The Atomic Bomb Controversy and Fixing the Government

Summary

The Victor Davis Hanson Show: Episode Summary Title: The Atomic Bomb Controversy and Fixing the Government
Release Date: December 7, 2024
Hosts: Victor Davis Hanson and Paul A. Ray

---

1. VA Hospital Workers Orgy Scandal

Timestamp: [05:30] – [15:05]

In the episode's early discussion, Victor Davis Hanson and his co-host Paul A. Ray delve into a disturbing incident involving employees at a Veterans Administration (VA) hospital. The scandal reveals that VA hospital workers were engaged in inappropriate and unprofessional behavior, including participating in orgies. This revelation raises concerns about accountability and the impact of remote work arrangements on professional conduct.

Key Points:

• Exposure Through Social Media: Paul A. Ray suggests that the scandal was amplified by the workers' own actions on social media, highlighting the dangers of lack of accountability in remote work setups.
  Quote: "I think they were actually exposed by bragging about that online on their social media." ([05:30])

• Historical Parallels: The hosts draw parallels to historical events and literature, referencing the HBO series "Rome" and ancient Roman satires to illustrate how decadence and moral decline have been recurring themes in affluent societies.
  Quote: "Human nature doesn't change." ([14:00])

• Societal Decadence: Discussions touch on broader societal issues, emphasizing that extreme behaviors are symptomatic of deeper cultural and moral decay. They compare contemporary incidents to historical examples of decadence in Rome, suggesting that such patterns repeat themselves over time.
  Quote: "And that's not just abnormal, but not the majority of activity. What I mean by that, not the majority, but then you become the victim." ([15:05])

---

2. Delaware Judge Nullifies Elon Musk's Compensation Package

Timestamp: [17:10] – [21:53]

The conversation shifts to a significant legal and corporate governance issue involving Elon Musk. A Delaware judge has nullified Musk's $56 billion compensation package, raising questions about judicial intervention in corporate affairs.

Key Points:

• Judicial Intervention: The judge's decision challenges the extent of executive compensation in publicly traded companies, emphasizing shareholder rights and corporate accountability.
  Quote: "If somebody who is a shareholder says complaints, I'm worried about my investment and in this company because I feel that the board did not represent the sound management of the company." ([19:23])

• Impact on Corporate Governance: Paul A. Ray discusses the potential slippery slope of judges determining executive compensation, highlighting concerns about judicial overreach into corporate matters traditionally governed by boards and shareholders.
  Quote: "It's a slippery slope. So then you have judges, whether it's their initiative or not, and it's not that they then take it upon themselves to decide what is proper compensation for a profitable company." ([19:52])

• Political Ramifications: The hosts explore the political undercurrents influencing the issue, suggesting that Musk's political alignments and support for Donald Trump may have played a role in the judge's decision.
  Quote: "He came out so strongly this year for Donald Trump and he put, I think, 200 million, if it's not 300 million of his own money into the campaign." ([20:49])

---

3. The Atomic Bomb Controversy

Timestamp: [22:05] – [45:30]

A substantial portion of the episode is dedicated to revisiting the controversial decision by the United States to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, examining both historical context and ethical considerations.

Key Points:

• Historical Context: Paul A. Ray provides a detailed analysis of the circumstances leading up to the bombings, arguing that the decision was made to swiftly end the war, save American lives, and prevent further atrocities by Japanese forces.
  Quote: "Japan had millions of barrels of oil to be refined. It had up to 15 to 20 million people who would have joined the militia... It was a killing machine." ([25:54])

• Revisionist Views vs. Historical Record: The hosts contrast revisionist interpretations—such as the bombs being unnecessary showcases of power or racially motivated—with their perspective grounded in the strategic necessity to end a brutal war.
  Quote: "The historical record says this... And the Americans said, we're not going to do this." ([29:00])

• Personal Narratives: Paul A. Ray shares personal anecdotes, including conversations with his father, a WWII veteran, highlighting the emotional and moral complexities faced by those who lived through the era.
  Quote: "I asked him, wow, dad, would you... Why did we drop the bomb and killed all these people? And he got so angry at me." ([40:00])

• Military Strategy and Consequences: The discussion delves into the military strategies considered at the time, including the potential for a costly invasion of Japan and the psychological impact of atomic bombings on the Japanese leadership.
  Quote: "They dropped one bomb... and they have to go to the mindset of the American people." ([40:30])

• Ethical Considerations: The hosts debate the morality of targeting civilian populations versus military targets, ultimately defending the bombings as a necessary evil to end a protracted and devastating war.
  Quote: "Number two. We know that the Japanese had big arguments over the firebombing and they were intent that they would not surrender." ([34:45])

---

4. Political News: Ron DeSantis and Pete Hegseth

Timestamp: [46:54] – [53:34]

The conversation transitions to contemporary political developments, specifically rumors surrounding Ron DeSantis potentially replacing Pete Hegseth in a governmental role.

Key Points:

• Speculation on Replacement: Paul A. Ray analyzes the plausibility and implications of Ron DeSantis stepping in for Pete Hegseth, considering DeSantis's political background and public image.
  Quote: "Ron DeSantis is an Iraqi veteran. He is an Ivy League person. He's run an entire state. He's been a congressperson." ([47:33])

• Political Strategy: The hosts discuss strategic considerations within the Republican Party, including managing support among MAGA factions and balancing experienced politicians with new faces.
  Quote: "If you say that Ron DeSantis will take his place, think of that for a second. Ron DeSantis is... an ideal family man." ([49:09])

• Future Implications: Potential long-term effects on Republican dynamics and Senate relations are explored, emphasizing the need for party unity and disciplined voting to secure key appointments.
  Quote: "If they can stick together like the Democrats, I guarantee you on all of these nominations, with very few exceptions... they'll all vote against them." ([52:51])

---

5. Personal Insights: Paul A. Ray's Writing and Experiences

Timestamp: [53:34] – [66:09]

In a more personal segment, Paul A. Ray discusses his writing projects, drawing from his extensive background in history and classical studies.

Key Points:

• Upcoming Books: Paul A. Ray outlines his future literary endeavors, including a biography of the classical general Epaminondas of Thebes and reflections on agrarian life, highlighting his commitment to historical scholarship and personal memoirs.
  Quote: "I'm going to write a biography of him because I think he's in antiquity. People thought he was the most important man, more important than Pericles, more than Alexander." ([57:10])

• Personal Anecdotes: He shares nostalgic memories of growing up on a farm, shooting practices, and the influence of his grandparents, providing a window into his formative years and the values instilled in him.
  Quote: "I was 7 years old and I had to go to Hunter Safety at Reedy College." ([57:45])

• Academic and Publishing Journey: Paul A. Ray reflects on his relationship with his publisher and the challenges of academic writing, emphasizing the dedication required to produce scholarly work.
  Quote: "I have a wonderful agent, Glenn Hartley and Lynn Chu... I've been with him 30 years." ([63:37])

---

Conclusion

Victor Davis Hanson and Paul A. Ray navigate a range of topics in this episode, from historical analyses of World War II's atomic bombings to contemporary political maneuvers within the Republican Party. The discussions are enriched by personal anecdotes and expert insights, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of both historical and current events.

