But first I want to welcome back a sponsor, Pure Health Research If you want to drop extra pounds, boost energy levels, or reduce swelling in your legs and feet Then this message is for you. Pure Health research is on a mission to make America healthy again, and two of their best selling health supplements are leading the way. First is liver health formula. Over one hundred million Americans have a sluggish liver riddled with fatty deposits. This can kill your metabolism, pile on the pounds and make you feel tired Liver health formula takes care of all that It supports thriving liver health with special nutrients like artichoke extract and milk thistle. 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So Victor, let's look at some issues that we're seeing today in our Republic and just ask your reflections on whether the Republic had the same issues in the earlier period or things or if things have changed As far as judicial review, we just yesterday talked about all sorts of cases that have come through, especially the birthright Citizenship case was big, but also trans athletes in women's sports in particular was also pass and then also just the executive powers. So we talked about all of those. And my question for our judiciary or the whole act of judicial review trying to establish the constitutionality of things has it always been political because I can remember you said that Justice Roberts made a political choice, especially on the birthright health Or were there times in the earlier repepublic when justices have been above the f? They didn't really know the first generations didn't really know how you would implement the third branch of government It was John Marshall that introduced No Mar realate that The idea of judicial review. that any that any person in the United States could go through the federal court system. There's not even There's not even a court system mentioned. It just said there shall be a Supreme Court It doesn't say how many people and it says there'll be a chief justustice, but it doesn't say there's going to be a circuit appellate court and a lower federal district. All that had to be made And the idea that an individual citizen could sue in a federal court was They saw no need for it. Their idea was that most of the criminal statutes and most of the civil putes would be settled by each state in their own idiosyncratic way with their p system They didn't understand that at times to times there would be states that would contravene the Constitution So what the Supreme Court court system was in the very beginning, it was basically for twoo or three reasons One was there was going to be between the federal government and a particular state And then the state or the federal government could sue the other person to make sure that they were in harmony with the Constitution. Number two States could be rivals to each other or extraditions if somebody shot somebody from Connecticet Connecticut person shot somebody in Maryland and then he fled back to Connecticut, he could be extradited So and they had differences with, say, rivers that went through both states. and some people adjusted the flow of a river or barges going down the Erie canal, things like that So these were disputes second between states. And then third, there was national policies tariffs they didn't get into these individual civil rights, the idea that if I'm walking down my street and somebody pulls over and shoots me and then he pleads self defense. And he did it for a racial reason or something, then my family can sue him in a federal court. for violation of my civil rights They would have said that's crazy That's double jeopardy. We're not going to allow the federal courts to duplicate the state court came because of Jim Crow and segregation that they could not trust the state courts anymore the federal court stepped in The big expansion was two foold in the nineteen thirties under Roosevelt when he tried to expand the federal government to create socialism. and there were people who pushed back in the court against him And the court got active against him. That's why he wanted to pack it. And then he used the court as well And then the second was during the civil rights era when It was mostly the Warren Corps vastly expanded. You know Nobody obody would Anybody that was a founder if you ask them you think that If Vermont becomes atheist someday and Virginia says they're going to still remain devoutly Christian. So every morning in first grade in Virginia, they're going to say a little prayer, but they're not in Vermont Do you think Vermont can then sue or an individual in Virginia can sue and throw out Hey. Virginia laws and say Constitution says there shall be no state religion. And that's a state religion just doing a prayer. And therefore, all the new states have to agree with Vermont. I don't think they ever envisioned that So the intrusion by the courts into our lives is a modern idea. Washington gave executive orders He's in charge of running the whole executive branch And that means enforce the laws. He doesn't interpret them and he doesn't make them. The big thing the founders said was when they besides a checks and balance They said, take the law, the most