Obama’s AI Alarm Could Hand China the Advantage | Victor Davis Hanson

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He said, be careful, I don't think my constituents in Dearborn are going to like that we killed the supreme leader of Iran, a terrorist who had just been responsible for butchering 30,000 to 40,000 of his own people. What El-Sayed was saying is, I have a whole constituency that doesn't integrate or assimilate and feels more affinity with theocratic Iran than the country who welcomed him in. He said, be careful, I don't think my constituents in Dearborn are going to like that we killed the supreme leader of Iran. He said, be careful, I don't think my constituents in Dearborn are going to like that we welcomed him in. Well, hello ladies and hello gentlemen and welcome to Victor Davis Hanson and his own words on the Daily Signal Network. I'm Jack Fowler, the host. You are here to listen to Get Wisdom from best-selling author, yet again, best-selling author, Victor Davis Hanson, who is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Wayne and Marsha Buskey Distinguished Fellow in History, at Hillsdale College, Senior Contributor at the Daily Signal, where he also has another show called Victor Davis Hanson in a few words. And he has a website, The Blade of Perseus. VictorHanson.com is the address. And go there, subscribe, $6.50 a month, $65 a year if you want it discounted. And when you subscribe, you'll be able to read the twice-weekly articles Victor writes exclusively for The Blade of Perseus and see the exclusive weekly video he does, plus his tons of free stuff. Okay. Congratulations again, as your book, Victor, continues to romp and sell and inform. And hopefully, it will inspire. The only reason I was looking down, you said it was a bestseller. I didn't know how you calibrate that, so I was trying to see what it was ranked at, because I haven't looked recently. Well, its first day of sale, it was number one in the nation. Yeah, four days it was there. Okay. And it's now. So, day six of the book, and I'm very happy, and I'm just looking, and as I speak, it's number 12 on Amazon. Well, people would kill for that number, Victor. Or they'd maim. Maybe they'd kill also. Well, today, Victor, we are recording on Monday, September 14th. This episode will be up on Thursday, September 17th. And we have a bunch of things to get your wisdom. One is Obama and AI, and we're a few weeks, excuse me, two months anyway. Not even two months anymore, out from the midterm elections. And Obama is becoming front and center of the Democrat Party and pushing a position on AI. It's a new issue of Strategico, the online journal at Hoover that you oversee and run. A great essay to 9-11 and an era. I'd like to get your take on that. J.D. Vance. Has some proposal on federal money for stay-at-home moms. And Steve Forbes, who's just a terrific conservative and man of economic heft, has a problem with that. And he wrote about this, and I'd like to get your take on that. And then maybe when we have a little time at the end, Victor, we have some news that the New York high school test for graduation called the Regents, it's been eliminated. No need to take a test anymore. As we continue in America to define deviancy downward, intellectual deviancy too, Victor. So all that is worth your getting Victor's take on. And we'll do that when we return from these initial important messages. Truth is under attack in our culture. People are embracing lies about gender. They're rejecting the sanctity of every human life. And the government is even punishing people for saying what's true and right. But the biblical principles on which our country was founded, they still matter. And they still matter. And they must be defended. Alliance Defending Freedom is on the front lines of this fight. They're standing in courtrooms across the country, upholding truth and your right to speak it. But they rely on help from friends like you to do this work. Your gift to ADF will be matched by a special grant while funds last. Visit joinadf.com slash Hanson or text Hanson to 83848 to make. Twice the impact. That's joinadf.com slash Hanson or text Hanson to 83848. Okay, folks, we are back with Victor Davis Hanson in his own words on the Daily Signal Network. Victor, let me start off with this Obama story that I'm looking at a headline today on Breitbart. Barack Obama reemerges to lead Democrats' midterm efforts with focus on artificial intelligence. Global governance. And bear with me, folks. Obama has reemerged yet again as the face of the Democratic Party, this time with a focus on weaponizing rising trends in the nation skeptical of artificial intelligence's arrival to help Democrats win politically and help eventually install a form of global governance to harness AI's power and potential. Any thoughts on this, Victor? Yes, I have a thought. So why did not the dangers of AI in this mid-level executive come out, let's say, in January of this year? Why not February? Why not March? Why not April? Why do they do it in September on the eve of the midterm elections to create a false issue? Suddenly AI is going. It's going to kill us all. Donald Trump is promoting AI, so we have to use this against him, and we have to do what Democrats and leftists always do. There's always a globalist solution. Got pollution? Paris Climate Accords. Got problems with Israel? Go to the United Nations Commission on Civil Rights and deal with Iran and North Korea and et cetera. Got a problem? Got a problem with American soldiers that are too kinetic? Go to the International Criminal Court. Got a problem with COVID and the lab in China and the creation of a gain-in-function virus that was manufactured for some unknown reason? Go to the World Health Organization. How has all that worked out? Not very well. Why? Because international organizations are as strong as their world. Weakest link. And there are 175, roughly, I'm doing this by memory, nations in the world, and there's only about 70 to 80 democracies or consensual governments. That ensures on all of these bodies, you're going to have Russians, you're going to have South Africans, you're going to have Cubans, you're going to have Iranians, North Koreans. And they're going to subvert. They're either going to go after Israel or the United States or both. So why would you entrust it? So the second question is, do they have a history of working? Let's see. And as people got very worried about fascism in Europe, they got together and they said, we need an international naval treaty to circumvent an inevitable bloody return to war. And they said, we need an international naval treaty to circumvent an inevitable bloody return to war. World War I. So here's what we're going to do in the International Naval Control Accords. We're going to say battleships cannot be over 35,000 tons. Cruisers cannot be over 10,000 tons. Destroyers, et cetera, et cetera. And who abided by it? United States? Yes. UK? Yes. Fascist Germany? No. Japan? No. Italy? No. They said they did, but they all cheated. So then after World War II, and we had a monopoly on the bomb, and people said, we need to give the expertise to everybody and have the UN control it. So Russia said, this was a great idea. Why don't we do it? And then they stole all of the information they needed from New Mexico in four years almost to the day. 1949. in August they did what they detonated an atomic bomb and we were off and our attitude from then on but basically even before is deterrence not the trust in the link the weakest link in an international body that has no accountability so we're going to say to the world we don't