Notable Quotes:

• "Human nature doesn't change." — Paul A. Ray ([14:00])
• "If somebody who is a shareholder says complaints, I'm worried about my investment..." — Paul A. Ray ([19:23])
• "It was a slippery slope..." — Paul A. Ray ([19:52])
• "They were a killing machine." — Paul A. Ray ([25:54])
• "I'm going to write a biography of him..." — Paul A. Ray ([57:10])

Listeners are encouraged to explore both the historical narratives and current political discussions presented, gaining a deeper appreciation for the complexities of governance, ethics in warfare, and the enduring patterns of societal behavior.

---

Please note that advertisement segments have been excluded from this summary in accordance with the provided instructions.

Transcript

[Sammy Wink]

Time is our most precious commodity and we've heard from so many listeners who have asked for advice about how they can spend it wisely to improve themselves and the people around them. That's why we're so excited that Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses in the most important and enduring subjects. You can learn about the works of C.S. lewis, the stories in the Book of Genesis, the meaning of the US Constitution, the rise and fall of the Roman Republic, or the history of the ancient Christian Church with Hillsdale College's online courses all available for free. That's right, for free. We recommend you sign up for Athens and Sparta. In this course you'll hear from Victor Davis Hansen and Paul A. Rey, distinguished professors of history, as they discuss the history, culture and government of each city, the ill fated Peloponnesian War and its consequences, and examine what is necessary in order for a democracy to flourish and endure, how best to form free and self governing citizens, and how to resist tyranny from without and from within. Start your free course, Athens and Sparta today. Go right now to Hillsdale. Edu VDH to enroll. There's no cost and it's easy to get started. That's Hillsdale. Edu Hillsdale. Edu VDH hello and welcome to the.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Victor Davis Hansen Show. This is our Saturday edition where we look in our middle segment at something cultural or in this case, warfare. And Victor is going to talk about the ending of the war in the Pacific in our middle segment. But first we've got news to continue with and we have the VA hospital workers were caught in an orgy and we'll start with that story when we come back.

[Sammy Wink]

Time is our most precious commodity and we've heard from so many listeners who have asked for advice about how they can spend it wisely to improve themselves and the people around them. That's why we're so excited that Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses in the most important and enduring subjects. You can learn about the works of C.S. lewis, the stories in the Book of Genesis, the meaning of the US Constitution, the rise and fall of the Roman Republic, or the history of the ancient Christian Church with Hillsdale College's online courses all available for free. That's right, for free. We recommend you sign up for Athens and Sparta. In this course you'll hear from Victor Davis Hansen and Paul A. Ray, distinguished professors of history, as they discuss the history, culture and government of each city, the ill fated Peloponnesian War and its consequences, and examine what is necessary in order for a democracy to flourish and endure, how best to form free and self governing citizens and how to resist tyranny from without and from within. Start your free course Athens and Sparta today. Go right now to Hillsdale Edu VDH to enroll. There's no cost and it's easy to get started. That's Hillsdale Edu VDH to register Hillsdale Edu VDH hey VDH listeners, as you know, we've recently come across a company that is making a huge difference worldwide called Wired to Fish Coffee. Waterfish Coffee cares so much about our earth and its people that they give back 25% of their net profits to faith based programs and clean water initiatives. That's no joke. And the coffee is delicious. It's sourced in Guatemala and Mexico, known for some of the finest coffee beans in the world. This coffee is also consistently getting five star ratings from the thousands of coffee lovers who commented on its smooth finish and amazing taste. Give Wire to Fish Coffee a try today and join a community of people that are making a positive impact. I mean everyone drinks coffee. So drink coffee for something that you're passionate about. Head over to wired2fishcoffee.com that's wired the number2fishcoffee.com today and use the code giveback for 10% off your order.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Welcome back to the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor's the Martin Yanley Anderson Senior Fellow in Military History and Classics at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marcia Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. You can find him at his website victorhanson.com and it is called the Blade of Perseus. Come join us and subscribe for $5 a month or $50 a year and you can read the VDH Ultra material. So we hope to see everybody there. So Victor, recently they caught some workers at a Veterans Administration hospital and in an orgy. And I was wondering this really looks bad. Especially the Veterans Administration felt very sorry for anybody who has to go to and then to have these doing this. But there's strange things that were finding out about our.

[Paul A. Ray]

I think they were actually exposed by bragging about that online on their social media.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yes.

[Paul A. Ray]

Yeah. I mean they said they had one. Was it one person said they had 32 sex partners and 12 people in orgies. It was right out of that. Remember the. Was it HBO Rome?

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah.

[Paul A. Ray]

You know that series with Rome.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah.

[Paul A. Ray]

Where they had all the orgies all the time.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Oh, but that was in Egypt with Cleopatra.

[Paul A. Ray]

Cleopatra was filmed. Yeah. And you can read the Satirica and I referenced that again if you want to read about an orgy in antiquity. But the point is, Elon Musk, and this is right during their argument, is people are working from home or they're not doing their job. There's no accountability. People have time on their hands. And then these stories, you know, pop up and we wonder what's going to happen to them. Especially given veterans and disabled veterans. You think they'd have some decorum that would respect that? You remember a year ago in December, there was that Senate aide for Senator Cardin and he took all of his clothes off. I think he had an athletic supporter on. And he went to one of the hollow chambers in the Senate and he got on all fours, quadruped, like a quadruped. And then he allowed somebody to sodomize him. And then he filmed it. He filmed it in the chambers and they fired him. And what was striking about that was it was kind of like the defiance of the energy fuel, the Department of Injury employee that was stealing women's clothing.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah, Sam Brinton.

[Paul A. Ray]

Yes. And he was defiant as well. And I remember that guy when they were making fun of him, I shouldn't say making fun of him. They had a. Tucker downloaded that, remember he released that tape and he said, he said, this has been kind of a bad time. I think he said, this has been a difficult time for me and I had been attacked for whom I pursue, whom I love. I'm attacked for whom I love.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Oh, yes.