important thing The legislature shall make the law. The judicial branch will interpret how it is Enforced And the president will be in charge of enforcing it or execute cuting it. the legislation I shouldn't say just law, but There was no executive orders, but I think in the early nineteen hundreds they started forormally having executive orders And And then they went back and numbered them all And they said that Washington did it. The person who had the most executive orders ever was FDR. It was like three thousand four hundred He did it every day The thing about the left is they created Trump Obama had the most executive orders, I think, in his first three months until Trump I remember when Obama lost In twenty fourteen, the House and the Senate, he no longer had it. And he said, I have a phone and I have a pin. And I can executive order everything I want and He did and so Basically, Harry Truman wrote an executive order that said, I hereby nationalize all the steel industries in the United States there was a wildcat strike. All the steel industries, I have appropriated your property and I'm going to run them If you imagine that and we had the Korean all that stuff war So he they did things just unthinkable. but I just sort of shuddered when I see left wing presidents and left wing people bragging on how much power they have Because I just I always say to myself, those the idiots are just setting a precedent So when Obama I remember when Clinton bombed Serbia Seventy eight days. W powerers at. No, no war powerers out Obama Seven months Libya. Why didn't you take it to the Congist? Welly I didn't take it the Congist becausecause they're going to vote against me. the right wing was and I wouldn't have an Arab spring. Okay, so you didn't take it to the Congress and you bombed unlawfully according to your left How about the five hundred assassination drone missions where you targeted people? Did you ever ask permission for Congress to wage that war No, that wasn't a war. That was a police action. Okay So now Trump comes in and he bombs for thirty hours And for forty days, much less than either Obama or Clinton. War power is o, War Pow is o. He's a dictator And then you think Right What does a dictator do? A dictator suppresses the media He tried. He just sued in court and he won But it was open court and he didn't tribe the judges It wasn't like that he told FBI agents to work with Facebook and Twitter to go after The New York Post said they wouldn't print a story that would hurt Biden during the election It wasn't like that It wasn't Are you talking about the Hunter Bide laptop. D story again Yeah. and It wasn't like You know, I don't think what if Trump did the following? I am a dictator, so I'm going to call up the DOJ. sayay Pam Bondi's still there Pam I want you to appoint a special prosecutor to go after that corrupt Biden family right now And come over here and we're going to appoint somebody. And let's make him a partisan. Somebody who's, I don't know, his wife made a picture, I made a film of Michelle reallyally, which is what uh, some Jack Smith's wife did So they come into the White House. And then he says, hey, since forre We're going after Biden today Let's get u, I don't know. we part to Fanny Will. Let's get a local prosecutor in I don't know, let's say Montana and say that during the two thousand Let's say twenty twenty four election. Camilla Harris called up or one of their people called them up. Get them in here, get their, you know, their version of Nathan Wade in here And then they said Well who do we have in the DOJ that knows how to go after Biden or Harris Well, we got one guy, you know, he tried to suit well get him back out of here, get him out of the DOJ and get him over there to New York Latita James And then do we have anybody that can sue the Bidens on their net worth or something Oh yeah, we've got someone They're kind of like Latita James. So let's bring them in into the White House the same day. Smith appointed the same day. Latita James in the White House, the same day, Michael Coangelo, the same day going to help Alvin Bragg Nathan Wade, Fanny Wils' paramore, the same day all coordinating to destroy a presidential candidate That's what Biden did. So he was using presidential powers at a great to a greater extent and more absolutely Tyrannical or authoritarian. He did that all the time. Yeah. He did that all the time. He did right before the twenty twenty two midterms, he was going to lose that You know And they he was going to lose the house And what did he do He drained the petroleum. First he went over to Saudi Arabia and changed U. S. foreign policy and said, Oh, please, I'm so sorry. I made and said you were a rogue regime. Would you please pump oil No Okay, the strain the drain the the strategic, not for a national emergency, just for the election And then he said, what else can we do Can we forgive student debt? We owe one point seven trillion? let's do at least five hundred billion or so Mr. President, that's unconstitutional. That's contractual. Oh, go ahead and do it. So they did it. was thrown out. And then they say, what do all these kids? What really motivates them Well, some of them got busted for marijuana and some of ' them earned their for. Let's just give amnesty. . So he did that right before the election. Noob one said a word. No one said a word So I can't and they all say Trump is a dictator or an oligarch. I just want to know exactly what he did that was illegal. because no one has been more reported upon, scrutinized by the hostile media than Trump. and no one has been sued and district court more than Trump. I think they've had almost five hundred lawsuits by Soros and Singman funded when Nonprofits are suing them. They're suing them on everything. EPA, the border, everything So it's not like he's running, you know rampant And things that they say that are dictatorial The reflecting pool, so I've been to Washington, everyvery time I go to Washington, it stunk. It was ugly It looked like a green frog pond And every time I got out of Union station it was full of graffiti and there was no water and it was ugly. They're spotless now. And they're so spotless that they had to go destroy or try to vanalize the reflecting But that's the fact that they fixated on that, or I have been to the White House Not very much, but I'm always Um shocked at how small it is that I won the National humumanities Medal one year. So I went there and it was so crowded and stuffy in this small ball And I thought, wow. have another wing or something. and then I was in the West wing one. It's the West wing a major corporation would put their It would be like basement for first year rookies, you know what I mean? It seems to be really poorly constructed.'s It's not in the overall, it's not grandio. So when Trump made this huge ballroom and he actually got a neoclassical architect to blend it in I thought everybody'd say, wow, this is really needed and he can get it done quickly. Of course, it was Trump, so they they're trying to stop it And they called out a dictator All right, Victor, let's go to our last break and then come back and talk about amending the Constitution. Stay with us and we'll be right back Since the founding of America two hundred and fifty years ago M things have changed But some things never do. Commitment of husband and wife The importance of passing along our values to our children the faithfulness of God Some wonder how we can ensure America will continue to thrive. as long as we keep first things first. We've only just begun America, the beautiful. Welcome back. Victor Davis Hansen, in his own words. This is a subsidiary or so I call it of the daily signal and the daily signal has associates of the daily signal. They carry these long form podcasts and four short form podcasts per week. So check out the daily signal sometime. So Victor, the birthright citizenship left me with this question that well if you can't, if the courts are not going hold the position that you think should be, i. e. that there should be at least one parent that is a U. S. citizen for a child to be a citizen and not just most places in Europe. Yeah. Well if the courts cannot see a way to do that, then we should just amend the Constitution. And so it should turn to the legislature and our legislators to get the job done and introduce a bill that would ensure that citizens have at least one parent who is a citizen They don't have the votes. They don't have the votes in Congress Yeah And they don't have three quarters of the states to vote Maybe they have fifty five percent of the state sixty percent or but not three quarters. Okay, so my question then is this, amending the comp almost impossible It is. Yeah. But so what when you look at the seventeen amendments crrices. so During the Vietnam period, there were all these people who said You mean, I'm eighteen and I can go over there and get killed in a rice patdty, but I can't even vote on it. So what is an adult? And everybody agreed left and right, o, eighteen year old. The left did it because they thought they were gonna to get all the eighteen year olds that were anti war And Nixon did it to stop the criticism from the left, but his handlers and pooststers said, hey, Nixon, eighteen year olds are more conservative than they are liberal All those long haired hippie stuff, that's a small percentage. And he won the eighteen year old vote Women's suffrage, that was a no brainer. They all understood we had a point you had to do it U And so prohibition, they got into first of all, they outlawed alcohol. Everybody got out of the roaring treies. They said, this is getting out of control canan't have everybody drunk every day and the Women Christian Temperance Union and all that And then they saw it created basically the modern mafia. Alcaapone. So they they all agreed on that succession, Don Kennedy kill Wh take the vice what if they'd killed the vice, spepeaker of the house or Cabinet So they had an amendment for succession And then people got, I think the last one, if I remember I'm just doing by memory peopleeople said Well, These people get paid when they're elected, but they haven't even served yet and then You should never no congressional person should get money until he's actually working actually working. And so if they shut down the government They shouldn't be paid. that's beent reinterpreted 's going to be very rare. So if you really think that you