← Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: Impeach Hegseth? You Should Be Thanking Hegseth
01:21:59
On this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Sami Winc dissect the effort to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and the Biden administration’s effort to drum white conservative males out of the service.
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- [00:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
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Tony Kennit
More time online and more personal info.
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Victor Davis Hanson
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Tony Kennit
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Victor Davis Hanson
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- [00:56]
Sammy Wink
Get started@vanta.com hello and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen In His Own Words, our new partnership with the Daily Signal. We are on our Saturday program and in the middle of the Saturday program we talk about a historical subject and today Victor's going to be talking about the B29 in World War II. I want to say invention, but the creation of the B29 and then its history or how it panned out in World War II. So we'll look at that in the middle of the show. Stay with us and we'll come right back from these important messages.
- [01:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
Right is still right, even if you stand by yourself. Mr. Chief justice, may it please the court. This is Hans von Spakowski, host of the Case in Point podcast, which looks at the hottest cases affecting politics culture at everyone's daily lives. But we talk about them without confusing legal jargons and we have interesting guests like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. And we end with reviews of classic Hollywood movies relevant to the topic. Case in Point, the podcast available everywhere you won't want to miss.
- [02:21]
Sammy Wink
Welcome back. This is Victor Davis Hansen in His own Words. And Victor is the Martin and Elia Anderson Senior Fellow in Military History and Classics at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. You can find him at his website, VictorHanson.com is the URL and it's called the Blade of Perseus. So please come join us there for all sorts of free things and the collection of his podcasts and his articles. And also VDH Ultra material can be subscribed to for 650amonth or $65 a year. That's two articles a week plus a weekly video. So please come join us. Well Victor, there's lots of things to discuss. Finish off with the news before we turn to our historical segment. It appears the latest today which is Wednesday, is that the Democrats or there are some Democrats that are filing to impe both Pete Hegseth and rfk. Pete Hagseth for murder and RFK for changing the health care. The filers are sri Congressman Sri Tann Tanadar, he is from Michigan and the other person is from Michigan as well, Haley Stevenson. And so those two congressmans, those are.
- [03:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
The most left wings I know.
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Sammy Wink
Isn't Michigan a little bit nutty?
- [03:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
No, it's not. It's a great state. I teach at Hillsdale for 21 years and Hillsdale county is the most conservative I think in the state. But it's a 50, 50 state. It's a purple state, it's a union state. But the problem with Hillsdale is that given it's being Californianized, the government, state government is usually left wing. So a lot of people from Hillsdale, they go for the winter sunbirds to Arizona, New Mexico, Florida and they stay now. So they're not gaining the population, they're gaining. It's kind of a static state but they're losing some like we are in California. It's not a well run state around Hillsdale College. When you go out in the country it reminds me of my youth In California there's I would say 70% of the less traveled roads are still gravel, they're not paved.
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Sammy Wink
And what do you think about these impeachments? They're obviously not going to go through. So why are they doing it? They don't, I don't know. Yeah, what's the point?
- [05:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
They don't control the house. So it's just a way. Now you mentioned these guys names and now I know them. That's what it's for. Our listeners heard their names. That's it. They're not going to get an impeachment majority vote and there's no way in the world they're going to get 60 senators to vote. No way for a conviction. So then you get to the actual. So I would ask them what would be an impeachable offense if you're Pete Hexa. Oh, he took out 30 boats. Let's say there was seven people on them. Right. So he killed, he, he didn't kill anybody but 20 people were killed in this kinetic operation. Barack Obama killed over 550. I haven't heard Pete Hexseth joke about it and say, let me just ask the two congressmen this question. I'm Pete Hexseth. You know, I didn't think I was good at killing, but I found out I'm well suited for it. And then he's going to tell. And a big. A big audience. All the media in Washington, all the marquee media in America. He's going to say, I just want to make a joke. Anybody want to date my daughters? It's called P R E D A T O R Predator drone strike. Be careful. So what is his crimes? Well, he came in and there were 45,000 recruit short in the military, and they had drummed out between 8,000 and 8,500 people for not getting the MRNA vaccination. Aside from the question of whether that was a wise move, most of those people had had Covid by that time. So they had a natural immunity. And we know now that the natural immunity is as good or better than the boosters or whatever. Speaking to someone who had both Moderna and I've had four cases of COVID Two serious and two not as bad. And then they were letting in 10,000 people a day across the border without any audit. So they were telling the US Military, you got to get an experimental, unproven Moderna or Pfizer vaccination. But the people coming from Latin America or all over the world, they don't have to. They're more entitled than you are. So he solved that problem. He has four. There's no recruitment crisis. Why are you raising your hand?
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Sammy Wink
Because I want to say something about that. The get. They. They undoubtedly felt in the military under Biden that they could get rid of people that were politically right wing if they said people who did not get vaccinations. Because the majority of the people that were against either vaccinations or the lockdown tended to be the right wing. So that was probably more the goal.
- [07:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
Than this is what intentionally Lloyd Austin and Joe Biden and to an extent, Se State Blinken, they said to the military, how do we get rid of these conservative people in the ranks? Well, they are more likely, as you said, not to get back, let's get rid of 8,500. These were some really good veterans, great people. Then they said, well, let's really push the trans gay di agenda. So let's run commercials of women pregnant in air suits. Let's have trans shows on military bases. Let us have. We won't Call them quotas, that's illegal. But we will have racial quotas and gender quotas and let's have women in combat units regardless, we'll lower the standard. What was all the purpose of that? They said it was for inclusivity and diversity. No, it was to target a particular type of soldier and that soldier fits a profile. The grand. Let's just take today's potential recruit 18. His father fought in the Gulf War, his father fought in Vietnam. His father fought in Korea. His father or grandfather fought in World War II. His great grandfather fought in World War I. That was the type of demographic that volunteers to go into the military, especially the Army. And I say this to like and blue in the face. But if you go in and try to decipher Pentagon websites or Pentagon related and they do not want to talk about this but if you look at they have every DEI stat. You can imagine how many kernels are black, how many women are in combat units. The dead, that's hard. How many people died by race. But if you can find that, and I have found it, it's about 72 to 74% in Afghanistan and Iraq. So let me just summarize. They came in and said we do not like these recruits and we're going to keep a in your face dei, in your face vaccination and we're going to insult them on radical abortion and, and we're going to get rid of them. And then they said well, these people constitute white, male, rural, southern, you know what I'm talking about or suburban. They, they constitute about 35%, 30, 70%, 67. I know they inflate, there's multiracial, all that, but say 67 to 70% are white and half of that, so you're talking about 34 to 35% of that pool was dying at double their numbers and yet that was the one they targeted to get rid of them. And they did. They just quit 45,000 of them. Then you go to the Pentagon websites and you think who is not being recruited? And you can see it, that was 90% white males. Then you talk to retired officers and generals and think oh you, they call you. I mean they email you or they're angry at you or they trash you. If you say this and they have me, then you ask them why the shortfall. They will give you every answer except the truth. They will not say that white males die at twice their numbers in the demographic and we try to alienate them through these social programs. They'll say oh, people are too fat, they have too many tattoos, their drugs are out of shape. We have to compete with private enterprise. It's all a lie. And he solved that problem. Pete Heck said there is no shortage. Now all of them are back. And he solved the problem as well, of if you want to smuggle drugs to come in the United States and you're in Latin America and we have a wall across the southern border now and there's zero entry, then you have to come by sea. And he was waiting for them. And they kill 75,000 people a year through imported fentanyl and fentanyl like drugs. So compared to what do I think? George W. Bush ordered targeted assassinations of about 50 people. He never killed a US citizen. Pete Hexeth and Donald Trump have not killed more than 30 or 40 people, maybe more, in Iraq in the first term or Syria. And they have not, to our knowledge, killed a U. S. Citizen. And the very people who joked about it under Obama are now wanting to impeach him. And that's he. And then the final thing he's done very good, he's broken up the idea that you only buy major weapon systems from Raytheon or General Dynamics or Lockheed or Northrop. These are all great companies. The people that run them are great, but they're very expensive. $14 billion carriers, $75 million planes, $170 million fighters. So why not a million drones? Why not a million robotic drones on land? Why not a million drones in the ocean? Why not cheap missiles that people carry on their back? So that's what they're doing. They're trying to break up that monopoly and get on the shelf practical quantity as well as quality.