[Paul A. Ray]

So you're in love with somebody. The United States public doesn't care, but you choose to have him sodomize you and tape it without any prophylactic protection in the age of aids. And you film it in a hallowed Senate chamber showing absolutely nothing but contempt. And then he said, you know, this has been my poor judgment. I admit that I love my job and I will be exploring legal options. And so my point is, all this stuff goes on and there's no. It's all in the realm now of the abnormal. So if you take the normal man, woman, long standing relationship, whether exclusive or married, but normal in the sense I'm using normal by the majority, maybe some of you may say, well, Rebecca, you don't know anything about the United States. That's not the majority. But the point I'm making is then you take the extremes. Orgies, 32 sex partners, dressing up as a woman and stealing, getting some kind of fetish by stealing somebody's bags, dressing up, going to the Easter cage, Easter egg hunt at the White House, pulling your shirt up to show your Transgendered, manufactured breast getting sodomized. And that is not just abnormal, but not the majority of activity. What I mean by that, not the majority, but then you become the victim. How dear. You're just hurting me. For whom I love. Or geez, you know, we just express ourselves sexually. And it's really funny when you look at certain Roman poetry, juvenile satires. He wrote 10 brilliant satires. Kind of difficult Latin, but they're worth reading. And then there's Suetonius, life of the 12 Caesars, starting with Julius and going all the way up to. I think it ends with Vespasian, excuse me, Titus and Domitian, maybe. And then you eat Tacitus Annals, and then the Great Satyricon, and you get this theme that affluent societies such as our own, leisure societies such as our own, have a general sense that the ingredients or the values or the habits that made them wealthy and leisure came from a prior generation. In the case of 1st century A.D. rome, it was the Italian yeoman agrarian, the people who died fighting at Cana, or the first Punic War, or they built Rome, and it becomes a decline because they create wealth and they create a protocol, how to create wealth. So in our case, it's sort of that generation that went through the Depression. Our parents, or most of you, your grandparents or great grandparents, they went through the Depression. They fought World War II. 12 million of them went there. They were existentially threatened by the Cold War with new nuclear weapons. They came back, they got married, they bought a house, they had two, three kids. And then the 60s came and 70s, and their children did not herit the work ethic that they had inherited from what their children's grandfathers had taught. And how does that manifest itself in these. This is what I'm getting to in this Roman genre, in literature, in history, in the novel, in poetry. Catullus is another example, and it's just eerie. Catullus has the atthis poem where a transgendered young man gets into an ecstasy and self castrates himself. In the middle of the poem, the pronouns change from illy to illa. In other words, he becomes a woman, and he changes his pronouns, and that is shown. And at the end of the poem, the frenzy wears off, and he's sitting there and he thought, wow, the pondera ilia, the weight of his groin is gone. And it's a tragedy. He's been fooled by this force into doing something that's perverted. Now it's irreversible. Yes, that rings a bell. And then in the satyricon what is one of the great themes? Transvestism. Dressing up in the opposite sex. What's another thing? Feigned rape and sexual assault is another thing. And promiscuity is everywhere. And pedophilia is a big thing. In the Satiricon. There's one scene, as I recall, where there's an arrangement between, I think 10 year olds or a young girl is being forcibly in intercourse by an older man and he's supposed to be seducing her and it's considered normal. That's my point. And then when you look at the 12 caesars, there's an element of violence in it with sex is associated with violence and cruelty. And what I'm getting. And cruelty is in all of these, cruelty is the other aspect of decadence, as well as sexual exuberance. And that people are indiscriminately and spontaneously insidiously cruel to animals, to other people. They like to inflict, kind of like, remember Game of Thrones, when was it? King Joffrey, he liked to shoot women. And that other character, Ramsey, they would like to torture women or shoot them with crossbows, hunt them, hunt them down. Or remember he slapped them. And in Rome, you remember that Augustus said to Julia, the actor, that he'd like to hit her during intercourse. So what I'm getting at, human nature doesn't change. So what has changed, though, is the culture's reaction to it. We don't have a Tacitus or Suetonius Architelis or Petronius to tell us that this is a symptom of a sick, leisured, spoiled, affluent society. And it is. And we can't say this, and I guess to protect myself, I'll say. I'm not saying this.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

I was going to say. You are saying it, though. We have podcasts.

[Paul A. Ray]

I'm just throwing it out there. Do it with what you want. But a society that has orgies at a facility to care for their patriotic veterans is sick. And a society that has a young Senate staffer with no respect for the hollow chambers of the U.S. senate and goes in there, strips down to a jockstrap and is sodomized by his lover and then thinks he's a victim is sick. And somebody at an Easter egg hunt where there's still children there, who exposes his breast for the media is sick. Sorry. And if somebody is in the Department of Energy, high official with expertise about what fuel storage from spent rods or whatever he was, and he dresses up as a woman and has a fetish to go into airports and steal the hard won dresses and clothing of another woman and steals them, then denies about he is sick and he should be seen as that way. And he's a symptom of something terribly wrong with our society.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

That is true, Victor. I'd like to take a moment to welcome our new sponsor, Home Title Lock. If your title isn't being monitored, scammers can transfer the title of your home into their name using a one page document they file at the county, then take out loans against it or even sell it behind your back. You won't find out until collection or even foreclosure notices start to arrive in your mailbox. But by then the damage has been done and you're left with a financial and legal nightmare. The best way to protect your equity is with triple lock protection from our friends at home Title Lock. Triple lock protection is 24, seven monitoring alerts of any changes and God forbid if the worst happens, restoration services at no out of pocket cost to you. So when, so when was the last time you checked on your title? You can check on your home's title today and make sure you're not already a victim. You can get a free history report title history report and a 30 day free trial of triple lock protection today by going to hometitlelock.com and using promo code code Victor V I C T O R or click on the link in the description. That's hometitlelock.com promo Victor home title lock.com and we'd like to thank Home Title Lock for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen show. So Victor, let's move on then to the Delaware judge who has nullified a compensation package to elon Musk of $56 billion. I was pretty shocked at that. It seems to me the state putting their nose into the business of a company. But maybe I'm wrong there. What are your thoughts?

[Paul A. Ray]

Well, it was a Delaware judge and he's saying Elon's what, worth 200, I guess now it's 350 billion. But he has a cash flow situation because he spent, what was it, 45 or 50 billion on Twitter. So the judge is saying that he's not entitled to have his $56 billion package which his shareholders, because he's made them all rich, is perfectly happy to support. And I suppose the problem that they're arguing is that it's a public company. So the shareholders have a stake in the profitability of the company and they expect the CEO to have a reasonable compensation package to such a degree that it will not impair the profitability and the return on the shareholders investment. So the judge then intervenes and says the board has been unduly influenced, apparently by Elon.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Does he have a complaint? Complainant?

[Paul A. Ray]

Yes, there are complaints. Complaint. A lot of them.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Oh, saying that they didn't like the fact that Elon got this.

[Paul A. Ray]

Yes, it's referenced to them. They're not, they're not preempting and so they're, they're not saying that they're, they're not surveying the landscape. The judges. That's not their regulatory.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah, so they, so they're just saying.

[Paul A. Ray]

If somebody who is a shareholder says complaints, I'm worried about my investment and in this company because I feel that the board did not represent the sound management of the company. But you can see this is a slippery slope. So then you have judges, whether it's their initiative or not, and it's not that they then take it upon themselves to decide what is proper compensation for a profitable company. What we're not talking about is what happens on Wall street and corporate America where somebody comes in, sells off the assets, gets a big payout, gives his friends bonuses and then leaves and the company's broke. We're talking about somebody who created the company, is there. The company is going to be there for the duration and made the shareholders profits.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah.

[Paul A. Ray]

And so if the board thinks that for the conduct of his companies and the effective management of Tesla vis a vis SpaceX and Neuralink and X, that he needs some cash, then that was their decision. And if you don't like it, you can petition to run for the board or vote the board out. It's a publicly traded company.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah.

[Paul A. Ray]

And so. But the judge is saying this is excessive.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah.

[Paul A. Ray]

Okay, but the point is, would the judge say this was excessive five years ago, when Elon was a man of the left, probably voted against Donald Trump in 2020 and earlier in 2016? I don't want to suggest that he did, but I imagine that he probably did. He was always a maverick and eccentric, but the fact that he came out so strongly this year for Donald Trump and he put, I think 200 million, if it's not 300 million of his own money into the campaign. That explains why Gavin Newsom does not want to give him a EV rebate credit. If you buy a Tesla, we can buy any other EV except his, even though his is the only company that's helping California by providing jobs because his company is in California, at least part of it. So it's a political partisan.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah. Once again, don't you think, well, that's.

[Paul A. Ray]

Why the left is so strong, you see, because they tell everybody in the movies, you want a role, you want to be an agent. They tell people in sports, you want to be first string or second string or you want to be a newscaster when you get done, they tell the Pentagon when you get done, do you want to go to General Dynamics? Do you want to go to Northrop? You want to go to Google if you're in the FBI, James Baker if you do, you can't not be far right or conservative. And that has a deterrent effect. And that's why we have this leftism, because the right never understood that when you control the institutions, the university, the corporate boardroom, entertainment, professional sports, the foundation, the media, then you make people bend to your will. And that conditions them. That sets an example so that other people think, I don't want to get on the wrong side of those people or I want to get on the wrong side, the right side. Excuse me. So that's why they're so insidious.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Sure are. Well, let's go ahead and take a break and then move on to World War II and the ending of the Pacific War. Stay with us and we'll be back.

[Sammy Wink]

Finding the perfect gift can be pretty overwhelming. I always want to make sure that I'm giving gifts that people actually want. This year, I found the perfect spot for timeless gifts made from premium materials. You've got to check out Quince. Quince lets you treat your loved ones and yourself to true quality at an affordable price, no matter what you're looking for. All Quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman, Quince passes the savings on to you. Quince is on the nice list. They only work with factories. They use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices, and they use premium fabrics and finishes for that luxury feeling in every piece. And I should know. As the cold weather has arrived, I'm keeping toasty warm with my handsome Quince navy blue Sherpa gift. Luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag, go to quince.com Victor for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Quince quincy.com Victor to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Victor are you ready to move.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Easily and independently without pain or stiffness holding you back? Do you want to look in the mirror and see a plump, hydrated glow instead of more fine lines and wrinkles Discover Native path collagen made with only type 1 and 3 collagen fibers, the two most important types that make up 90% of the collagen in your body. Found in your cartilage, bones, skin, hair, nails and gut, type 1 and 3 provide maximum benefits without the need for unnecessary fillers. Native Path collagen is a single ingredient formula with no fillers, additives or artificial sweeteners. Plus it's third party tested for heavy metals, ensuring purity and safety. Completely flavorless Native Path collagen can be added to anything. Coffee, smoothies, oatmeal, you name it. Its peptide formula makes it more bioavailable, meaning it's absorbed more easily and mixes perfectly without clumping. And you can get three or six packs at a fraction of the price of other brands. Visit getnativepath.com backslash Victor and start your transformation today. That is G E T N A T I V E p a t h.com v I c t o r that's getnative path.com Victor start your transformation today. Welcome back to the Victor Davis Hansen Show. You can find Victor on social media. He has an X account. Its handle is Ed Hansen. His Truth Social handle also is Ed Hansen. And then there is a Facebook page, hansen's Morning cup. And you can come join him at all three places. So, Victor, now I'm curious your view into the bombing, the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And I know that the current analysis or diagnostics are that the United States dropped bombs on civilian populations. And this was an abomination of things. And I was wondering what your view on that was.

[Paul A. Ray]

Well, John Hershey wrote a very influential Atlantic Monthly essay that was letter into a short book. We all read it in high school, Hiroshima, from that point over there was a revisionism. And the revisionism said this. There was variations of it. The war was over. Japan was defeated. We created these atomic bombs on July 16th. We knew they were going to work in 1945. We had two and maybe a third one online. There was no need to drop them. They were impotent. We dropped them for a variety of reasons. And here the revisionism splits off into various schools. One school says, well, we only did it because under the Yalta agreement, we had asked Joe Stalin to come in and finally pull their own weight and help us in the Pacific theater. And what he did was he gobbled up Manchuria and he was gobbling the northern part of Korea. And so we had to drop these bombs to warn Stalin. This is what we're Capable of. We have a monopoly on these bombs and they work. That was one reason. The second was, hey, we spent two billion and a half dollars, except for the B29 program. It was the most expensive weapons system in the world, and we want to know if it works. And we got to try it out on people. So there was a cynical revisionism about that. Or it was. We were. And this was funny, they never wanted to use it against Germany because they were white. It was racist. We were going to use it on yellow people. All of those are not supported by the historical record. The historical record says this. Japan had millions of barrels of oil to be refined. It had up to 15 to 20 million people who would have joined the militia. It had 7,000, at least, kamikaze planes. It had never been invaded. And the Americans had just, on April 1, invaded Okinawa of 1945. That island was not declared secure really early late June, but it was actually in early July. It was the most costly campaign in the entire Pacific War. Over 50,000American soldiers were killed, wounded or missing. More importantly, the month of July 1945 had seen about 85,000 casualties. People forget, they keep thinking, well, we were at war. 42. We didn't really encounter the might of the Japanese Empire until 1944. 1945, month by month, was the most deadly for Americans, and it coincided with the Battle of the Bulge at the beginning of 45. And we lost about 80,000 dead in that campaign in Europe. And we were running out of manpower in early 1945. So the decision was made. We are losing as we get close, and we have declared unconditional surrender as our goal. It's one thing to defeat the Germans and the Japanese. It's another thing to defeat them utterly and go inside their country and force them to quit and accept our political demands. That takes a lot of American lives. At the same time, Japan had killed over 14 million million Chinese. They were killing in June, July, August, 250,000 Chinese a month. They were killing 50 to 60,000 Asians. It was a killing machine. The Potsdam Agreement had warned them In July of 1945, after this surrender of Germany, we warn you, we are going to continue to firebomb your cities until you stop. They had dropped 65 million leaflets on Japan. 65 million saying, you should surrender. We have B29s and napalm and we're going to bomb your industrial cores and your population centers if you don't quit. They didn't quit. So after okinawa, with that 50,000, the United States military planned to Invade in November and then the main Honshu in March of 1946. And they used the calculus from the Okinawa campaign in this sense. How many Japanese versus how many Americans. It went in the Pacific from five Japanese were killed for every one American to two Japanese who killed every American of actual combats combatants. You read E.B. sledge with the old breed even less. Not a very good book, but Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester on the Okinawa campaign. It is horrific. And so the Americans said, we're not going to do this. We're not going to invade Japan. They've got 20 million people. They've got 7,000 cruise missile. We call them kamikazes. They call them, you know, they call them. They work. They work cruise missiles. And it's going to be a bloodbath. We'll lose a million casualties. Everybody laughs at that. That was accurate. Number two. We know that the Japanese had big arguments over the firebombing and they were intent that they would not surrender. Togo maybe one person was a civilian on the war council. And so the Americans are thinking we dropped one bomb, a uranium bomb in July. I don't know whether the plutonium bomb will even work. We can create more plutonium bombs quicker than we can uranium. So we're going to try a plutonium bomb for the first time and we're going to drop it the second bomb. And the first bomb is uranium bomb, but we're not going to have another one until December. And we might have another plutonium bomb in a month after this. They had three. They dropped one as a. They didn't drop it. They used it in New Mexico in July 16th. And then they had two ready and they would have had another one in a month or two. So think about their mindset. We got to drop these bombs to shock them into inaction. They did not take our surrender term. We mined all the harbors. They wouldn't stop. They have no ability to have Commerce. We bombed 65% of their urban cores. They haven't given up. It's not only they haven't given up, we're attacking the head of the octopus, but the tentacles are killing over 245,000 people a month. And we just fought them in Okinawa, which was not declared secure to a month before we dropped Hiroshima. So you got to go to the mindset of the American people. I was a smart. I shouldn't use that word, ass, but I thought I was really smart. In high school we read John Hershey and I came home to my father who flew as I said, 40 missions. He was right next to the 509th Composite Group that dropped the bomb. His pretty baby plane was in eyesight. And everybody got angry at the composite. They said, they're not flying missions. We're dying like flies flying, you know, 1600 miles to Japan and back. And these guys are not fighting in combat. Well, they didn't know what they were doing. They were training to use this super bomber to drop these bombs at some point. So I asked him, I came home from high school, I said, wow, dad, would you. How. Why did we drop the bomb and killed all these people? And he got so angry at me. I. He was going to. And he said, what would you like to do? I said, he was angry that think of this logic. He said, well, we were angry, but Victor Hansen, who we named after you, was killed on May 19 on Sugarloaf Hill. And we knew that the bomb was going to be tested very quickly. We know now. So they didn't know if it was going to work, but they were pretty sure it was going to work. So he was mad that they even went into Okinawa because they had the Mariana bases. And the idea with Okinawa, they were going to be able to bomb Japan very quickly at 375 miles rather than 1600. But they knew that it would be fiercely contested. It was really the first Japanese homeland island. And so he said, if they had just stopped, why didn't they invade two months later after they knew the bomb was going to be? Why didn't they drop it August 1st and then in Bedaw, and we wouldn't have had to go into Okinawa? So their point was not that we shouldn't have dropped the bomb, but we lost 50,000 casualties when we knew the bomb was probably going to work. And it did work just two months later. The other thing is, they did not want to invade Japan. Everybody said that they were very. And yes, it was true. They were terrified of the the Soviets. They had broken all the agreements at Yalta. The war had been over since May 9th in Europe. And guess what? They were not allowing free elections in occupied Eastern Europe. We already knew who Stalin was. We knew that he was going to hold on to make a North Korean communist government if he could take the whole peninsula, more power to him. We knew that he was fueling a revolution in China that our allies and our friends that we'd given billions of dollars to and who were being butchered by the Japanese were going to flip. And we had a good idea that Chiang Kai Shek was going to lose to Mao Zedong. Okay, so we wanted the war over as quickly as possible. We were terrified of the Soviets. We did not want to lose a million people and have, I guess you'd call it 20 Okinawas. The American people were sick of the war. They were running out of soldiers and the alternative to the bomb. And there was an alternative and it wasn't just the invasion, it was Curtis LeMay. And as soon as they got into Okinawa, they were building runways on Okinawa. And as I said earlier with the B29 program, they had another 2,500 B29s on order that were being delivered. They were going to keep the Mariana bases at Tinyon, Saipan and Guam, but they were going to have 2,500 four engine bombers and they were going to bring Lancasters and B24s and B17s. There were 10,000 idle planes in the European theater. Can you imagine 12,000 heavy bombers just 350 miles away dropping napalm? They didn't need the bomb and they would have done it in September or October. And the bomb then saved lives. It not only saved the invasion, it saved the Japanese people from being firebombed. And if you think, well, why did they have to firebomb them after they dropped the bomb on the 6th of August, the war cabinet. We didn't give them time. Yes, you did give them time. They had no intention. They even threatened a coup after the Nagasaki bomb. And then some people say, well, it was just gratuitous. No, it was very tricky. Nobody even knew if they could do it. You had to have a modified B29 and you had to have a genius pilot like Paul Tibbets, who was one of the best pilots in the entire Marianas B29 force. And he flew all the way over with a uranium bomb that was wired to go and he had to fly 16 hours to Hiroshima. And he didn't know if it was going to work or not. They had never dropped a bomb. The one they did in New Mexico, it was a laboratory species, it was wired. They had no idea if it would work or not. And they had no idea if they did drop it. Some people said, well why didn't they drop it in Tokyo Bay? And then they could have seen it. Well, they didn't know if they dropped it. They didn't know if the Japanese would say, well, I just killed a big, a bunch of fish. It wouldn't have killed people. We didn't know what you, you're just, you're afraid to use it. And when you did drop it, they didn't surrender. They had three days. They didn't do it. They had actually six months after the Potsdam they were said don't do this, quit. They weren't going to quit. They wanted to kill Chinese, they wanted to kill Asians, they wanted to kill British, American and Australian troops and took over. And they wanted to have India, they wanted to have this empire. They started the war and they were not going to stop. And so they tried to plead with them and so they dropped. They didn't know the next bomb. They didn't have another uranium bomb. They had a plutonium bomb. Fat man little boys were, they wouldn't have another one for until December. But they had two or three of these plutonium bombs but no one knew if it would work. These were very tricky. They were wired, they did not have a trigger mechanism. They were live. And Paul Tibbets did not fly Bockscar the second flight. It was by Sweeney who was there was not the hardest thing to do in the Army Air Force was to be a B29 pilot experimental plane taking off on cliffs overloaded, 1600 miles, 30,000ft up to drop this bomb. And they're saying, well, he hit the civilian centers. Why didn't they hit just the military? These were both military targets in Nagasaki, especially Nagasaki and Iwashima. But are you going to take a billion dollar bomb and at 30,000ft think you're going to hit a base right on the edge of the ocean and go and miss the target? Of course you're not going to do that. Not with the Japanese who were butchering. Have no such consideration if they're doing three Hiroshimas every month in Japan. And no one who's criticizing you is saying, well, the Japanese are killing three times the number they lost in Hiroshima in China they don't care. The Japanese people are not protesting. So the point is it was very hard. The second mission was almost an ungodly disaster. They went to the primary target and the three plane armada. There were planes that were the great Eris and I think there's a couple more planes that were supposed to be observer planes. They were late, they didn't coordinate. They got over the target too late. Sweeney should have gone immediately to Nagasaki. He didn't. He circled with this huge 10,000 pound bomb that was wired to blow up over the target. He waited too long, he couldn't see the target. He made a last split decision to go to Nagasaki. He went there, he didn't have the full armada. He had exactly one bomb run over the target. If he had missed that. He was going to run out of gas, so he couldn't do another bomb run. And he would have had to drop the wired plutonium bomb 18 kilotons in the ocean or blow himself up in the whole island if he tried to land. He wasn't even going to make it to Iwo Jima at this point. The only chance he had was a loaded, crowded Runway on Okinawa, which was only six weeks old. So he went over the target and he dropped the bomb. It was cloudy and he dropped it. He missed the target. It did do a lot of damage to a military base and the Mitsubishi steelworks and aircraft because these were both military targets, even though Hiroshima didn't suffer much military damage. Then he flies and decides, can't go to Iwo, I'll try to go to the new Runway at Okinawa, which was just swarming with planes. So this B29 comes in and he goes down the Runway at full speed and the engine, one engine cuts out, he gets down, the other engine's out of gas, and then he has to make a 90 degree tour. You can imagine if he came back with that bomb, he almost would have blown up the whole island. So lemay chewed him out and he never recovered. But the point I'm making is when you take experimental weapons and you're trying to stop the bloodletting and you're flying 1600 miles to drop them on a killing machine that is butchering people. And again, read what happened on Okinawa, the type of combat that was going on there. And you don't know if these bombs are going to work and you don't have very many. And if you think they're going to call or above. And the Japanese had a dispute in the war council, we think they're out of them. We've had our scientists, they said there's not enough uranium. They were right about that. They calibrated how much uranium the United States was producing from their espionage and how much uranium was needed for two uranium bombs. And they said, there will not be another uranium bomb until the end of the year. But they didn't understand one thing, that they had a plutonium bomb, an artificially enriched radioactive material, and they had two or three of them, but even those would have not been ready for September. So if the Japanese had said, we call your bluff after Nagasaki, what we were going to do? Well, if we had dropped a bomb in Tokyo Bay, we'd only have one bomb. And then they would have said, so what then? What do you do? You wait around or you get more Americans killed flying over to Japan or you do try to invade. I'm sorry, but 50 years later criticizing humans and saying they should be deities because they killed about 150,000 civilians on two military targets because they weren't very accurate with an experimental bomb from 1600 miles away they flew, attacking a country that had killed about 20 million civilians in Asia, China, and butchered American prisoners, starting with the Bataan Death March, and beheaded people they found in the waters at Midway. I don't think the American people had a lot of compassion for them.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