should get rid of Anchor babies And get rid of birthright citizenship. then there's two ways to do it Number one You just, as I said earlier, you just bar people. You say it's a health risk and you do not want women coming in from foreign countries in the third trimester That's all you have to do and say do you don't have the ability to pay for that forty thousand dollars bill. And none of them they're all billing us by the way. And number two, We know why you're coming in. So we're just going to make a rule that it's too dangerous to have people coming in here when they're pregnant on flights airport. and we don't have the resources to handle it that would stop it very easily. and The second is And I think it's almost. you just patrol your borders. So if you get a wall are the security areas that resemble a wall in deep canyons from the Gulf of America to San Diego You're going to eliminate half that problem And if you could look at all of the airports that face China LAX, SFO, San Diego, Portland, Seattle. in addition, the major hubs like Dallas or New York, Boston. And you just said We're not going to issue tourist visas. to Chinese people unless They're going to there are students and I would cut back on them radically or they have green cards. We're not going to give tourist visas, you know for a week or two weeks or three weeks. It's just not going to do it You can do all sorts of things legislative The problem is though that When you want to do all these things that are necessary you have to have an opposition says something in our national interest outweighs something in my political end. But this democratic everver since two thousand fifteen when Trump came down the escalator, they're different They see him as an existential threat. They hate the way he talks, they hate the way he looks. They hate the way he dresses, they hate everything about him No matter what he does, they're going to oppose And it's really warped and that hatred is hatred is It destroys the hater and they're completely destroying themselves, but they will not cooperate on anything. because they're afraid that Trump will take credit and he will I don't I used to think if Trump gave a speech and said You know, I want to quote you what Harry Truman and to White Eisenhower and Kennedy And Johnson And Nixon And Jerry Ford. And Carter and the two bushes And Bill Clinton and Obama said about the need for a ballroom and a facility. This is not a political issue And I think all of us should come together and work on this and we will get it done, but we're going to have to get it done quickly because It's in dire need. I thought if you just do that, instead of just, I'm gonna make the biggest, most beautiful gold They would have gone on they wouldn't know They wouldnt know They would have still opposed it This is rhetoric Polarize them? Yes. Does it make it worse? Maybe. But does it ultimately fundamentally existentially change our attitude? No They are the ones that are different He is he is about as polarizing as Obama was When Obama said things like the police o, you know, the police they just stereotype black men or Travon, you know, like son I never had. so I'm going to interfere in a court case and basasically side with somebody looks like me or Michael Brown and Ferguson, he was really trying to oppose it America iss exceptional and' you know, the way Greece is UK, everybody thinks they're exceptional, Big deal He did that all the time. Apologize. I got to apologize for what we did to indndigenous people. I got to apologize the way we treated people oversea. I gota apologize for all that was him his virtue signaling, and that was very polarizing And he dared people, you know to You had he wouldn't the last two years, everybody said, Obama deported people when he came in and he was afraid of people that he would be unpopular. Yeah The last two years, it was the precedent for the Biden border And When Trump came in, it was wide open And then Jan Brewer was the governor of Arizona. she said, I'm going to enforce this border. And he said, No, you're not. That's my job, and I'm not going to do my job Som gonna I'm gonna let millions of people come into your state s just the way it is. And she said, Well, we'll see about that. we're going to pass a law that says I can I don't care and they suit her in the Supreme Court and they won And think of that. Yeah H Arizona does not have the right to enforce an existing law that the federal government will not enforce because it wants to break it and flood Arizona with potential deemocratic voters Absolutely insane. Well, Victor, let's get to the last question. It's kind of a broad question, but this as you've been talking about, the separation of powers is intended to limit thevernmental government's powers and the Bill of Rights, our first ten Amendments to ensure the individuals's liberties. And these things have really led to what everybody's celebrating today on july fourth, which is urreedom and our freedoms, I was wondering your thoughts on how freedom has impacted the United not the private life of individuals, but the United States, either culturally, economically or socially. Has it been a net good? Has it made our culture stronger orure