want you to have nuclear weapons but if you do get them and you try to use them you're going to be destroyed and after world war ii we thought well navies are expensive but we're going to ensure that because we are the most responsible country we're going to have the biggest battleships carriers cruisers everything and that's been our attitude so how that applies to AI I think it goes something like this in the mind of Donald Trump and most of the people in silicon we are going to be the most efficient the strongest and we you we because we operate in a transparent country with a elected government and a free press we will be the most scrutinized and we will make sure that it doesn't kill us all but what we have to learn is that the Chinese and the Russians have no such prohibitions and they will not file follow an international treaty so we have to tell them if they use this try to use it against us we will be much more effective in our counter response call deterrence I don't think that the Chinese listen much to the World Health Organization that said China we've been really disturbed about this now we're not saying that this didn't come from a pangolin and a bat it could but we're a little bit worried that so-called bat lady hasn't shown up and some of the scientists that identified the virus they're there are only rumors died and some are missing and and and if it is true that the people's Liberation Army are running the lab would you please have someone call us and tell us how it started for what reason uh what happened to the people who invented it what was your policy it would just help us out that's where we are with an international group or the Paris climate accord the British the French the Germans the Dutch the Italians they all beat their chest I'm following a reduction and I'm better than you I have less fossil fuels and meanwhile somebody whispers to them hey China and India are responsible for 70 percent of the carbon releases they're they're they're producing three new coal plants a month India is doing a new one a month they are the shooter yes but but we have a Colonial Legacy to live down and they have to catch up so they have to pollute the planet 70 like we did in the Industrial Revolution 150 years ago that's how that worked out so no international body is viable until you change the nature of mankind if mankind was kind and forgiving and transparent we wouldn't need it would we well if you hate America or if America is not exceptional or if it says just as exceptional as Greece is exceptional not to pick on Greece Victor and not to pick on Barack Obama you're quoting him verbatim but but to pick on him so then we shouldn't be in charge if if our virtues are uh the same as communist China or Russia or anyone else this is this is kind of an attitude with the internet itself right it was well is America run thing but let's look let's let any hooligan uh oversee it that's not as official policy but uh there there is I think disdain for America is part and parcel I think everybody has to remember I think you do know that all of our listeners when you use the word globalist or global it is a synonym for maybe a euphemism for anti-Americanism they're not compatible ideas one of them says that the sovereignty of the United States should be subordinated to less Democratic and more illiberal governments that is globalism it's inevitable and the other nationalism is that well we don't want to push our weight around but we do have the best Constitution in the world and we are more likely to follow a humane law than the rest of them are so one other thing if I may get your opinion on Victor because Obama may be on to a little something here is that well it's the disdain people have and we've talked about before here in my town we're fighting these flock cameras and many people are and there's a general I I think it cuts across parties and ideologies that we are living in this surveillance state that everything we do is captured that all our information is being sold so playing into a fear of AI I think works into this emerging those are two different issues though one of them issue is privacy and the degree to which certain methodologies from cameras to AI to the internet impugn or threaten privacy the other is that the medium of AI is in a class all by itself because it's the only one that can create in theory a homogeneous independent autonomous intelligence and it given the evil in the world you can program a entity in theory to think and expand on evil ideas at record speed cameras can't do that they won't I don't think yet unless they're AI completely dominated they won't just sort of say I'm camera a and I'm going to call up camera B and I want to see Sydney Sweeney in the nude so I'm going to hijack a camera across the street and enhance it and then I'm going to put it on they can't do that I agreed I just I just think there's a high-tech boogeyman mood out there yes that's true that's that that feeds into it that's your point that you're exactly right absolutely well Victor let's take a let's talk about uh a near heading in a second but first to our listeners and our viewers if you've studied enough history you start to see a pattern Nations don't lose their way overnight they drift through debt and division until one day you realize the foundations you thought were permanent were never permanent at all today America is spending at levels once reserved for wartime we have normalized deficits that would have stunned earlier generations and policy makers now debate whether the only path forward is more intervention more printing and more destruction but here's the historical truth every society that pushed its currency Beyond Discipline eventually paid a price the wise though they never waited for collapse they prepared for the correction and that's why so many thoughtful Americans especially those nearing retirement or in retirement are reallocating part of their wealth into something that has outlasted every paper experiment in human history physical gold not as speculation but as insulation our reputation matters here at Victor Davis Hanson in his own words which is why we are partnering with Allegiance Gold a company is distinguished by Integrity reliability and an A-plus rating with the better business Bureau for years they've guided Americans through transparent education and long-standing relationships built on trust and right now they're extending a special Liberty offer to our listeners and viewers to help you get started with real gold whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in the bank if you believe as we do that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious call 844-790-9191 844-790-9191 or visit protectwithvictor.com that's 844-790-9191 844-790-9191 or visit protectwithvictor.com history rewards those who make the long view and we thank the very good people from Allegiance Gold for once again sponsoring Victor Davis Hanson uh in his own words so Victor there is this uh just a gruesome story out of Texas where um a 26 year old sub-Saharan African Benedict obagwe igu I'm sure I'm saying that wrong allegedly murdered a white man 62 year old Andrew uh Wim sat sitting on a bench and he stabbed him to death and tried to behead him it turned out that uh Wim set was actually friends with uh Tyrus and cat Timp and others for whatever you know reasons he communicated with them went to some of their local shows so seems like a nice guy they knew him so some of this news has gotten out but otherwise if he didn't have friends in high media places this seems to be the another kind of a story uh a heinous black on white illegal immigrant I think he's an illegal immigrant this dude um murder has happened and gruesome again attempt to saw off this guy's head uh would have just passed in our media, as do so many shootings and murders in Chicago, for example. We don't hear about this. Anyway, any thoughts on this batting attempt, Victor? Yeah, I mean, the left sees this as collateral damage. So they have a narrative that white supremacists and white rage hurt black people. And the reality is that 49 to 50 percent of all rapes, assaults, murders are committed by black males who make up two and a half percent of the population. That is a narrative that they do not want to discuss. They call this collateral damage to the narrative. The narrative is anti-empirical, is deductive. It just says this. White people are racist. Therefore, they must kill black people. Black people inordinately, even though in rarer interracial crimes, depending on the violent act, it's six to 20 times more common for a black person to hurt a white person. I think in the case of female crime, and please, listeners, correct me, I'm doing this by memory, but the data that I had looked at said that that is even more egregious that black. I don't think there was a case last year of a white woman killing a black woman, but the reverse is true. Certainly true. So the second myth is that our immigrants, both legal and illegal, are more law-abiding. They always say that they're more law-abiding than Americans are. And that's not true if you look at the data, especially on illegal immigrants, and especially on the recent generations of legal immigrants. And that makes sense, not because of racial differences, but because we are importing people. I say that because they look at it as, their home countries look at it as export for remittances. They are exporting people from some of the most violent places in the world, from the Sudan, from Somalia, from Venezuela, from Central America, some of the most violent places in the world, Mexico, cartel. And that behavior continues. And we always get back to the same truism, Jack, that if you bring people into the United States and you don't have confidence that you're going to assimilate, acculturate, and integrate them, and they have no desire to do that, they did not come here to be Americans. They came here to be Syrians or Egyptians or Qataris or Venezuelans or Ugandans or Nigerians with greater prosperity. And greater security, prosperity, and greater freedom. That's all they wanted. They did not want to integrate into the system. And if you do that, then why wouldn't they retain the same characteristics, values, behaviors that made their countries failed states? And therefore, if they do not acculturate and integrate, then they will, and their numbers are large enough, they will make a failed state within the United States. And that's not racist. It's not culturally chauvinistic. If you look at 1 million Mexican nationals in Los Angeles County, and they're not integrating or intermarrying and assimilating, then that million people will follow the same patterns of behavior that they did in Mexico, which collectively. Drove them out, and they voted with their feet, and they said, "I don't want to live in Mexico because I don't feel safe. I don't feel I have enough money. I don't think I have freedom. I want to go to the United States." But part of the bargain, what they used to call the brutal bargain, was if you come here, you're going to be an American or not. It's your choice. If you're not, go back. And we haven't done that, and they don't want to. And that's why. You remember right during the infancy of the al-Syed candidate, he had a hot mic and he was with his handlers, and he said right after the first day of the war on February 28th, he said, "Well, be careful. I don't think my constituents in Dearborn are going to like the news that we killed the Supreme Leader of Iran, a terrorist leader who had just been responsible for butchering 30,000 to 40,000 of his own people." So what al-Syed was saying is, "I have a whole constituency that doesn't integrate or assimilate and took an American city and took it over and feels more affinity with theocratic Iran than the country who welcomed him in." That's a fact. Some of these documentaries that we've seen in the last few days, I have, I assume you have and many of our listeners have, on 9/11, shows these clips of. taken from. not America, from some Arab countries, of joy in the streets with the news. Handing out candies in Cairo. Yeah. And more recently, of course, after October 7th, the dancing and thrill in Gaza over the slaughter of Jews. Did you see that one is making its rounds? It's one of the sickest things. I think her name was Shadi Luke, and she was a German-Israeli, and she was one of the first hostages that they sexually abused. They stripped her, they crushed her limbs, and she's in the back of that little truck, almost naked, and they're pulling out her hair, the corpse, and they're driving through Gaza, and everybody's trying to get to there to harm her, and a young kid comes up and spits on her. I think she was dead at the time that was taken, but the pictures show her 80% naked, suffering sexual trauma, and her limbs are obviously been broken, and at angles that are sick, and when you look at the crowd, there's not one, I mean, everybody is in a state of ecstasy. So, when I hear that Israel committed genocide, Israel, said that they picked out 30,000 Hamas people of maybe the 45,000 or 50,000 that were killed that were collateral damage, but unless these, and that's, I was just giving one example, it seems like all the people in Gaza after October 7th, if you took a poll, would say 99%, I like the idea of butchering, dismembering, disfiguring, raping, beheading Jews. Yeah. Well, you know, let me throw another immigration-y thing quickly here, Victor. I just saw it before we came on. Maybe I said it before. Mandami announced that he is now going to sue the Trump administration over the administration's new rule to deny green cards to foreigners who rely on welfare. That used to be a law in most countries. It was a law here. You had to have proof of that. Yeah. Yeah. Self-sustainability before you could get a visa. So, I don't know what he's talking about. Yeah. A green card. Yeah. Well, fleecing the system, tapping into the system, not the opportunity for meritocracy, but the ability to draw a check on the taxpayers of the United States is truly, now, everywhere you go is part and parcel. Yeah. Everybody should remember there's always a cycle with socialism, when it comes in on its body of lies. It is initially very successful for the first few months because it promises everybody free stuff. When they threw Batista out, people were in the streets praising Fidel, praising even Che Guevara, the psychopath they were praising. And it didn't take them more than a year. Then they started going after him. And then they started going after him. And then they started going after, especially the upper middle class, the bourgeoisie. And usually the very wealthy cut a deal with them. But they always go after the bourgeoisie first. And then the honeymoon was over when they broke the country. And that's what's going to happen in New York. Everybody's happy. They're going to get free stuff. Some of the aristocratic rich people said, I can deal with him. I can buy him this. They'll leave me alone. But you watch month by month by month, he will target the upper middle class and they will start leaving. Or they will start voicing their furor at him. And it's already started because that's who he is. It's the same frog in the scorpion. He can't help it. He's a socialist. That's what socialists do. They have no choice. You know, sometimes, Victor, we're Eeyore, sometimes upbeat, despair is a sin. And we'll talk about this a little later. There's an article from National Review about are we entering a new age? And we talked recently about David Mamet's piece, essay on kind of despairing. But it's hard not to despair. We love our country. We love everything it stands for, but significant pockets of it. And those are our major pockets. major cities like New York, they're circling the drain. And again, the other day in Providence. So we thought Providence had a whack job mayor when those murders happened at Brown University. Well, he was defeated in a primary by a far greater whack job. So all of our major cities, one by one, seem to just be turning into. And I think a lot of that is, that is where we have 53 million people who were not born in the United States. Probably 20 million are exemplary legal immigrants, but 30 million of them are illegal, and maybe more. 17% of the population, the majority of those people live in cities. That's why the British government wants to take illegal and legal immigrants from third world countries and take them home. They want to take them out of Birmingham, Liverpool, and London, because they've already served the purpose. They have got majorities in there that get liberal politicians and labor politicians elected. Now they want to take them out in the country and disturb what they call, oh, these quaint little old white people out in their little shires. We're going to screw that up. You will just watch. And that's sort of what is the subtext. Why did the cities fall apart? Why did Los Angeles fall apart? One reason is we imported millions of people who could not support themselves, and they became wards of the Democratic Party, who basically has got 45% of the federal budget through distributions to the states and local municipalities for welfare of all sorts, education, food, shelter, legal, health. And that in ornately goes to people here, especially here illegally. And they live in cities, and they want blue representation. So when you say Mayor Johnson couldn't possibly be reelected because he's a racist, he's broke, he has absolutely bankrupted the finances of Chicago, and he has increased the shootings by defunding. And demasculating the police. He couldn't be elected. Well, he has a lot of people who feel that the welfare system is really great. They feel that teachers' unions and all these people who are not subject to any audit is great. They get highly paid. He's going to run again, you know. He's going to win. Yeah, he's going to win. His work is not completed. Maybe we can get Lori Lightfoot back. Oh, gosh. Oh, my gosh. Karen Bass said she failed. She said, I didn't ask her about all the fires and all the disasters, and the streets are not, they're just, I just remember driving in Los Angeles. They're huge everywhere. And she said, it's not my fault. It's not my fault. I'm only mayor. And so, I mean, the thing about, another thing about DEI is that if there's no accountability, that's the real, the secret of DEI. There cannot be accountability because the person is always in a protected species. They're always a victim of a cosmic injustice generations ago, and therefore, they're incapable of being culpable. And human nature being what it is, they understand that. And so, if you're a DEI person and you're driving down the road and a cop pulls you over, you're going to badmouth the cop. And say, you know, do you basically want another George Floyd incident? And the cop will treat you in a way different than he would somebody else. And if you're an official in LA and you want to be water and power director, you might get $750,000. And no one's going to look what you did when you were working for PG&E. No one's going to look at the fact that half the fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades area don't work. Nobody's going to look at the fact that a reservoir has been dry for months, critical to the safety of that neighborhood, because you're a DEI person. And the same thing with the mayor. If you phone in the deputy mayor, phone in a death, a bomb threat, nobody's going to put you in jail for very long. You'll just be at home. You'll have a suspended sentence. Maybe you sent, I don't know. And if you're mayor, yeah, you can go on a junket to a wedding in Africa right during fire season, but because you're a victim. Add the number of victims and the victimhood scenarios, and you're going to get an utter disaster in a complex society. It can't work on anything other than meritocracy. It can withstand or it can accommodate some incompetencies. You can have the old white boy network where seven generations of policemen were heroic. And then finally in our age, they hire their son and their son's a total blank, blank. Maybe the society can hire them, or you can have a whole family of billionaires that get their kids into Harvard. And one kid is a complete moron and he gets in, but those are incidental. They're not essential to the system. But when you have blanket thousands of people who are being promoted on without demonstrable skills that are necessary for the job, and your society is not a hunter gatherer society, but it's a complex post-industrial. You're asking for disaster. And that's what we have now. Well, I'd like to touch on that a little more, Victor. But first, if you're like me, you have problems sleeping. By the way, I know you do. I do. Yes, I do. Your head's at the wrong angle. You get too hot. Your mattress feels like it's made of concrete. You're sinking into it like it's made of quicksand. And that's why I am excited to try out my brand new GhostBed, which was just delivered. I'm going to set it up and try it out. GhostBed is engineered to help reduce the reasons your sleep gets interrupted. It's designed to relieve pressure, help regulate temperature with cooling technology built into every mattress, and support your body. Better still, GhostBed is made in the USA. With GhostBed's 101-night sleep trial, you can try it at home because the real test of a mattress is how you feel in the morning. If you're waking up sore or tired, before the day even starts, you can try it at home. If you're waking up sore or tired, before the day even starts, then please check out GhostBed. Now, GhostBed is offering the listeners and viewers of Victor Davis Hanson, in his own words, an extra 10% off their lowest prices of the season. So go to ghostbed.com slash VDH and use the promo code VDH. That's ghostbed.com slash VDH. The promo code is VDH. And we thank the good people from GhostBed for sponsoring Victor Davis Hanson. In his own words, and I hope Mrs. Fowler will be happy because that temperature, she says it's like sleeping with a furnace, a snoring furnace. So we'll try to get those problems fixed. I'm looking forward to it. If you have most of your right lung taken out and you can't, and I have a dislocated, torn AOC on my left, so I have to sleep on my right. My right side where my lobectomy was, and I'm all contorted every night. So I'm looking forward to this type of bed that I have about seven pillows look like Mount Everest. So I'm propped up because the doctor says the more propped up you are, the more your lung will drain or heal and your mucus won't collect and et cetera from the. And the immune response to all the cutting. But boy, it's hard to sleep on a regular bed. So if I had it elevated, I'm looking forward to my elevated bed. All right. Me too. I just want to carry on a little bit from what you were just talking about, Victor, and the lack of culpability in government. And I know the thought just came to mind, it's not very original and it's probably won't be articulate either, but the main. The main bulwark against the concept of victims were our churches, because you were a sinner. And let's just take the Christian churches. Repent. It means you were the sinner. You did something wrong. You're culpable. And today's official churches, my church, the Roman Catholic Church, and many of the mainline Protestant churches, their view is that the congregants are. Are victims. This is why they sin. I don't think they would use the word sin. So we have churches that have gone weak. And at this time, one of their positive benefits to society, especially American society, I think, is to, in its own way, back up that concept of meritocracy and not create people that think they're victims, but they're part of the problem. Until the modern age, most societies were based on shame. Yeah, not guilt, not private guilt. Shame was a much better correct or deterrent to bad behavior. I can remember we had in our local little Salma paper, there was something equivalent of the crime beat, you know what I mean? And it was every Thursday. This is in the late 50s and early 60s. And it had things like Buddy Smith, 15, notice he's a juvenile, Jack. Buddy Smith, 15, son of Mr. John and Elise Smith at 4321 Pine Street, Salma, was caught in a liquor store in Fresno when the burglaries started. The burglar alarm went off and he was summarily arrested and Judge Joe Jones have just sentenced him to six months in Fresno County Juvenile Hall. And then when you saw the Smiths, and this is what progressivism and modernism said was antiquated and medieval, and therefore we had to get rid of shame culture. They said something like, well, Mrs. Smith, I would say. I was very shocked to see that your son was caught in a liquor store trying to steal things when he was only 15. Or if they weren't that explicit, they would say to you, I don't want you going in a car with a Smith boy. I just don't want you to be there, Victor. So don't think if you're going to go to a party and that boy is in that car, I don't want you. And now modern society said, oh, that's guilt by association. That's, that's. That's like, that's like medieval England and everything. It's just a puritanical shame. We're not going to have that. It's like Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. It's horrible. But it served as a deterrent. You know what I mean? Sure. So I. Embarrassed the family. I did. And the same thing is, and that's what the sexual liberation feminist movement was. I can tell you in high school, there was a girl. I won't mention anything about her because she's probably. I'm still alive. I haven't kept, but let's just call her Honey. Honey Bunch. She was a good name for the story. Yeah, she was very beautiful. She was a year ahead of me in high school and, and she disappeared. And I don't know where she went. And then all of a sudden said, Victor, have you heard about Honey Bunch? No, I haven't actually. She went to Florida. Oh, why is her family moving? No, she went to have the. A word. What is the A word? Abortion. Oh my gosh. Is it legal there? No, but they do it there. Can you imagine that? She got pregnant. Well, that was a fear of everybody. Not just because it was, there wasn't abortion allowed. I know that our feminist listeners are going to say, well, do you want a back alley abortion? I said, I do not want a back alley abortion. But Bill Clinton wasn't sincere when he said that he wanted abortion to be legal. Safe, legal, and rare. So when you don't have that deterrent of shame, then, you know, I came back from my first semester. Every student comes home from college and terrifies their parents at Thanksgiving. But I don't think I did. But I remember I had an uncle at Thanksgiving said, well, what's going on there? You see Santa Cruz. I said, it's pretty wild. He goes, what do you mean? I said, I don't even know what's happening there. Fornicating in the shower and everybody. And then my dad looks at me. Well, you better be careful, young man, because that's a good way to get a girl pregnant and get in big trouble. So just you better be careful. Just watch yourself. You don't have to participate in that type of stuff. My dad was no Puritan. But the point was, it was a shame, you know what I mean, to do that. Sure. And I know that was a restrictive, judgmental, Puritanical. We heard all of that in the 60s. But you have to look at the results and ask yourself, were the streets cleaner? Were people nicer? Were there fewer people aborted, et cetera, in 1960 or 19, I don't know, 2015? What was the trajectory of the leftist, let it all hang out, tune in, drop out culture? And the destruction of shame. Have you ever certainly, I'll just finish, have you ever heard this phrase anymore, have you no shame? No, no. I don't hear it anymore. Yeah. What was that in? How about, it was that famous in the, Mr. Welch was a legal counsel on Joe McCarthy. Oh, yeah, right. I have the name. Have you, about the army, he was the army legal counsel and he became famous. But have you heard shame on you? I haven't. No, no. Shame has disappeared. Let us pray for its return. Well, Victor, we're going to return after these messages. And when we do, two things I'd like to bring up. One is the new issue of Strategica. And then the second and final piece we have time will be this very interesting article on September 11th. Did it end an era? Well, it ended an era of American optimism and confidence. And we'll do all that when we return from these messages. Every state is home to significant historic sites that tell the American story. But not every site is telling that story honestly and fairly. That's why the Heritage Foundation created the Heritage Guide to Historic Sites. This interactive guide equips American citizens with the tools they need to enjoy the sites that depict some of the greatest moments in our nation's history. Analyzing them for historical interest. And provides resources for families or educators planning a visit. From Mount Vernon to Independence Hall to Gettysburg and more. Americans deserve transparency and sites that steward our history faithfully deserve our gratitude. The Heritage Guide to Historic Sites invites every American to rediscover the places and stories that define our nation, whether it's across the country or in your backyard. Visit historic sites dot heritage dot org. barrels that went out of the Strait of Hormuz. I think we're getting 9 million barrels out of the Gulf. But I think until this recent attack on Saudi Arabia, 4 million or 5 million were going out to the Red Sea or the Gulf of Oman outside the Straits through pipelines. And so there are ways to pipeline your way out or find other methods of oil. Trump's theory is, I can make the choke points, which really are talking about a couple of things. Basically, it is oil, a choke point, and food, because those are vitals. Computer, iPhones, import or export, you can get by for a while, but you can shut down a country quickly. Without food or oil. And we're very fortunate in the Western Hemisphere because really you can't shut down the United States. It has one ocean on one side, one on the other. And even if you were to temporarily stop the Panama Canal, the economies of the West Coast and the East Coast are autonomous. They produce enough energy and food in both areas that they could sustain that type of attack. But China is, when you look at its control, when its Belt and Road Initiative, when it offers the Greeks that they'll rebuild the Piraeus or they're going to rebuild the harbor at Naples or the harbor at Haifa, they feel that those are dual use. So they have created cargo ships that look like container ships, and the containers will have missiles or military weaponry in them. So in the times of a war, theoretically, according to their doctrine, they may have five or six hundred quote-unquote container ships docked at Suez, docked at the Panama Canal, docked at the gate to the Mediterranean, the gate to the Black Sea, docked at the Piraeus, docked at the big port on the English Channel, or the entrance into the north of the United States. So, you're going to have a lot of power there. And you're going to have a lot of power there. The Baltic Seas. And they could blow them up or use them to control those entry and exits in a time of conflict. So, it's pretty, it was about, it's mostly maritime, but there are good essays by people who've actually commanded fleets and ships at these choke points. Again, mostly in Europe or Asia, more than here. Yeah. Victor, I mean to ask, and you, of course, you're not going to tell me if it's secret, but the military working group, that you oversee at Hoover, is it having, do you have something coming up in the fall? We do. Yeah. On October 9th, we're having our annual military history working group colloquium. And we invite the membership, which are about 35 people. And then they have to write a paper to participate that we use during, when these issues come out. I pick the issue every time and I pick what they're going to write about so we can use those essays as mini commentaries. So, almost every one of these articles will have, I think we've used them up from last year, but for the upcoming year, we'll have three or four auxiliary essays short as commentary on the large essay in lieu of comments from the group. And then we have about 30 observers and donors. So, we have, I should say we have more like 90 total people. Are you allowed to say what the topic will be? There is a one major topic. Yes. If you can't, you can't. Yeah. I don't like to talk about it so much, only because we have these rules. Right. How do I say this diplomatically? But we have a number of people in government, in the military, a number of people at universities, programs with contracts, with the Pentagon, a number of people who are very controversial that don't want to be quoted. So, the rules are that we don't broadcast what we're doing until, everybody will know what it was about because the essays will come out in Strategico. But I don't like to do it beforehand because what happens is I did it one year and the next thing I knew, I had like 400 people contact me. Oh, you're having an open meeting and this is a topic and my cousin was in the army and I got swamped. And so, in order for people to talk candidly and say things like, well, when I was under Secretary of State during the Suez, my grandfather told me that the Suez, he was under Secretary of State and this is what the scoop was on the Suez. Another person says, well, I was there in the Falklands War and everybody got it wrong. This is what really happened. Well, you don't want to, they don't want to be quoted and they don't, they don't even want to be, a lot of people don't even want to know they were there. Not that it's secretive at all, but, and then when I set up the program, I said to myself, I, and I'll be, I can, I have no problem telling who's people who's there, but I wanted the best military historians in the world. So, Andrew Roberts or Neil Ferguson. And then I wanted top line, generals or admirals. So, we have these two here that were the top in the Navy in their time, H.R. McMaster or Jim Mattis. And then I want the top analyst, military analysts. So, Michael Doran or Ed Lutwak, or we had the late Angela Cotevilla. So, we try our, Ralph Peters, people like that. And then we try to get some public intellectuals that are, you know, like Roger Kimball or somebody. And it's a very, and I don't have a ideological litmus test. So, they're all, they're all across the political spectrum. So, we have very lively, I can tell you one anecdote. I've been doing it for almost 15, 16 years, I think. And I've only had one controversial meeting in which one, the person, one person gave a paper and said that the U.S. Army should be ashamed of itself because it doesn't teach Thucydides and military history and all this. And then three other people, all who had been in the military and in a combat role said, I resent you attacking the military that way. And then the other person said, you don't understand. I was attacking the way that it teaches. And the other person says, why don't you get, why don't you join the military for a change and go out and field? And then, it was very acrimonious. And at that moment, John Raisian, the then director of the Institute, walked in for the first and only time for a live session. And so, during the break, he said, Victor, you know, I was just thinking, why don't you just drop by my office in 60 seconds? I said, okay. And he said, what the blank is going on there? Come on, what are you doing? This isn't free for all. Come on. There's no, I said, we're always sober and judicious, but it's, I got a lot of lively people. He said, you got some wild men there. Why are you doing this? And then about the next couple of years, he really liked it. And I think it was kind of, he really wasn't that angry, but it can get, it got really wild. And yeah, you don't want, you don't want Hoover being thought of as a Luca Libre intellectual. No. And I said to him, I said, what was that all about? I said, subject A had reviewed negatively subject B, C, and D's books. Subject B, C, B, C, and D had replied to subject A in a very cruel manner in print. So, it goes way back. So, that's sort of, I like it. And so, what I do is I, I have a wonderful assistant, Megan Ring, that you know. Oh, she's the best. And from A to Z, she comes up with things like, Victor, we need a cappuccino bar. We can, we can afford it so that everybody can get out during a break and get something good to drink. And they can't, they can't get Ubers from the hotel to Stanford. We have to get, we have to have our own shuttle service. Yes. And we have to have on Fridays so they can go to Napa for the weekend or the wine country. So, and we have to give them good this and that. And then David Berkey, my other assistant, is very good. And he helps with the outlining, the biographies, the invitations, the who's invited, et cetera. So, I've got a very excellent team. And we have a new member, Morgan, as well. She's wonderful. Morgan Hunter. Hunter. Well, let's wrap up today, Victor, with this final topic. And it's from an essay in recent, published by National Review by Joshua Trevino. And I must say, I've never, I don't know who Joshua Trevino is, but I found it very engaging. Do you know? I know of him, yes. Oh, okay. Well, it's titled, September 11th Ended an Era of American Optimism and Confidence. And if you just bear with me a sec, let me just read this passage from it. He wrote, given how these things work, the last Civil War veteran died in the 1950s and the last First War veteran in the 2010s. The remembered agony of 9-11 should exit our national consciousness sometime in the 2090s. That is a long time for us to live with it. Yet lives were not the only thing lost that day. The morning of September 11th was the final bright hours of the American bell epoch, the golden era that began with our victory over the Soviet Union and ended with our defeat at the hands of Al-Qaeda. Those 12 bright years went too swiftly and were too prosperous and too successful for Americans, afflicting us with the victory disease that has crippled our strategic thought and our ability to move forward. And self-assessment since. Americans of a certain age don't remember what it was like to be optimistic by default, to be confident that their nation was the strongest on earth, to feel essentially invulnerable to history, to assume an upward trajectory for themselves and their country, and to live in a comparatively high-trust society. We had all this, and it ended on that bright blue day of death. Victor, does he have a point there? No. He doesn't. The point of the reaction to 9-11 was to ensure that they never, ever had a terrorist attack at that magnitude. For all the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, they never did. And as we speak today, Al-Qaeda is still scattered, as is ISIS. And the biggest threat actually are unassimilated immigrants from the Middle East, in Europe and the United States, in my view, not actual terrorist cadres. And as I look at the Middle East, I see no Russian or Chinese presence in the Middle East. They've lost Syria. They've lost Iran. I think Iran is on the ropes. It's about ready to implode. Nobody could imagine that on 9-11. Israel has never had a more dominant position. And the entities, that Hezbollah of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, which are three big terrorist groups, are in disarray. I think that the Abraham Accords will, if Iran falls, will have a renewed second start. If you look at GDP on 9-11, Europe and the United States were about equal, Jack. And now we have 30%, 35% greater economy than Europe does. And we also have 35% greater economy than China does. On 9-11, the United States was importing about half of its oil. And it got up to, remember, $50 or $60, or in today's dollars, about $1.30 a barrel, $130. Nobody then thought we would be self-sufficient. We were, at 9-11, people were very worried. We were in decline before 9-11. And yet, when you look at companies, as I've said before, on 1-10 rankings of world companies and corporations on market capitalization or usage or supply sales, whatever term you use for software, digital media, AI, satellite launching, space exploration, biotech, the United States is ahead with 8-9 companies in every category. What changed, I think Josh Trevino is right, when he got into we're less spirited, we're less united. And I would add something very quickly. If you look at labor participation rate and home ownership, which I think are way too low, but they're almost the same of 62% to 65%, either one of them, as they were then, as now. What has changed, and I'll be partisan here, is the Obama administration. Up until Obama, you could argue that we were dealing historically, historically, with a black-white dichotomy because of the evil nature of slavery and Jim Crow in the South, and we were dealing with it. We had spent already then by about $15 trillion on the Great Society. And we knew what affirmative action was. Obama came in and he tipped off his agenda. We are going to fundamentally, we are five days away from fundamentally transforming this country. All of a sudden, we heard a president of the United States say that we're not exceptional any more than Greece or Britain. All of a sudden, we were told that diversity, equity, and inclusion meant that if you're not white, you're a victim. So the old 1288 binary black-white became 30-60, 70, or 33-67. And that meant no class. Before Obama, I had a neighbor who came and said to me, I don't think it's fair as an Indian American, I don't qualify for affirmative action. And I said, you're a multimillionaire. And he said, yes, but I'm darker than most Hispanics and most blacks. Maybe not most blacks, but he had a point. After 9-11, after, excuse me, after the Obama administration, he came over and we discussed college admissions and he was very happy that he was, he was diverse now, even though he was a multimillionaire. So class disappeared and your superficial appearance was all that mattered. And we got under Obama, things that were aberrant, aberrant, beyond the pale, like the old Black Panthers, Antifa, BLM, all of that was mainstream suddenly. Suddenly you had rappers in the White House, like Lamar, what's his name? And he had, you know, pimp a butterfly and talk about, one of the lyrics was killing the police. One of the rappers' ankle bracelet went off. All of a sudden you were, you didn't think that the president of the United States' first interest was American preeminence. We weren't going to be superior. And racial, race became everywhere. It started with Michelle, downright mean country. Never been proud until Obama was, never been proud of my country to Obama. They always raised the bar, or Obama. My grandmother was a typical white person. Trayvon was, looked like the boy I never had. It was constant. And he racialized the country and reopened a lot of wounds that were healed. And then in addition to that, he tried to, with his national health care, his, he tried to have a, and then he did not, we would have recovered from 2008, naturally if he hadn't injected all of his money and taken a neo-socialist approach to the economy. And then more importantly, he, more importantly, he was the one that really weaponized the government. So all of a sudden Eric Holder said, I'm my, and he, they set the precedent. Eric, Eric Holder was the first attorney general to defy a congressional system. He was the first one to do a subpoena. Eric Holder said, I'm the president's wingman. The AP journalists were surveilled. James Rosen's grandmothers and phone records were subpoenaed. That started that whole stuff. And it was race, race, race, and ideology, ideology. And we, he moved the country fundamentally to the left. And that, that earned him, earned him the Trump first term and the Trump. And Biden tried to go even further. But I see what Josh Trevino is talking about, but I don't, I don't attribute those symptoms to 9-11. I attribute them to the Obama. Now you can make the argument that Obama may have been elected after 9-11 and the chaos of the Iraq war. And we were guilty and we wanted, we didn't like George Bush because of the Iraq war. I see him changing the nature of this country. And we've never quite been the same. I totally, totally agree with that. I don't think he gets proper credit for the damage that he did to this country. Oh, maybe still, still trying. Yes. And you could, you could see him, the arrogance of, he also, Clinton started it, Hillary and everything. The idea that a Democrat would be the wealthiest people in the United States. And the most acquisitive. But Obama, he was worse because he said he was a community organizer and he always attacked wealthy white people and called people selfish. And then he would say, you didn't build that, took that from Elizabeth Warren, spread the well. And then as soon as he got out of office, he bought a Martha's Vineyard estate, a big estate in Washington, Washington, D.C., Colorama State. He kept his big house in Chicago. Then he built a fourth mansion on the beach in Hawaii. And then he flew private and he would jet in from his jet and start lecturing people about their moral inadequacies or their political naivete. He was not a humble person. He all summed it up when he said, I'd like to stay in my basement and have a third term by phoning it in without having to wear a tie. And that's exactly what happened with Biden. The Obama people were the surrogates and they had the socialist third term they always wanted without culpability or responsibility for the damage they did. Sorry for the rant, but I think there's B-O-N-A-O, before Obama and after Obama. I'm going to suggest a book to the great Rob Louie, The Rants of Victor Davis Hanson. And it will be, that will be a bestseller, my friend, if you need to transcribe them. Well, Victor, we've come almost to the end of the show today. I have a couple of comments to read. As ever, you know, we have, by the way, something's gone on. We have a tremendous influx of new viewers and listeners. So welcome all of you who do that. If you want to get more of Victor, I mentioned his website, thebladeofperseusvictorhansen.com. If you're on X, at VD Hanson. VDH's Morning Cup on Facebook, Victor Davis Hanson Fan Club, which is not affiliated in any official way, but good people. That's also on Facebook. We've got a lot of comments on various platforms, and I'm going to read three comments here. One is from Laura S7307, who writes, I cannot put into words at times what a voice of a generation you are. When we no longer have you or Thomas Sowell as strong American value speakers, things will not be the same. I guess that means, Victor, you better stay alive for a long time. Then we have one from. I'll know I have another blood biopsy in 30 or 40 days. Well, keep the prayers coming. Flying Tigers 3747 writes, since we talked today, but you talked to Sammy at length the other day about 9-11. I was at the World Trade Center South Tower on 9-11 and had a good friend die. Afterwards, they identified him by his pants and ATM card. Nothing else was left. RIP. I believe there's still over a thousand people who have yet to be accounted for. Yes, they were incinerated. And finally, Smokey Don 9432 writes, sounds like the professor took the gloves off and went bare knuckles on the foolishness today. That's related to Canada. The best Friday news show he's ever done. A good dose of the truth today. The people of this country, the real ones who are self-aware and knowing, the ones who don't pay attention will be surprised when they look up and see that they live in the CCP. The ones who watch this show may not be able to stop it, but we won't be surprised. I think we'll go down fighting, Smokey Don. That's a funny thing. I had a very strange thing happen. I didn't think I said anything unique or original or inflammatory about our Canada, America, but we did our show and then I did three little of my. Not little, but eight to 10 minutes on aspects. And I was told they got 900,000, 1 million. They were the largest I'd ever done. And I wrote an article that comes out tomorrow on it. But maybe it's because I think a lot of Canadians didn't get the true story and they are worried because they like Americans. And this globalist who had three passports prior to be prime minister won't release the transcript and won't allow his aides to explain what they were told at the 11th hour to cancel the talks with the Americans and why they haven't asked to re-enter them and why they've entered into a travel, educational, trade, and history, China and also the descendant of the greatest mass murderer, Mao, as almost a quasi-ally or a foil to the United States, and why they have been told lies that because the United States imports 15%, maybe 10% to 15% of its goods from Canada, that it's vulnerable and it's going to really hurt when they have 75% of their exports to the United States. And they have, it's very sad, they only have one-ninth of our population and one-twelfth to one-thirteenth of our economy, and their GDP by per capita indices is 1.1. It's the lowest in the Western world, and they haven't really, maybe one year doing creative bookkeeping, have kept their promises to spend 2%. And just the other day, just today, Jack, we've talked twice now about you. I'm going to ask you a question. No other people, maybe a person, Bermuda, but not Mexico, not British, not the French, nobody. And you can work for six months. We go down there and it's very hard to get a work permit if you're on a visa in Canada. And there's only 250,000 of us in Canada. You've got a million here. And the guy who's whipping this all up, this anti-Americanism, went to college in America. His two kids went to college. His two kids live in America right now. 90 over 90 percent of his money is invested in America. And he's putting your job at risk to whip up this anti-Americanism where he just put a news blackout. He won't tell you why he walked out. He won't tell you the exact reason why we said no when he wanted to import cheap aluminum and steel below the cost of production from communist China to get around our tariff. And help the Chinese. He won't tell you that that five percent surcharge to supposedly preserve Canada's culture and its French language is the only one in the world. We don't charge you five percent because you're not nice to people from Fresno. Hey, I'm from Fresno and there's no San Joaquin Valley representation in the National Post or BBC and CBC. And I read that. You Canadians, if you're going to have any of your media in this country, I want you to pay five percent to protect Victor's unique culture in Selma and Fresno. You like that or is that absurd? So we're done. And I don't think they understand that. I feel so bad. I've been watching these Canadians. Have you seen these professors and these common? They're the nicest people in the world. And they get on there and they say, well, I don't want to say this, but I've looked at all the data of our economic performance and we are workers. We don't invest money in our workers and we're only their per capita GDP is forty thousand dollars more per person in the United States. And we can't win this. And will everybody be sad if I tell you the truth that I kind of see what the Americans I kind of see their point. We walked out and we won't tell us anybody why we walked out. So why doesn't he just let us see what the Americans offered in the full context? And they're apologetic. But they're saying that. Hey, everybody, we're you're you're in a car and you're going 90 miles an hour over a cliff and you think you're going to hurt the Americans by crashing and burning your car at the bottom of the mountain. Well, I'm going to I'm going to suggest a special episode with you and Conrad Black so we could have a fuller. I've always liked I've always admired Conrad Black. I love Conrad. He's a beautiful writer and he's got a beautiful history of the world. He's releasing. I've read a lot of it. And he's as pro-Canadian as anybody. And he is pointing out to the Canadians. There's a good chance that Mr. Carney will not disclose the full negotiations if he doesn't disclose it. And if this continues and if it wrecks the Canadian economy, which it will, he will go down infamously in Canadian history. So please, Mr. Carney, it's it's a very he writes this often and I agree with him. Yeah. Well, all right, Victor, that was a rant about a rant. So we love them. The more the merrier. Thanks for all the wisdom you shared. Thanks, folks, for watching and listening. Thanks, folks, to go to CivilThoughts.com and sign up for the free weekly or equally weekly email. There's a right right for the Center for Civil Society. You're going to like it. 14 recommended readings. That's enough, Jack. Shut up. We'll be back soon with another report. We'll be back with another episode of Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. Bye bye. Thank you for viewing and listening, everybody. See you next time. Thank you for tuning in to The Daily Signal. Please like, share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. And also check out my own website at VictorHansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.