No, not at all.

[Paul A. Ray]

So that explains why we dropped the bombs. We're going to talk about how the war ended next time to finish World War II. It's very interesting how we ended up letting Russia take Berlin and with these French, British, American war zones and why Patton could not go and free Prague and why we had the ability to cross the Elbe river and maybe keep at least Czechoslovakia. And why Austria, for example. Austria and Finland were not completely dominated by communists, but they weren't part of NATO either. And how we saved Greece and Turkey. It was all done at the Yalta conference, but it had a lot of criticism.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah. And a lot of impact on the future of those states after the war was over. So Victors, thank you very much. Let's go ahead and take a break and come back and talk a little bit more about the news. Stay with us.

[Unknown]

The holidays are all about sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan pie recipe. And now you can also share a cart with Instacart family carts. Everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are so you don't have to go from room to room to find out who wants cranberry sauce or whether you should get mini marshmallows for the yams or collecting votes for sugar cookies versus shortbread. Just share a cartoon and then share the meals in the moments. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply. Hey prime members, have you heard? You can listen to your favorite podcasts ad free. Good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com adfreepodcast that's Amazon.com ad freepodcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Welcome back. So just on some small topics in the news and wondering your thoughts on we hear rumors that Ron DeSantis may replace Pete Hegseth if it doesn't look like he. And at this point, it's Wednesday night. We haven't heard anything about Pete Hegseth leaving or refusing the nomination. But what are your thoughts? Do you think that that's a good idea, Ron DeSantis, or do you think it's even plausible? Are they just going to move forward with Pete Hesse?

[Paul A. Ray]

It's hard to know to what degree this is a trial balloon, but whether Trump people designed it or not, it kind of weakens Pete Hegseth's efforts to win over four or five swing RINO senators because they will vote for Ron DeSantis. But there's a lot of things at work here that we are all confused. I know your listeners are confused because I am. Because if you say that Ron DeSantis will take his place, think of that for a second. Ron DeSantis is an Iraqi veteran. He is an Ivy League person. He's run an entire state. He's been a congressperson. He is a Ivy League trained lawyer. So he has a superb record and he has the experience that Hexext has. But he also has executive. But more, more importantly, he's happily married. He has three children. He's an ideal family man. So he has a resume or profile that would appeal more to the four or five swing the mega. People think we like Ron DeSantis, but he's a politician. We want a renegade because these people are out of control in the Pentagon, we want somebody. And I'm not sure Ron DeSantis is not a renegade. I think he would decapitate Dai and woke in the Pentagon. He's done it in Florida.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah, I was going to say Florida. It's good.

[Paul A. Ray]

He'd probably make Chris Rufo as chief.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Of staff or something like that.

[Paul A. Ray]

Say, Chris, go ahead. Chris is a wonderful person, so it would be a great thing. But it weakens that. And then there's the other calculus. What's in it for Ron DeSantis? He's got two years left on his governorship and then he's out. He was traditionally the person in the primary who loses. The leading contender is a prime rival the next time around. He's young, he's in his 40s. So given his superb record, he was reelected overwhelmingly. He came in second to Trump. He beat Haley. But what's his future? Because JD Vance is the MAGA anointed candidate. He's vice president. We don't know what's going to happen to Vance. This is all speculation but they might be saying to him, I don't think you're going to be competitive now, Ron, you're in your early 40s, JD or something, could be president for eight years and you'd only be 50 something. So you got a long career and the more you help the MAGA cause the, the more you're going to be solidifying your support and you could get a very high profile as a secretary of defense and do these reforms that Pete was talking about and he might be horse trading, he might say, well Marco Rubio left, I get to appoint a senator and Laura Trump wants this job. Maybe they can say if you point Laura, is this we'll do. You don't know what's going on in the back room. And I feel somewhat bad for Pete Hexagh because he's fighting, he's not going to give up. I know him a little bit and he's not going to give up, he's going to fight. His attitude is I know what exactly has to be done. I can bring in the expertise to carry it out. But what they don't have is the bulldog will that I have. And I know much better than any other person the mind of the left. I've written about what they've done to the Pentagon. I've written four books on this woke stuff. I have the vision, I have the willpower, I have the energy, the intellect, the training. I know what the military's like. I'm a combat veteran. Just let me go and I'll get the people to carry it out and I can win this. I'm not going to give up. I can win over these centers. If the Republicans have the power, remember that they have 53 senators. If they can stick together like the Democrats, I guarantee you on all of these nominations, with very few exceptions, maybe for Sinema and Joe Manchin, but they're not Democrats anymore. They're going to be out. They're not going to be able to vote anyway. I mean they're interviewing people but they're completely irrelevant because they are out. They're not part of the After January 3rd, the Senate flips and the Republicans have a 53 vote margin. If they can just stay as disciplined as the Democrats, there will not be one Democratic senator that will defect on these controversial appointments on RFK and Tulsi and Pete and Cash, they will all vote against them. Why can't the Republicans just say, you know what, we're going to do the same thing because if they're voting lockstep no matter what the candidate is, then we're going to vote lockstep. Yes, no matter what the candidate is. Because the President has a prerogative to pick his own people. And if they can do that, Pete will be in. But this weakens the case, this rumor manga. And I don't know to what degree it's sanctioned or it's a trial balloon.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah. There's a lot of momentum behind MAGA for the people, so maybe their senators will be more likely to go.

[Paul A. Ray]

I don't think. Why you? Yeah, I don't understand. Because you can Talk to Ron DeSantis privately and then you tell Hegseth, go ahead. But I don't think he's at the point of no return yet.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah, I don't think so either.

[Paul A. Ray]

You've got to wait another week and he may win them over, and then you take your losses and you can have Ron DeSantis, but when you bring him in prematurely, then you weaken what could be your second defeat. I mean, he's not. Getz was a special sui generis. It was a different case. And that's not Pete Hexa Victor.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

You have some. I don't know if you want to talk about it. If you don't, you can just say no. But you have some plans for books to write in the future, and I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about those plans or books that you are writing and. Or are thinking about writing.

[Paul A. Ray]

Yeah, I am. And I've been with Laura Heimert, the publisher and editor of Basic Books. I did four books in six years. I wrote the Second World War. That was a big one. It was 250,000 words. And then I did the Dying Citizen. And what was nice about that contract, she wanted contemporary books, but not all contemporary. She wanted histories. And she said to me, you are a historian. You're not just a popular contemporary pundit. So we alternated them. I did a book on World War II, and then I did the Case for Trump, which she was right about, that my title, why Trump Won, was kind of banal, they thought, at basic, so that was a more dramatic title, although I had more problems with the title in academia. And then I did another one, the Dying Citizen, which was contemporary, but then I finished with a history end of everything, so they have that same format. And so I might write a book in six months, four months, called the Return of Trump, the Renaissance of the MAGA Agenda subtitle, something like that.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yeah. Explaining.

[Paul A. Ray]

Explaining the Greatest Comeback in American Political history, how Trump went after January 6th as Persona non grata and people were disowning him and trashing him. The January 5 losses in Georgia and how and why he was able to make this amazing comeback, why he won the 2024 election over enormous odds. And the implementation, and I'll be writing the implementation as it unfolds in January, February, if I do this. And then the second one I've already written, it's called the Lost Agrarian World or Growing up in an Agrarian Society. I have different titles, but it's about reminiscence, about growing up free range. In other words, what it was like to be on a 135 acre farm with people who ran it from the 19th century. My grandparents. And they're talking nonstop about their parents and their grandparents who lived in the house that I'm in now and all of the lore. You know, things like, victor, you better house up. The wind change, it's coming from the south. The birds are now in the trees. We're going to have a big whopper storm and we've got the raisins out. And that natural world that you were told or your mother saying at six years old. Okay, put your shoes on. You're not allowed to go near the paved road. We'll see you at 2:00 in the afternoon. On your way, stop by and talk to the hired. Check in with him. Manuel, go see Joel Carey, Native American, great guy who grew up with us. He was a hired man. I want you down at your grandparents. Check in there for milk and cookies and your grandparents. And then be sure you help your grandfather pick walnuts or persimmons. And I was 6 or 7. And then the idea of turning over, I don't know, a.22. We called it a carnival gun. It was 1896 Winchester Pumpkin. I was seven or eight years old.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Wow. Really?

[Paul A. Ray]

Yes. I was given this list. Do not ever shoot a mockingbird. Do not ever shoot a predator bird. You can shoot a crow. You can shoot a black bird. You can shoot a blue jay. You can shoot a squirrel. You can shoot a jackrabbit. Ask your grandparents if you can shoot the cottontails. If you do, you have to eat them and skin them. And you can shoot possums.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Wait, can I ask a question? There was no worry from them that a young 7 year old would start to shoot at something and he wouldn't realize what was behind it. Like he may have been a human or something.

[Paul A. Ray]

I was 7 years old and I had to go to Hunter Safety at Reedy College.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Oh, okay.