economy stronger to have these individual freedoms so protected. Well, we have been becoming more Democratic than Republican. I don't mean that with the Capitol letters We're more and more getting like ancient Athens than we were a landed what the Greeks call a poleter and the Romans call a republic So And that's because we have pushed freedom. The people who drafted It was mostly Jefferson with He, Madison, et cetera. The Bill of Rights didn't envision the way they would be interpreted So when they said freedom of expression and No one thought that you could open that computer there and see to adults fornicating and have a camera on their genitalia. They didn't think that was a type of expression that would be covered by the First Amendment. they always push it to the maximum state. So they didn't think that the freedom of expression should be what I think America saw, I guess it was in Boston or some big cities where the Pride Festival had full grown men completely naked. riding bicycles and walking. with little children on the sidewalk with their parents had no idea that these people would be exposing their genitalia right in front of their children a map I guess they thought it's protected under the First Amendment because nobody enforced laws that say it's against the law. If you walk in the Bank of America none, you'll be arrested They didn't arrest them. That's one thing and the other thing that they that's happened when you mentioned freedom, Law enforcement now and the executive branch is completely ideological So We have been under the influence of law schools who believe in critical race theory, critical legal theory, critical judicial theory. and all of that says Lws are the product of a property deed wealthy white Pererosexual, male Christian minority. So if I'm in the inner city and I need sneakers I'm gonna go into the local N Nike store with about five of my friends swarm it and steal M curbs. pro the local DA said, you know what? They need sneakers And who made that law? Well, it was a bunch of wealthy white guys who in Congress who don't need sneakers or if you're in San Francisco, I'm kind of hungry. I'm gonna go get a couple of tea bones, chocolate bars, some beer Just take it in my cart If it's under nine hundred and fifty dollars, it's not really they'll give me a little citation, but I'm going to do that. And the people who drafted that law said, Well, the people who write laws about shoplifting don't shoplift because they're privileged. But some people had to shop less Therefore, it should be legal. So when you see all these things on the internet of People ramming a car through a jewelry store and then they're all hooded and they go in and strip the whole person's livelihood. Everybody knows that the chance that any of them are going to be identified A B even arrested see u held in jail bail you know, D actually prosecuted E before a judge and jury F convicted go on all the way to Z and say what? convicted, incarcerated and then incarcerated, not pardoned or not parooled immediately. That's what I'm getting from A to Z. The whole judicial system now is predicated on legal theories, not the law And that's because this emphasis on freedom. That's why we scare everybody And you know 's because something is legal doesn't mean it's moral. but we have this idea now that because we have all of these legal parameters, to do whatever we want. that it's okay to inspect in a secular atheist agnostic society, there's no moral religious prohibition about anything. So No, it's particular freedom. It's starting to happen in Europe too. but Basically, if you get on a flight, and I think I flew once a week last year goo to the airport And the first person I'd see would be and yoga pants with no underwear underneath them. And then I would sit down in a seat and the person next to me would have cutoffs and thongs with no socks and smelly feet and then have a chilli boat to eat And it looked like the Greyhound bus when I was a kid, everybody, you know, we had poor relatives every once in a while and they would take a greyhound bus to Selma. The bus deepot was, I mean, that was really a poor man's ride. and It's not poor man's ride now. it's just that There's no decorum by anybody. There's no sense of behavior. There's no dress code, There's nothing And that's the absolute expression of of our emphasis on do your own thing. came out of the sixties. So would it be fair to say that all the freedom guaranteed by our Cstitution to us has a Definite ugly underbelly unless we have Christianity and common mors to keep people from Chrunity shame Family shame. I'll give you an example one of We used to have a paper called the Salma Enterprise. And if somebody was caught in breaking into a sports store, which one prominent person was they would say On June can nineteen sixty one headline Local Jones boy caught in sports world in Fresno sixixteen son of mister John and Barbara Jones at Da. That's what they would say. And so that created a shame factor Everybody was scared or the attitude was If you had a farming neighbor and they had three good boys and every time they came around on your alleyway and disc careful to lift up the disc and not bring out all the weeds and dump