- [13:43]
Sammy Wink
Well, Victor, I have some more questions on that, but first we want to welcome one of our sponsors, My Patriot supply. This Christmas, give a gift of food security with an amazing deal from our friends at my Patriot supply. It's called the buy one gift two Christmas special. And you guys have got to check it out. All month long, when you buy an emergency food kit, you'll get two more food kits free to give as gifts. That's right. Get a four week emergency food supply for yourself and they'll throw in two one week food kits absolutely free. The one week kits make a perfect gift for anyone on your list who's into preparedness or anyone who needs a little nudge in that direction. These days it just makes sense to have some food stored away for emergencies. And with this, this buy one gift to Christmas deal, you're not only getting yourself prepared, you're also getting unique and meaningful Christmas gifts for your friends or family. And they're free. So head over to preparewithvdh.com and grab yours today. This offer is only around for the holiday season, so go to preparewithvdh now. That's preparewithvdh.com and we'd like to thank my Patriot Supply for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen show. Well, Victor, that takes care of Pete Hegseth. But what about rfk? They seem to be going after him. My theory is he is making changes to Obamacare or threatening it. And so that's the other big, big issue for the Democrats.
- [15:40]
Victor Davis Hanson
They hate Pete Hexaf because they feel he's a young, good looking right wing guy and they have vulnerabilities because he's been married three times and he had a drinking problem. So they go after him. They hate him for that. They hate RFK because they feel that he polluted the Camelot name, that he was Kennedy. And you don't do that. So they went out and got the whole Kennedy fourth generation clan to attack him. I'm not completely sold on a lot of things. I know Jay Bhattacharya. He, he was a colleague at Hoover. He's not a, he's a great person. He's very smart. He is running the, and Dr. Oz is smart and Marty McClarty or the guy at the medic, they're all smart that are running these things. I used to be a very, when I was brought up, they gave us vaccinations. And then a weird thing happened to me. I went to Egypt in 1973. I was a student in Greece and I went and they said, you have to get into Egypt. You have to have, get this yellow fever, plague, smallpox, typhus, typhoid, cholera. And I caught that all in one shot or one or two shots. And I got sick as a dog for almost three weeks. And then I forgot about it. I went back and I, after graduate school, I farmed for, you know, you're farming, you'd get a bucket would fall on your head when you're picking plums. You would be changing the bearings on a tandem disc and the bearing would cut your, I mean the disc blade would cut you pruning. You wouldn't be watching the pruning. Shear might drop on your foot. You go into the emergency room for stitches. I did that 10 times. And every time they went in there they'd say, you need a tetanus shot. I said, no, I don't need a tetanus. They'd Argue with you and say, well, when was your last tetanus? I don't know. Well, finally a doctor said to me, don't get any more tetanus shots. They're 10 year boosters. And I got one and I argued to high heaven. I had a very, very. I stepped on a nail and the nail went all the way through my foot. You could see it on the top of the foot. So they gave me one and I was sick for three months. And so then they said, you've got to get flu shots. Every time I got a flu shot, I got the flu. And they said, it's not going to be as bad, it was terrible. So I stopped getting them. Three years. Then they said, the MRA will have. No, I got the second moderna. I was sick for eight. Maybe it's me. But what I'm saying is I love vaccinations. They're very good. But there is some warning that you just don't give these blanket vaccinations measles. Yes, but what I don't understand is this. One of the impeachment catalysts for RFK is the measles vaccination. Right? And I'm for the measles vaccination. But the people who want to impeach him think he is some kind of Neanderthal dangerous man by discouraging measles. And I will put a proposition to you on the left. Since he's been in office, the number of people who have not been vaccinated because of his advocacy not to do it have not endangered us as much from measles as letting in 12 million people across the southern border with no audits or whatsoever. And I didn't hear a peep out of any of those people saying, we've got to stop this because we might have measles. These people and I live in a very impoverished area where there are thousands of people in this larger county that are here illegally. And when I've gone into the emergency room once or twice, the last twice, I have heard people talk in the rooms next to me. I hear nurses talk. And I've asked them, are you seeing some strange things? Yes, we saw measles. Yes, we saw tb. Yes, we see valley fever. What? And I said, what do you do? Well, these people have never had a doctor in their life. And he said, sometimes they just come across the border and then go back home. He said, we're just, we are the general practitioner, internal medicine for thousands of people in this area that just, you know, and any person Said something I hadn't even thought of. She said, how long have you waited? And I said, hours. And they said, well, you should do what some people do. And I said, what would that be? Fall down and call 9 11. I said, what do you mean? I said, then the ambulance comes in. I said, well, I think my insurance has some limitations. Well, if you don't have insurance on your medical and you say it's an emergency at your home, they'll bring you right to the ER and you get instant. I said, does that happen? She said, I'm not going to comment on that.
- [20:52]
Sammy Wink
So, wow.
- [20:54]
Victor Davis Hanson
The left has done so much damage to the health system with their immigration policies and met Obamacare, which is a disaster. It's only about what, 20% of the population? I don't even think it's that much. Maybe it's only 25 million are still on it. It's a horrible plan. They have no moral, legal, ethical right to complain about RFK given what they have done. And by the way, I'm having a procedure done. I don't want to mention where. And it's six figures for 30 minutes.