[Paul A. Ray]

And we had to take the whole course. My father made us. And then he drilled it into us. You point your gun down or you point it straight up. You never point at level. You never have a bullet in a chamber even until the moment you're firing. And you know, a.22 short is. Can kill a person and go a mile. But I also had.22 pellet in the.177 caliber. And that you can crank those things up so they have almost the same velocity. In those old pellet guns I had that I used to shoot possums with a pellet gun. And then we had shotguns, but we were fully hunting at 9 or 10. And then you know what happened? I started shooting rabbits a lot. I give it to my grandparents. They would cook them and Saturday night my grandfather dressed them up. But they shriek when you hit them. I didn't know that when I was young. And then I would start shooting them and they'd go eee heee. And it just was eerie. And then I would shoot doves and quail. And then Something happened around 12 or 14 and I never shot again. I just said, I'm done. I couldn't take it any longer. I shot a lot of stuff and I. And the only thing I ever shot I've shot since are flicker woodpeckers that destroy the barn. They go in there and they make huge holes and I'll go out and shoot them. Even then we have all these blackbirds. I wrote an article. They just come and they defecate over every. I'd like to show, but I don't want to. So I kind of got sick of it. And I have a whole upstairs with, you know, I've got a 30 aught six. I still have my dad's armor piercing.30 caliber machine gun bullets he got from war surplus when he came out of the army. Can't really shoot it in the gun because it heats up and it's bad for the barrel. I've got an 1896, as I said 22. I've got an 1894 Springfield 12 gauge shotgun. Yeah, I just gave. I was giving a talk to a wonderful group of wood chippers, the Wood Chippers association. And they gave me a present. And I got to the airport and I opened it and it was a Beretta shotgun. And I didn't know how to get through security, so they came. They actually accompanied me and met me at the airport and got me through. And then I gave it to my son in Law. He just moved up near Auburn and they've got coyotes and everything that they're afraid about their pets and kids. So I have a lot of guns, I think I have nine of them. I have a flintlock gun, my friend Larry Woodlock made it and he was a gunsmith as well as being a brilliant classicist. So that book is all about these stories of growing up and working on the farm and the Ethel and it's gone, it's completely gone. This is all corporate agriculture. Nobody lives on their farms anymore. It's economically unfeasible to be a 40 acre, hundred acre farmer. And then the third one, oh, it's getting me tired thinking of trying to write all this at 71. But there was a famous classical general, Epaminondas of Thebes, and I wrote a novel once called the End of Sparta about him. I've written a lot of refereed academic articles about him and I don't think anybody want to read them. They're very esoteric in classical philology, books like that, you know, classical antiquity. But I'm going to write a biography of him because I think he's in antiquity. People thought he was the most important man, more important than Pericles, more than Alexander. Cicero, who was looking back 400 years earlier, called him Princeps Graecia, the first man of Greece. And he did the impossible. He overthrew the oligarchy at Thebes, he made it a democracy. He then created a huge Pan Hellenic army. He marched down in the mid winter. He destroyed the Spartan army at Leuctra. He went down into the vale of Laconia. He tried, tried to burst into Sparta and cross the Eurodis river. They turned him back at the last moment. He went over the Mount Taygetus, which is 6,000 something feet. He went into the Spartan Hela at Mycenae. He destroyed the Spartan guardians. He freed 250,000 Messenians. He built these three fortified cities. You can go there today. Mantinea, Megalopolis and Messenia. These huge cities and they made them democratic. And the mess Orcini's ex holots. And then he invaded three more times and he emasculated Sparta, whether that was wise or not, because they really needed the Spartans. When there is a deity and there was always Nemesis. You know the Sad thing is 40 years later when Alexander the Great came and conquered Greece, Thebes revolted.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Wait, didn't Philip ii, yes, his father?

[Paul A. Ray]

Yes, but he did. But when he died, his his son Alexander invaded Thebes in 335 and they needed Help. But you could argue that Epaminondas, 40 years later, destroyed the Spartan army and the Spartan system. There were no Spartans that were able to help them. And the Athenians are Athenians. And so Thebes was razed to the ground. But it's a fascinating story about him. And I want to try to write one last history book. But it's easy to say you're going to write books. And it's another thing to spend 6,000 hours of your life. That's what it takes. It takes about 2,000 hours, if you think about it. And you get older and you're.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Those hours are valuable.

[Paul A. Ray]

Well, I mean, when I was younger, I would teach four classes at Cal State Fresno. I would teach from 8 to 5. I'd come home, I'd do an hour of tractor work. Then I'd go inside, three kids to help raise. And then I'd go up, I don't know, 9 o'clock and start drinking Dr. Pepper and write for three hours and then correct papers the next morning and four or five hours sleep. It was easy, but not now.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

It's harder, much harder.

[Paul A. Ray]

So I don't know if I want to do that, but that's one of my. I think I'm going to do it if I can. I have a wonderful agent. Glenn Hartley and Lynn Chu, I've had. It's funny, I was their third client. It was a wonderful man. I really worshiped him. Donald Kagan, he was a classics professor at Yale. Very famous. I got to know him. He was one of the. And then Stephen Osment was a professor at Harvard. And they were just so nice to me. And they were wonderful people, teachers. They were not like most academics. They were very conservative, too. And I was the third client of a new agent, Glenn Hartley. And I've been with him 30 years. We've never had a contract. We've never signed anything. And I get offers to go to different. I've always honored my handshake 30 years ago with him. He's done every single book that I've sold. He's a wonderful agent and so is his wife.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Well, Victor, thank you for that today. I know that we're on a hard break here, so break a hard ending. So thanks to the audience. We appreciate each and every one of you for joining us today.

[Paul A. Ray]

We had a lot of different topics today. I didn't know you're going to ask these questions about my books. I should have deferred. I haven't sold them yet. I don't know if anybody wants them. We're negotiating. You gave the game away, Sammy.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

It's good to put the ideas out there, even if they don't come to fruition. But I have a feeling they will.

[Paul A. Ray]

I don't want to, because when I was on tenure committees, I was always the candidate would come in and they'd say, you have three books here. And he said, in progress, in preparation. I said, well, then don't put the title down if it hasn't been written and published. Well, it's under consideration. It's out for review, and you're supposed to tenure. And then when you would tenure them, if you were stupid enough to do that, and that we always were, then the book never appeared.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

Yes, but we're not applying to our audience for a job, so we're. Okay.

[Paul A. Ray]

Okay.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

All right. Thanks to everybody for joining us today.

[Paul A. Ray]

Okay. Thank you, everybody.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

This is Sammy Wink and Victor Hansen, and we are signing off.