them on the alleyway. But one kid You would see on the tractor and he would be smoking and drinking with a beer in his little tractor box and he would just come out I'm telling a true story now at full speed and just cover the whole alleyway, not my favorite neighbor. He would never think of that. This was a neighbor who rented my uncle's place. and If you wouldd say either stick out his tongue at you, Or I'd flip you the bird. and I would be with my eighty six year old grandfather and he'd say eighty five and he'd say Now there, now there, please You're raising a storm of dust. You're going get every Might in the country on my vines, would you please do that? And he'd say F you and go well So In the old days, they say, yes, that's the Thompson kid And he was the one that was a bad seed, that was no blank good And we want nothing to do with that guy and everybody knew it, But today that would be judgmental It's the whole rise of the social science, sociology, psychology, DS studies, the whole therapeutic culture. And when you combine that with the First Amendment, there's no limitations on expression and other things that have been widely by the Warren Cn expanded All I know is you just go, I mean, there were a lot of things bad with the forties, thirties, forties and fifties in this country There was, you know, I don't you look at a movie and every African American person's a servant. okay So they were that was bad They didn't want and there weren't they weren't all servs Yeah, Woody Stros and all those Westerns, he was sort of a he was a hero of sorts, right? He always was. They made a whole movie where he was a star. You know Sean Ford made him the star of Sergeant Rutledge That was a good movie and he was saw the star, he was in the background as the sidekick or the employee of John Wayne and the man out Liberty Ballance. And isn't that the benefit of our free thought, free thinking is that there are critics that grow up in for example, the film industry and they have alternate ways Portay Prier was in Lies of the Field. He won the Academy Award. It was a wonderful performance He was the moral paragon of the whole city So but my point is When you have that unlimited freedom, you have to have on it that The reason the First Amendment and other amendments like that work so well is that they assume the founders of a normality of behavior. And they thought that even though I don't know how there's been studies done, but I would say of the founders who signed the Declaration of Independence or were involved in the Constitution. Maybe thirty percent were not regular church goers They were deists. They believed that Christianity was very important for other people even if they didn't believe completely because it There was a moral code that suppressed the appetites That was very important. They thought the nuclear family was very important. and they thought the small town shame culture was very important. I remember telling my parents as a snotty nose brat when I was seventeen I said, I'm going to go to UC Santa Cruz. And I'm never going to come back toill Christmas. because I'm so tired of this Salma little gossip rumor maner and they all you know, I I went I drove through town and I did a rolling stop at the stop light and then next day M, I went to the library and the library and said, I hear you're racing around Salma, aren't you? I said, What did I do? Well, Mr. Sed said he was behind you and you did a rolling stop. That's no business. I said, what is it with this city? Can I sneeze? So I'm going to go to Sant Cruz. So I go to Santa Cruz and the first thing you know, my dad drops me off of the dorm and then I walk down dorm thing and I lean against it and I fall through the wall because they've all kicked in the walls and put posters over to hide it when they get parties and then the next person They have a little sign that says Pashis, marijuana, LSD, mesculine with the prices right on the wall. And then down at the end there's this guy who is a male prostitute and I noticice that all these Weird people in suits and ties are at a college dorm way up on the hill and they're knocking on the door and they're signing this little thing. and so finally I walk over there and I said, excuse me, why are you all you guys going to Roberto's room over there. and they said, Why are you in line I said, what And then They started laughing. I asked everybody I said, Ohh, he's servicing all these people. He meets. Convention center, very wealthy business people I thought What does that mean? Serva? What is this you know, and then I the guy, his name was Jamie. He was a nice guy. one day I look over there and he's got a Lcksmith And we all had keys And he's drilling a hole in the university door and he's got this locks this used bolt locks. like like, well, what are you doing You said Well, everybody comes and steals stuff. he was a ronic genius. we had all this expensive. I said, they they wouldn't steal stuff in our own dorm. Well, they were So I thought, wow, all these idealists They steal They act prostitute, they break all the drug laws and then This was really funny when I would be in my first seminar. We all sat on the floor carpeted room. We didn't want to go to a classroom. John Lynch was a great professor. And then I' noticed that half the people did not bathe And then the girl next to me, she lifted up her arm. I about passed out and she had something called Culy oil It was so strong. And she hadn't shaved her legs or arms or anything And then this one guy Cast win really loud, but he didn't try to suppress him go outside or say, I'm sorry, just started laughing And then I noticed that my roommate, who I won't mention, but I really liked him He told me he did not take a bath for six months months. And my dad said to me Next time he's there spraying with right Guard And so I did. he almost killed me. I sprayed him with right guard and So my point is when I I came home for Thanksgiving, not Christmas. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible. And I went straight to my grandparents and helped them with the walnut you know, help thick walnuts. I said I am so happy to be home And he said, We're so happy. We missed you, Victor. And he Lilah, who was cribled. She goes, twenty, you're back. I said, Yes, she was bedridden, sixty something I said, I got to get it. She goes, Well, we're always here. And then it was like the back the world I thought was parochial, you know, and stay conventional It was normal. It was good. It was insane. because everybody was pushing the law to the absolute maximum with no usts wor thing and I'll finish because there were some good things about UC Santa C I get a knock on the door The guy is in a white coat. And he says, we are from the University Health Center. I said yes And he said We're going to every room on campus And I said, why? So there's a new virus out, a sexually transmitted disease. I said, well, what's the sexually transmitted disease I was a seventeen year old virgin. I didn't know what it was. And he said, it's called herpes. I said Well Bees, you said yes And it's It's kind of like the AIDS scare He said, and it never goes away. and it can kill you. It can get in your eyes. It gets on your lips And I said, is that that big sore? I say, No, that's Herpes one. But we think that Santa Cruz's target Zing We're looking for the original patients. We want to trace every one of their sexual contacts And I said, really, and we want to stop this because this is where it started in California. they thought And they had some people from the Santac Cz County Health Department with a little clipboard And I said, what do you want to know? How many sexual partners have you had I said, since I got here, zero I said zero and they said, no, we mean since you got here I said, I just turned eighteen And they said, you don't have any sexual partners. You've never had sexual intercourse and said, no. And they said, okay, how about your room? I said, he's not here. I don't know. Has he had sexual partners here and I said And then they kind of laughed and they said Do you know of anybody that has sexual relations in the lounge. I said, I don't think so So then as they were leaving, there was kind of an attractive young Woman And I asked her a question, I said to her Well, how many sexual partners have you found And she's said Wellow, we're not allowed to release names and because my boss has already left, I think the record that we have is twenty six I said, wait, wait, twenty six sexual partners in their first year at UC Santa C. Are you serious? She said, Yes And she said, and And we have a lot of other diseases that we're finding, syphilis, gonorrhea Paminia, but We haven't found more than three people with this herpes and that's why we're here because we think we can contain it And then I was thinking about all this And then one of my family members came over, who was at UC Santa Cruz. I won't mention whom And he said You know, blank, blank. I'll say Bob And I'll say, yes. Well, he was patient too. So That's too much first Amendment freedom. freedom. I suppose. I know it's very d. In other words, too much freedom is dangerous but it's done a lot for us. I mean, I went in and I said too My professor, I didn't know what to call him. I'd never seen a PhD before Is it Professor Lynch? I said, hello He was our dorm preceptor. is a professor at Lynch or doctor. He said, I haven't operated on anybody, Mr. Hanson So I said, I say professors said, no, you call me John And he was dressed like anybody else hippie. you know He was a great professor. So everybody would call him John. You know what I mean? There was no hierarchy and they said they were going to destroy all hierarchy And then I notice that When we had class discussion, he was the pillar of civility, politeness, order John was. And then there would be this guy Doug And he we were talking about the Iliad and the character of Ajax and Achilles. and he'd say That's stupid. F you And he'd say the F word every time in the seminar, nobody said anything, but he would argue with a professor in a really insulting manner. or they would never come in on time. Everybody would come in when they wanted I go I got hung over, sorry come in twenty minutes late or they'd say Oh, I got leave. It was just like a revolving door. There was no order, no attent, nothing And I thought, wow, this is pre civilizational Yeah It' the best thing ever happened to me. It