- [21:28]
Sammy Wink
Wow. Okay, so let's turn then to another interesting thing. In D.C. trump pardoned a rep, I think he was a former Representative Henry Cuellar, this week and he was in jail for bribery, money laundering, conspiracy to wire fraud, unregistered foreign agent. So he was in for some very serious crimes. He pardoned him. He's a, he was a Democrat. Now he's gone back to the Democrats. So my question is, why did Trump do this, number one, and did Trump just believe that these charges were all trumped up or. And why is he surprised?
- [22:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't know. But I do know this, that I looked at those charges. Had you wanted to charge Hillary Clinton, you could have got a lot more. Hillary Clinton had had to pay a fine for hiring against the law. A foreign national. Let's just say Henry Quellar is Hillary Clinton circa 2006. And Merrick Garland calls Henry Quellar in. Well, Representative Quellar, I see that you've used your own server for confidential classified information. That's a felony. I see that you hired a foreign national to work on your re election campaign. That is a felony in a federal election. I see that you did not properly report income. We have three felonies on you. But here's what Trump is saying. They did do stuff like that to him. And then they said, and you are a thorn in our side because your district is being inundated with illegal aliens. Instead of trying to defend our policy, you flipped over and criticized us for destroying the border. So what's it going to be? And he didn't play ball, so they indicted him and the rest is history. So Trump comes in and says almost all the Biden January, all of them were political and he pardoned him and that was probably the right thing to do because he was a victim of a Merrick Garden politicized indictment and conviction, no doubt, although they did convict him. So I can't say that. But here's the point then, Trump being Trump. Remember he says that when he picked his Cabinet, what were the criteria? Loyalty. Loyalty, loyalty. It's not going to be any more John Boltons. It's not going to be any more any of those guys in the first. So he said, well, obviously he's going to support. He's going to be kind of like Tulsi Gabbard or rfk. No, he went right back to his Democratic roots. And Trump said he was disloyal and that everybody said that shows you what. And that brings up, by the way, a larger issue. I watched Trump last night, I'm speaking on a Wednesday in the afternoon in California, and he was pretty tough at his rallies. He said, alien Inmar married her brother. Can you imagine that? And she, all she does is just excuse my language. And why didn't she go back home, Somalia? Well, that's very crude, but what the left does is it's refined crudity. Refined crudity. So what is really crude, it's what people do. There is a mounting amount of evidence that she did marry her brother. And all she has to do is go sign an affidavit. Under no circumstances did I ever, ever under a penalty of both. And she won't do that because that would, as I said, nullify the statute of limitations. It was subject to a new crime of perjury. And what that fraud was, that was all under the nose. Not under the nose, but the complicity, I think, of Keith Ellison and I think Tim Waltz as well. And then the USC Annenberg School of Journalism gave the Walter Cronkite Award to whom? Who would be the marquee journalist of the United States? Can you guess? Sammy, think of your worst nightmare.
- [25:59]
Sammy Wink
George Stephanopoulos.
- [26:01]
Victor Davis Hanson
Close, but not nearly as bad. Rachel Maddow.
- [26:05]
Sammy Wink
Oh, Rachel Maddow, yes.
- [26:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
And Jon Stewart, known for his Edward R. Murrow reporting. Right. What did Rachel Maddow do? For one year, she looked at the camera and lied that Christopher Steele was. Had proven that Donald Trump was a spy or a colluder. And she said this every night. Walls are closing in. Walls are closing in. Walls are closing in. Walls are closing in. And then she was burned. And then the laptop came rushing. Disinformation, Russian information, and she should have been kicked off the network. She got the award. What did Jon Stewart do? He screams and yells. He usually. Sometimes he. He accidentally stumbles on the truth. Those aren't journalists, but that's how crude the left is. They would give awards for those people because of their ideology. What's very crude is putting a person like Claudine Gay, the head of the most famous university in the world, when you knew she was a plagiarist, just because she was a woman and black and left wing. I had to make that in. Had she been a woman and black and right wing, it wouldn't be that. They wouldn't have appointed her. They would have hated her more. So Janice Rogers, the brilliant legal, the judge, appellate court judge in California, she could have gone to the Supreme Court. All she had to do was not be conservative. If you're a black woman and you were conservative, the left hates you more than a white woman conservative or a white male conservative. So that's crudity. What Trump says is rhetorical crudity, but what they do to actual people's lives and institutions is crude.
- [27:49]
Sammy Wink
Well, let's turn to another topic, and that is the D.C. police chief. Pamela Smith has only been there two years, and she's resigning two years before. I'm wondering why she's resigning. Because the crime in D.C. seems to have fallen, so she should be happy with that.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Are you serious, Sammy? So she's police?
- [28:14]
Sammy Wink
Yes. Even if it's Donald Trump who's done that for her? I would.
- [28:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
So I'm Victor, the police chief, and I've been here for two or three years, and it's one of the most deadly, brutal, crudest, horrible places in the world after dark. And then I say, we don't want the federal government. And then the Trump sends these people in and suddenly everything is well. And they, they say to me, well, Victor, you're a special expert in policing, and it was horrible under you. And then you oppose the federal government coming in and this. They don't know anything, but they stopped the whole thing. So what does that tell you? I quit.
- [28:55]
Sammy Wink
That's such a cheap response, though. I mean, you would think that she would start to rethink her own policies with her own officers. Yeah, why not?
- [29:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
I didn't say she said that.
- [29:07]
Sammy Wink
I know she didn't.
- [29:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
I know she said something like, due to my efforts working with the federal government in this joint effort, I had suggestions and it's time for me, now that I've solved the problem of Washington crime, to move on.
- [29:21]
Sammy Wink
The mayor seems to be more adaptable. Is she quitting?
- [29:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
I didn't realize she was quitting reelection. They can't run for re election because it was a basket case and the people. 75% of Washington D.C. is black. And they were telling the police chief and the mayor, we're being slaughtered, we're being raped, we're being assaulted by these small group of young male black teens and stop it. Save us. And they wouldn't do anything because the larger white liberal community would say, oh, that's fascistic. That's Gestapo. Like, so they didn't. And then they finally said, we'll try to split the difference. We'll. We'll rhetorically trash Trump. And Meryl Baser didn't. She did. She wasn't that bad. Bowser. Excuse me, but will welcome them in concretely, but abstractly not like it. And it solved the problem. And so now they look like idiots.
- [30:27]
Sammy Wink
Perhaps, but I think the D.C. voting population is still crazy. They could probably still get their jobs back. But nonetheless. Well, let's look at the last thing before we go to an advertisement and then look at the super fortresses. The B29. David Ellison seems to be shaking up CNN. There's talk that he A, visits Donald Trump in the White House and B, is thinking of firing or replacing some of his hosts and anchors. Aaron Burnett and Brianna Kahlar are the two that are on.
- [31:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
What I like is when he appointed Barry Wise basically to run cbs, there were all these people who said, she's political, she has no experience. This is a person who was a traditional liberal and she put up with all the anti Semitism at the New York Times. So she couldn't stomach it anymore. And then she went out and from scratch created what Is it worth? 100 million free press from nothing. And then they're looking at David Ellison and Larry Ellison is the third. I think he's the third wealthiest man in the world now. Oracle, I mean, I think he's gone. He's right where Zuckerberg, it's Elon Musk and Warren. Either Gates or Warren Buffett or there's about five of them, but he's right around.
- [31:54]
Sammy Wink
And David is his son.
- [31:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
It's his son. So he's got 100 to $150 billion behind him, forgetting all Everything else. And what's interesting about a nine months ago, I was at an event where Larry Ellison was there, and there were people in the audience who didn't like Trump. And I won't mention the interrogator, but that interrogator was very fair and knew him very well, but was very professional. So the interrogator, the questioner, interviewer, just very neutrally said, what do you think about the first, you know, two or three months of the Trump administration? What do you think about this? These terror. What do you think about. It blew everybody away. He said, we're in a golden age. I'm sorry, I'm an octogenarian. We're going to get so much foot. This was before everything happened. We're going to get so much foreign investment. We're going to get people coming who are Americans. It's not going to be foreign investment alone. They're going to bring their factories back here because of these trade policies. And more importantly, we've got a president that's going to green line energy development, nuclear plant development. We're going to be able to build enough electrical plants to supercharge the whole AI industry. And we have people in Silicon Valley. They're the smartest people in the world. And we're going to see a new type of American military. And it's the most exciting time I've ever seen to see all these patriotic CEOs who want to help create a national defense. I thought the subtext was almost. We've been dealing with the Chinese Communist Party for 30 years to get investments over there. If you showed us a way how, we didn't have to do that. And we knew these people were not going to destroy our own country, and now we can do that. And that's. I was really impressed with him.
- [34:03]
Sammy Wink
And so his son is continuing the legacy, I guess we'd have to say.
- [34:08]
Victor Davis Hanson
May they do both very well.
- [34:10]
Sammy Wink
Yes. Well, Victor, let's go ahead and take a break and then come back and talk a little bit about the B29. Stay with us and we'll be right back.
- [34:17]
Tony Kennit
Hey, folks, it's Tony Kennit, national correspondent for the Daily Signal and host of the Tony Kennitcast. I need to share something with you before we start today's show. Our goal at the Daily Signal is to cut through the noise and give you the facts you need to stay informed as engaged citizens. Unlike so many liberal media outlets, we're honest about our conservative views and report the news with a commitment to telling you the truth. But I'll be straight with you. Running an internal independent news operation isn't easy. While big media companies have corporate sponsors and massive bloated budgets, we operate differently. We answer to you, our audience and supporters. That independence is exactly what allows us to tackle the stories others won't touch and ask the tough questions others often avoid. But our independence comes with a challenge. We need your help to ensure the Daily Signal can continue to counter the liberal media's lies with the truth. Every deep dive investigation, every exclusive interview, every fact check we publish requires time and investment if you've found value in what we do. If the Daily Signal has helped you stay informed or given you insights you couldn't find elsewhere, would you consider supporting our work with a donation today? Even a small monthly contribution makes a real difference in our ability to bring you the journalism you deserve and expect. You can support our work by visiting Daily Signal. Daily Signal.com donate that's DailySignal.com donate every dollar goes directly into making sure we can continue serving you with the reporting you've come to count on. Please go to dailysignal.com donate and give your gift today.
- [35:53]
Sammy Wink
Welcome back to the Victor Davis Hanson in His Own Words show with the Daily Signal. You can find Victor on X. His handle is Dhanson. And on Facebook, Hanson's Morning Cup. So, Victor, I know that, you know, the one thing I've noticed about our world is that people who are very talented make whatever their talent is look very easy. And when we read about World War II, the big problem was Japan was probably 4,000 miles away from the United States once we went to war. And the United States adapted very quickly and very. And part of that adaptation was to build these B2029 bombers. So it looked really easy. And I know it wasn't perfect, but I'm anxious to hear about the B29's history.
- [36:42]
Victor Davis Hanson
One of the reasons they went to war, remember, is they had created a, what the French called a sanitary corridor around them. So they were occupying 60% of China. They were occupying what is now Taiwan. They were occupying all of the Pacific islands all the way up to Wake island, which they took. The only thing they didn't have was Midway, and they tried to get that. And then they had Korea and they had the Philippines and they had Singapore. So they controlled what is now the South China Sea and nobody could get there. So we started bombing in April of 1942, not very effectively occupied France and parts of Germany. The British had been doing it in earnest since 40 and wasn't very effective. But what I'm saying is the Germans were used to air raids. The only time the Japanese ever thought they had an air raid was In April of 1942 when the Hornet put, I think it was 16B25 Mitchell bombers, two engine medium bombers who should not be able to take off from an aircraft carrier. They couldn't land, but they took off on their Jimmy Doodle. And that shows shock. And they did almost no damage. But psychologically they did a lot of damage because that forced the Japanese navy to come out and challenge us at Midway. So they couldn't get that close again. What I'm getting at is Americans said if we ever get in a war with Japan, we need a long range bomber. The B17 is a wonderful bomber. 1936, 37. But it has a low capacity of 6 to 7, 8, depending on how you arm it. Low Flying Fortress, because it had machine guns. It was very well armed. But that was a lot of weight. It only carried about 7,000 pounds of bombs. 8. It had a good range. It depends on which model of B17, but maybe it could go in one direction a thousand miles. So the logic was always, someday we're going to get into France and we'll have bases. So the B17 and the B24 are okay, but what are we going to do about Japan? There's nothing near it. There's free China and India. That's a long way. So they, they put out a specification for a sophisticated superfortress and it would be able to fly 1700 miles in one way and it would be able to hold £20,000 and it would be able to fly 300 miles an hour with all that weight. And then they decided to put every theoretical thing possible into it. I think that was a mistake. They said we're going to have computers. So the central fire control gunner on the bubble, on the talk, he can push buttons and levers and he can see better than anybody. And if there's a plane coming down at 30 degrees below, he can take control of the eight or nine turrets and have them all point in one direction. It didn't work too well. But he was in a bubble. But the Japanese tried to shoot that guy who was my father. He flew, you know, 40 missions doing that. And then they had a pressurized cabinet. You know, how do you have pressurize a bomber when you open the bomb bay and you're at 30,000ft? So they created this tunnel and it was pressurized so you could have, you know, you didn't have to wear all that clump. You could have air mat, you know, oxygen mass, heavy jacket. That was new. And then they, they had the Pratt Whitney Double Wasp engine. That was a wonderful engine, 2200 horsepower. It was on the courser, the helicopter Hellcat and my favorite plane in World War II, the P47 Thunderbolt. But they, they wanted even more horsepower. So they came out with the right double cyclone multi cylinder, 18, 19 cylinders. It was a new engine and it wasn't for its size. It actually produced more horsepower per engine. I think it was 2400 maybe, but they didn't have fuel injection. And more importantly, to save weight on this plane because the engine was big and there's four of them. They made the crankcase out of magnesium, which is light but unfortunately can melt. And then it's air cooled. And these engines were huge. So what happened? And they didn't have time to test them, so they were putting people in Nebraska, in the States to test these things. And they would take off and enormous power and they would heat up. The back cylinders would heat up and they would melt down. And when they melted down, the magnesium caught fire like a bomb and took out the whole wing and crashed. So they had horrible ratio. It's a family secret. I don't want to get into it, but my father and his brother Victor, first cousin that was raised as a brother, joined the Marines and one of these two large Swedish boys hit somebody who he shouldn't have, an officer. And they drummed him out and they had to pick. And for some reason, my father was the one that they thought they were going to get rid of. So they said, you can either quit and we're going to go after you, or you can go to a new experimental program where you will die. Because they're all, we hear, they're all crashing and that's what you need to do. So he went and my grandfather said to me, well, you know, I thought Bill would be dead. That's what I was told, that they're all crashing. And Victor, they took Guadalcanal, they took Aya, Iwo Jima. They were going to walk over Okinawa, no problem. It was just the opposite. So they were all crashing because all of these things didn't work very well. 25,000 parts, all new, no test. They put them in China. There was no way to supply the gas and the bombs. They had to fly over Burma. Then they put them in India, nothing. And then when you loaded them up to go to, the idea was they were going to go at 30,000ft at 300 miles an hour. And the Zeros couldn't get up there, or the Cates or the Oscars, all these new variations of Japanese flak guns couldn't get up there. And they would go so fast over Japan. And then somebody said, wait a minute, you're designing an unproven test BOMBER that cost $3.5 billion, twice as much as the Manhattan atomic bomb. And you want these 11 guys to get in this unproven plane and you want them to fly 1600 miles one way over nothing but ocean, and then end up over Tokyo with about 20 minutes of fuel, and then hit the bombs when the, at that level, the jet stream is 300 miles an hour, and you want that to hit the target. And then you want them to get home when all of the planes are following them. And if one of those engines gets hot, it'll blow the plane up. They said yes. So they tried it. They tried it. They took the Marianas, Tiny, Guam, Saipan, in August 1944. They immediately got the Seabees in. They made these 7,000, 8,000 foot longer, put two strips on Guam, two on Tiny and one on Saipan. And the U.S. navy brought right to the shores, napalm. And all the supplies they needed. They were secure. There were no Japanese on the island, so that there was no way they could attack. They were kind of out of range of a lot of Japanese fighters. They had a fighter escort. I mean, they had fighters there to protect them. And they started flying and it didn't work. The planes were so heavily. They. They would fall off the cliff at 10, they didn't have enough power. And they would be. They would try to get up to 30,000ft and then one of the engines would heat. And they tried to do everything. They changed the flaps, they changed the intake system. They said every 50 hours or something we have to put new sleeves in. They did everything. Finally they got it, so it was okay. And then Curtis Omay came in and said, you know, General Haskell didn't work and we have $3 billion boondoggle. I'm going to take these boys and I'm going to take them in at 7,000ft. And the engines are not going to heat up because they're not going to climb that high. And they're going to go fast. They're going to get onto that jet stream. And everybody said, but it'll just knock the bombs off target. And he said, no, no, no, no, they don't have a target. It's called Napalm area bombing. We're going to have a guy come in with a Pathfinder, make a big X. It'll be all during the night. They won't even see you coming in. The barrels of the guns will be aimed high, they won't be aimed low. You're going to come in at 350 miles an hour in that jet stream and you're going to drop £20,000 each of incendiaries and that wooden city is going to go up in smoke and they are putting all of their components and displacing them. They make a. A Raiden engine or a Oscar engine and then the flaps and then the cockpit and then the wheels in different places. They had no industrial. You know, they bombed the Mishubishi. I know. I told my dad, I think it was 1985. I want to buy a. A Nissan Mishabishi, whatever had another name, Dotson. Dotson said, I want to buy a Dawson. No, no, no, no. I bomb that factory and I again, if you do that. So we lost a bunch of good boys Victor on that raid. We lost some great gate guys. One of them crashed right into the factory. I watched him do it. He told me that. So anyway, what I'm getting at is that changed everything. That was exactly the. The engines didn't heat up, the things went fast and they burned down. They split. Saved the historical city of Kyoto, never touched, but they. And they. They dropped over 11 million leaflets saying, get out. But you know, what did that mean? How are they going to get out? How are women and children going to go up mountains in. In March? So that won the war, basically. In the Pacific, they destroyed 85% of the industrial targets of the Auslama. Are going to keep going. He said, no, I'm out of napalm.
- [47:43]
Sammy Wink
Couldn't the Japanese, because they're flying lower, be more successful in flak guns from the ground to hit them?
- [47:50]
Victor Davis Hanson
That's what everybody said. My dad said when Captain Allenby came back and he said, boys, we're not gonna. We're gonna take a lot of the guns out of this ship to. You're gonna go on the mission. But. And they said, you're going to take all the machine guns, you're going to take the central fire control apparatus out? Yes, we're going to stack it all full of napalm. And he said, well, they're going to shoot us down. We're only going to be at 7,000. He said, no, no, no, it's going to be at night and you're going to be. He said, the jet stream is not your enemy anymore. It's your friend. Because you're going to hop on it and zoom right over, and they won't even know you're there. And. And they didn't until a few. But even though they didn't really start until fall of 1944, and by July, they had run out of napalm and they'd run out of. Not always I say run out. It was hard to get because they'd used so much, but they had run out of targets. So they were mining all the harbors so that Japanese oil tankers could not go in or out of Japan. The B29s really did it. Look back, everybody's very critical because if you. There were 350 lost B29s just in that brief few months, and there was 11 guys on a crew, and if you add the people who were killed in China and India before they went to the Marianas, and then if you look at the number of accidents when you fill that plane up with so much weight. And I said to my dad, how did you take off? He said, we ran that thing so high RPMs that we felt like we were bouncing on the. And our pilot developed a technique that the whole wing used. Then he just had his foot on the brakes. He stood up in the cockpit with both feet on the brakes and had it wound up. And then he just jumped off and the thing just took off. And we got over the cliff and it went straight down. And then it went back up, up. And he said, we did that 40 times, and we saw dead B29s. And then you know what they did to those guys? They all went home, they won the war, and five years later, it's Korea. And now they have MiG 15s, not zeros. 600 miles plus 700 miles an hour, even faster. And they took those B 29s and they made them bomb Korea. And the captain of my dad's plane, he went right back there and flew another 50 missions, and he survived them. Allenby, he was a wonderful man. I met him once. And long. And the short of it, they shot down, I think, 35 B29s in Korea. They lost 330 in the Marianas alone. And as I said, if you add all of them, it was probably close to 400 of them of them. And my father said their squad of 16 planes, I think he said almost 14 or 15 were cracked up or shot down. So everybody looks at it and they criticize the plane as an experimental, it got too smart by half, too complicated and it wasn't worth the 3 billion and all the lives. But it did win the war. And I'm not even mentioning that it was the plane and the only American plane that could carry the two atomic bombs. And it did. The Lancaster bomb might have been able, but not the same range.
- [51:28]
Sammy Wink
And wasn't it the first four engine plane? And so all of our four engine following that, we had four engine planes.
- [51:35]
Victor Davis Hanson
First one was a B17 and the B24.
- [51:39]
Sammy Wink
But they were all military. Right. And so those were the precedent for civilian four engine planes.
- [51:45]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, because the, the thing about America was we weren't at war. And in the 30s we produced the most sophisticated bomber. The British wouldn't say, I know, they would get angry. B17. And then we did the DC3. That was still in use today. That's what you see in Casablanca. And every, you know, two engines, very reliable. And the thing about the Wright double Cyclone engines, once they actually flew and they started to tinker with them and they understood what was wrong with them and they got rid of the magnesium crank cases, they'd use fuel injection instead of carburetors. They started to redo the cooling that engine. They beefed it up and that became basically, if you took an airliner from 1946 to 1952, that was the engine that was on a four engine Pan Am passenger plane. And it was a good engine. It just, it was so experimental, they didn't have time to get the kinks out.
- [52:50]
Sammy Wink
Well, Victor, I want to welcome a sponsor, the University of Austin. It's definitely a new model university. You know, college is broken. Activists, professors, seminars that feel like struggle sessions, $80,000 a year to hear Hamas chants on the quad while being told America is evil in class. So what's the alternative? There's a new university in Texas that's doing the opposite. It's called the University of Austin, or uatx. Here's what really sets UATX apart and why. Students are turning down University of Chicago and transferring from Columba to a tent you attics, if I can call it that. Students are in small seminars taught by great professors. Then they read great books of Western civilization to learn about them, not to tear them down. They build actual companies on campus with mentors from a vast network of top entrepreneurs and investors. You can openly be Christian or are Jewish without apology. And when you walk into the main atrium, there's a giant American flag. U Addex admits students based on purely test scores. So that the applications take just five minutes. Oh, and another thing. Tuition is completely free forever. It's funded by American patriots who want to create the Navy seals of the mind, not another generation of credentialed activists. To apply to the University of Austin, visit youaustin.org that's u a u s t I n dot org and we'd like to thank the University of Austin for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen show. So, Victor, let's turn then to some smaller topics. There is a super flu coming across the United States. It's closing down schools and mandating masks in places. And I was wondering your thoughts on the policies for flus or the super flu itself. It's kind of scary.
- [55:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
No, I. Last year I got a flu on March 1st. I never really got over it. Collapsed lung. And so I get. I never worried about before because I'd always just say I always get a flu shot. Until I think three years ago. I'd always get a couple of weeks. I think I said earlier reaction and I always got the flu. I think a lot of it is flying if everybody's listening. Every time I got Covid or flying the flu, I was flying. And I don't know if that was the stress of three time zones changes or just being in that cramped place. I know they always said the air is filtered, but during the takeoff and landing, it isn't as much are you sitting out in the tarmac? It isn't. And you're going to different types of places. So we'll see. I have a procedure coming up and then maybe a big procedure. And I don't want to get the flu, obviously, if you have a lung problem. But my point is, I don't know what you can do. I can remember when we had the. The Asian flu, the big one in the 1967, 68. I was on the wrestling team, believe it or not. I never got sick in high school, not until I became a classicist and started studying too much. But there were, I think 12 or something weight classes varsity. And I was a freshman junior varsity. And the whole whole thing was wiped out with the flu. And I weighed 127 pounds. And the coach said to me, we don't have anybody at 165 varsity. I said, oh my gosh, I would be outweighed. And he goes, well, you know, there's a rule. You can only go up two weight classes, but nobody checks and you're 6:1. They won't know. I was. I looked like a pogo stick. I was so Skinny. So we go over to this high school. I won't mention its name, but it looked like Everybody was about 35 years old. It was one of the roughest high schools in the San Joaquin Valley. And I walk out there, and this guy looked like Ken Norton, you know, the boxer or Muhammad Ali or Sonny Liston. African American guy. That was solid muscle. And he outweighed me by £30. And I'd only been wrestling. I was not a bad wrestler, but I was a JV freshman. So the coach comes up to me and says, take pins or five and take a point or three. Law. We. They get five if they pin you, but if you. You last the distance and he can't pin you. And he said, you're. You're very good. You're kind of like a squid or an octopus. You're all lanky. So when he comes in and charged, you just put a cross face on him and stick to him like you're riding a Bronco or just don't let him do it. And so I think I was like a jellyfish. He just slammed me. And then he'd pick me up and slam me and slam me and slam me. And I'd always have part of him even talking about it makes me cough. But anyway, I. I stayed with him and I got three points. And so I was all bruised. And then it was so late at night, my father, who didn't go to these, he was working late. He drove all the way over there, and he. He walked in just at the last moment, and he saw this. And it wasn't the last match, but he sat down. He. And he knew the coach. He said, what the blank are you doing? And so that was my experience with. I don't know what you'd say. Wrestling.
- [59:11]
Sammy Wink
Wrestling?
- [59:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, wrestling. Or anything.
- [59:15]
Sammy Wink
Yeah. Well, Victor, let's turn to immigration and some of the news stories this week, and you can tell me what you want to comment on. I thought the most interesting story this week was a study that was done by Jason Richwine at the center of Immigration Studies on Welfare distributed to the Somali community in Minnesota. And he found that. He compared it to the average native Minnesotan. He said that 54% of families have food stamps to 7% of the native population. And 73% of families are on. Are. Have one member on Medicaid. And the native families, it was only 18%, 73%. And then the last statistic that he had that was very interesting was 89% of Somali households with children receive welfare. 89%. And I, I, I, that to me seems very surpri. I mean that's a lot.
- [60:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
Nobody talks about this because the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Minneapolis paper does not. Almost I read these articles online about it and almost every article has correction last yesterday's article misstated so that they are trying to cover it up. Waltz is trying to cover it up. Ellison's trying to cover up. Fry is trying to cover it up.
- [60:40]
Sammy Wink
Out.
- [60:40]
Victor Davis Hanson
But they all knew what was going on. And Ilyan Omar said, well, why should we be blamed because we're taxpayers and we got fleece too. Your community, and I'm going to say your community because you don't look at it as individuals after all. Elon, you said Somaliland for Somalis only and you're always talking about us and Somalis. So I'll use your nomenclature. They paid about 79 million in estimated taxpayers. And you can see if your data is correct. There's not many taxpayers. Right. They're on taxpayers in the sense of actual large amounts of taxes if they're on public assistance. So my point is there has been guesstimates of how much money the Somalia community gets per capita in what you're talking about and it's not even close. They are paying a fraction of the amount of money. So when she says it affects the community. Well, yeah, it does. It doesn't mean that you people poured you people, which that's your term, not mine, that you people put all this money in and then somebody remember what you said about 9, 11 and then that day something happened. That something happened. Ilya, no. 87, 88 people are accused. I don't know how many have been convicted, 60 something. And they took over a billion dollars. And that community only put in about 80 million in tax revenue. So you were not affected like everybody else. If you want to talk about collectives and she does, that's really. They did the impossible, the Biden administration. I never thought that anybody would not be a big supporter of immigration. But after he opened the southern border and Obrego Garcia and all those Lincoln Riley and all those rapes and murders and then you put the 17,000 driver's license to people who couldn't read English, basically. And what's happened to the California freeways? And then you add in all of these Middle Eastern, you just read the odd from the University of Austin, these Middle Eastern students that come over here and are pro Hamas, often violent demonstrations and anti Semitic, and then you add in the Somalis. And then Stanford Review wrote a story about Chinese student espionage. Not Too long ago. And we've had a member at Stanford University, was a member of the Neuro. Neurology. Neuro. Psychiatric, or neuro, I guess you'd call it. Neuroscience department. She was a visitor, not a permanent that. She was a colonel in the pla. So what I'm getting at is they did the impossible. They made people very angry about legal immigration. They think it's too big. There's too many foreign born. 55 million. Too high a percentage. 16%. It could only have worked if we had civic education as in the past. Assimilation, acculturation, integration. But you add that many people with DEI and no civic education. And if you didn't have Somalia fraud, or Lincoln Riley or the truck driver, you'd have to invent it. It was inevitable. Once you get across the border illegally, or once you think that you're in a protected class, then you think. I've talked to a lot of people who have been deported once in my life. They all say the same thing to me. Well, I came illegally, nobody did anything. And then they knew I was illegal living here. So I thought I could do anything. That's their attitude. Why would you get me angry at me if I leave the scene of an accident? You let me come in your country illegally, so what's the difference if I run into somebody and I take off, or I came in illegally, what's the difference? And you gave me a license and you didn't even know. Care that I didn't know English. So I decided to do a U turn in the middle of a freeway and kill three people. Or I'm down in Los Angeles and I'm just kind of buzzing along with a buzz in my head, a drink or two, and I just plow right into somebody and kill them. And I'm in Oregon. I do this. Da, da, da, da Merced, same thing. And you let me in. You let me take the test. You pass me. You knew I didn't know. So why would you get mad if I break a few rules? That's the attitude.
- [65:34]
Sammy Wink
It's horrible. And it's not only that they don't have civic education. They have people in their universities that are actively trying to destroy any sense of America and the west and the importance of the Western way of doing things for these people. So it goes much deeper.
- [65:53]
Victor Davis Hanson
And it's even worse because you, me, our listeners, when they object or they say something, there's no argument that's offered to refute it. They just say, racist, racist, nativist, nativist.
- [66:08]
Sammy Wink
Homophobe, Victor let's go ahead and take a break for our last ad or sponsors and we'll come right back and talk a little bit more about immigration. Stay with me.
- [66:21]
Victor Davis Hanson
This episode is brought to you by NBA on Prime. This Tuesday at 8:30 Eastern, it's the Emirates NBA Cup Championship game on Prime. Prime, this year's quest for the cup has been building to this, the championship.
- [66:32]
Tony Kennit
Game live from Las Vegas.
- [66:34]
Victor Davis Hanson
Not a Prime member sign up for a 30 day free trial to get started today. The Emirates NBA cup championship game this Tuesday at 8:30 Eastern only on Prime. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com amazonprime for details.
- [66:48]
Sammy Wink
This welcome back. This is Victor Davis Hansen in his own words and we are partnered with the Daily Signal. So, Victor, I have a few more topics in immigration. I just wanted to make a note for your listeners that they are going to hear arguments in the Supreme Court and I don't know exactly what date, but it is coming on birthright. So they are going to the 14th amendment.
- [67:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't think they're going to win, but I would because it's been so, it's the, it's been so long that.
- [67:26]
Sammy Wink
They'Ve allowed babies that have been born here.
- [67:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
We're English, we're not Europe. Europe, the founders inherited that attitude of what they call use solis, the rule of the soil. And in Europe it was called use sanguinis, the, the law of blood. Europe, you have to have parents that are citizens. And under English common law there was if you were born there, but here's the contention and the fourth Union Amendment, there's a key clause that says if you were born in the United States, there's some exceptions. I think it was on reservations and things like that. But if you're born in the United States and you're not subject to the jurisdiction of a of different country, and the argument is, well, two guys came in illegally, maybe they were, but they had a kid here. So how could a little infant be subject to anything other than he was on Medi Cal or something? He got, he was subject to the United States. So that's the argument. It'll be very hard to overturn. John, I think John Yu, a good friend of mine, he wrote, he wrote an article opposing the Trump administration today. He's for birthright citizenship, but it's been abused. There must be a medium ground. I mean, you can't just fly in here pregnant and then have a child and then say he's a citizen, he's an anchor baby. And now I can become a citizen because I'M a family member. That's not right. So you have to have, they have to do something differently. I don't know what it would be, but have some trial period. If you're born here in the United States, but you're born to foreign parents that are here illegally, then you, you can be a resident alien for until you're adult and see how you do and we'll watch you. And if you're a resident alien for 18 years until you're an adult and you don't commit a crime, then get citizenship. But if you get a crime, you don't, you're not a citizen. Yeah.
- [69:41]
Sammy Wink
Well, I wanted to ask you about another thing. Have you been reading recently about the drought in Iran? It is really they because Tehran, the main capital city, is fed by four different dams, but there's almost no water left in those dams. And they're talking about evacuation of the city of Tehran. You're talking millions of people. Because they can't because they send an.
- [70:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
So then this came up. An Israeli wrote me and he said this was at the middle of the Iranian rockets at Israel, right? Two or three hundred of them. And they said, you think we should hit their dams because they're experiencing a drought. And I just wrote back and said, I think that'd be a bad idea because not only it's, you know, you're punishing innocent people who don't have a vote, but more importantly, if you're a strategic Israeli planner, they'll just blame you for it. Now they can say to them, why did you give $500 billion to Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas? What were you doing? Why were you building all these rockets? Why didn't you build seven or 10 dams and have reservoirs? It's a, it's the regime's fault. It's like Gavin Newsom, you know, Gavin Newsom blew up four dams. Now he's going to blow up another one. Jack and I talked about on the Eel river or not use it, divert it from it. And he didn't build, we haven't built a mountain reservoir in California. The new malone is dam 1983.
- [71:34]
Sammy Wink
Well, Victor, we're at the end of our hour and a little bit more and we usually read some comments. And I'm reading from yours and Jackson podcast recently. Very short comment.msq275 says, I just drove the north from Northern California to eastern Oregon, western Idaho. And the situation with illegal truckers is capital letters, very serious. So thank you for that.
- [72:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
Somebody wrote me and said in your daily Signal you said that there was, were many of them were Sikh truck drivers. I said they are. And what I meant by that is what is the population of the Sikh demographic versus those who are truck drivers? And then those who are truck drivers. What are the, what's the demographic of those who either were part of the 17,000 given illegal or they're illegal aliens. And I would suggest to you that in both cases it's disproportionate to the demographic. And when you're driving as I was about six weeks ago on Pacheco Pass, 152 in California, and I'm on the way over going west and I'm going downhill to that famous 90 degree turn and I am in the left lane going 60 and trucks are in the right lane and the truck in the right lane is going 70 downhill and his tail is swinging toward me and I have nowhere to go but the wall. And then I speed up. And just as I speed up, the truck ahead of him cuts in front of me in the left lane. And they both are from India, the truckers, the company are India. And they both have an appearance that is the profile. I asked myself, whoever taught these people to drive? I've never heard of anybody in my thousand commutes to the Hoover Institution. Whoever took a semi truck at 78 miles an hour and got in the left lane on Pacheco Pass going downhill and then being squeezed with one truck on the right and one truck right ahead of you, you can't get out. And that's happened to me. Things like that have happened so often. And I took my walk today and this was one of the. This was a not a quiet road, but it was semi quiet. I just stood by my mailbox for, I don't know, five minutes. Why these trucks? And you see them and you think, well, there's a big Semite over there, it's maybe an eighth of a mile away. And then you hear them and you think, what if I cross this road and trip? They won't stop. So they're going 70 miles an hour today. 70 miles an hour. 70 miles an hour sounds like an earthquake here at the house. And nobody does anything. And I think people are getting very tired of it. I drive all the time and the truck driving in California is very dangerous. It really is. It's not like it was.
- [74:42]
Sammy Wink
It sure is. And then this comment is from Eugene Anderson, 7984. Don't take this the wrong way, Victor, but anyone with the PhD seems to me to be dumber. Than a bag of rocks. Even if they're one subject matter that they're supposed to be very intelligent in, they seem to never find common sense. The American people are not great because of our colleges. Wealthy maybe, but not great. So many of the educated upper class of America has actually destroyed America. All these educated idiots can't think their way out of a wet paper bag. But they can certainly figure out how to extricate all the cash from the working class and keep it in their pockets. I liked the last part of that. That's true.
- [75:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I think I'm on record saying that after farming for much of my life and being in academia for 50 years, it's not even close. Not even close as who can do more. The other thing about PhDs, it depends. I know that people don't want to hear that, but again, I'll insult a lot of people but. But the people that are in the sciences and math and engineering versus the people that are in studies, women's studies, gender studies, sociology, psychology, there's no, there's no comparison. Somewhere in between. Not today. But if you had a classics PhD, I can tell you that you knew the corpus of classical literature and you could read Latin and Greek almost as quickly as well as English. Not now. But if the letter writer's question is do these people have any practical sense? No, they go the reason why very quickly. They get a PhD, they get a BA, then they get a PhD. Now you're nine years old minimum. You haven't been out in the real world and then you go out in the job market and then you get a job and you've been now six year assistant professor appointment and now you've been here 15 years on a campus and you're around young people, you're not so young. And now you're doing your thesis, you're doing research, but you're still not out in the community and you're in this beautiful tree lined campus. Most of them are very nice places and you have a permanent salary. And once you get tenure, unless you're a child molester, and I was taught with a child molester, two of them at my Cal State campus. You know what happened to them? One of them was a murderer. Yes.
- [77:38]
Sammy Wink
Max Frank Victor.
- [77:41]
Victor Davis Hanson
And he was not fired immediately and he sued for his pension. Only an academic after killing somebody and using a chainsaw would be so tight to turn the rented chainsaw back and have human blood and hair on the blade. And that's how they caught him and.
- [77:59]
Sammy Wink
Strew the body parts along the 99, Millerton Lake.
- [78:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think they found the head. And then, but my point is, yes, they, and then they get tenure. And at that point, unless you're a child molester, but I take that back, you cannot be fired. And then you don't have to ever publish again. Again. They'll kind of say, oh, m. Professor Smith kind of petered out. He kind of just relied. Yeah, he did. He doesn't have to. Why? And then if he misses office hours, I, I. This question when I was a professor for 22 years was asked me a thousand times. Dear Professor Hansen, I went to Professor Smith's office. It says on the wall, one to four office hours. Hours one day a week. Supposed to have 12 hours. And he's never there. What should I do? And I said, you want me to talk to him? I won't mention your name. And I would mention it to him. He said, it's none of your business. So there's no accountability, nothing. And what would you expect if you, if you told a farmer this? If you get into farming, You're going to get a guaranteed salary and you can never go broke for six years. All you have to do is six years. And then once we give you farmer tenure, all your crops are guaranteed. No matter what happens, you always get the same amount of profit. And there's not going to be anybody to monitor whether you get up or not. You can get up at noon, and if you don't plow, you don't spring tooth, you don't spray, it's a big deal. You missed a class here. That's what we're going to say. What would you think the farmer would be like?
- [79:51]
Sammy Wink
He wouldn't produce anything. That's one farmer.
- [79:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
He would fit that nice letter's description, that they have no common sense.
- [79:59]
Sammy Wink
No common sense.
- [80:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
You tell a farmer, you don't have anything unless you're out there, you got the flu, you keep working. You cut your wrist open, get it stitched and get going. You, you don't have enough money to get that weld. You better learn how to weld. That's what farming is. And these guys are the toughest, smartest people in the world, as are mechanics, welders. He's right about that.
- [80:21]
Sammy Wink
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Victor, we need to go. So thank you to the audience for joining us and thank you, Victor, for all your wisdom today.
- [80:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you, everybody.
- [80:29]
Sammy Wink
Please come join us again for further shows of further episodes of Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. This is Sammy Wink and Victor Davis Hanson Hansen, and we're signing off.
- [80:39]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen. Com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.