can be very culturally dangerous. I went on one extreme. I thought it was an extreme, but then when I saw what that was, that was the extreme and what I had seen was the middle because the town I grew up in was not just rumor mongering. they had other I mean, they were too gossipy and all that, that they had other attributes that outweed those defects All right, and then even we could look at economically, people like Elon Musk obviously, are possible in our country because of the great freedom and so And we can really benefit from We have an equality of opportunity not resultve. Yeah. And it used to be that people like you and me were who like Elon and are impressed by him used to be Americans would say Elon Musk He resurrected the word the word of that old Siberian guy who helped invent the use of modern use of electricity, Tesla. And nobody gave him any credit. They all said Edison. Now thanks to Elon, we know who Tesla was and he had maybe a superior version of electrical conductivity for the mass market, and he gave us an actual electric car that works And then wow, he saved NASA. he has more launches for us in America than all the countries combined last year And wow He allowed X, everybody doesn't get censored by the government anymore Thank you and And That was what we would that's the attitude. But now, I mean, we're trying to get the European in. Yeah, he's got he's the richest man and they will. Why doesn't he just send a check to me? or why doesn't he solve cancer? you know what I mean? Yes, but Elon probably wasn't possible in any other country. The United States of Amer no no, if he was in the Soviet Union or China, they'd confiscated confiscate his wealth. Absolutely. They would have. O he'd have to give it away or if he was in Europe it or they would try to do something. There's a few billionaires in Europe they're among the aristocracy And they have deep ties with the government that go back generational. A new guy No, he'd be in trouble It's only in the United States. And if these socialists were to take over, he would flee Yeah and we would lose all those guys that have talent. Yeah. Everybody hates Jeff Bezos. But I was thinking the other day just finished with this. This is the freest country economically So I had most of my right lung out and then I had cardia, all these problems I couldn't drive and get stuff. So all I would do the last Five and a half months is if I needed a part on the you know, I'd say, oh, the splinter system's not rather than go all the way to Fresno to I would just get on Amazon and I would just, you know I need this type of solenoid and I need this type of fluorescent light bulb H two fif six to fix this fixture. because you're a loyal prime Minter, the next day it's deliberate. Some days it's the same day. or I say, I just read that this type of herbal tea, somebody sent me one of our loyal wonderful readers, said, Mr. Hanson, try Hawthorne tea. it calms your heart order. I never heard of it. I ordered it It was there seven hours later He did that So I don't really care that he's a billionaire billionaire. I care that he did He probably saved a lot of energy too because we're not all going on these weird in store and then they don't find it You just deliver it straight there and they try to consolidate the packages So a person like that did a lot I don't particularly like the Google people, but I can find that. don't I'm worried about AI, but You can find things Oh yeah, they all have contributed and they're integral to the survival of this nation. And we have to stop demonizing them. Yeah. Well, so that is a billion dollars. I don't know what I would do with ten million dollars. I don You know what I mean I take too much of a worry. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you have too many people calling you up, You have ten million dollars. Can you spare fifty thousand? That's not much Well, thank you everyone for joining us on this Fourth of July and give thanks to the Constitution and our individual rights, but also your God and your customs and conventions that help to make a civilization possible under such great freedom. And thank everybody that no one great middle class of America, they get up every day. go to work They don't complain. They go home they obey the law They make the country move and nobody gives them any credit, but they're the backbone of the country. And then I have one reader or one listener who is wants to thank you, Victor Davis Hanson. I'm writing to tell you how much you are appreciated. My friends and I listen to you daily and are so happy you are on multiple platforms A couple of us refer to you as our boyfriend. Many thanks and prayers for your healing. sincerely as tes are Tista, sorry I'm not sure the first name. Marciiani Thank you It's very nice. Italian American, I have a feeling. All right, thanks everybody. This is Sammy Weeink and Victor Davis Hansen and we're signing off. Thank everybody for listening and watching you Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Sal Please like, share, and subscribe To be notified for more content like this, you can also check out my own website at victorhansen d. com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition