Steyn & VDH: The Lighthouse and the Fog Horn

UPDATED

Complacency and Laziness Leads to the End of Western Civilization...

There are two writers that I admire greatly and if they are not favorites of yours they really ought to be. Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson are two of the most prolific and well respected opinion columnists of our day.

Steyn, who playfully refers to himself as the one-man global content provider, is seemingly everywhere these days. He writes for numerous newpapers all over the world and shows up on countless talk radio shows as well as TV interviews and CSPAN. He is known for his sharp wit and the ablilty to cut to the essence of a topic with a few turns of a phrase. He makes me laugh out loud.

Hanson is a renown historian - particularly war history - and has a knack for clarifying history as it is being made. Making sense of current events in a larger historical context is not an easy thing to do, but Hanson, making use of his extensive knowledge of history and understanding of basic human nature, puts into focus the world of today and what it all means. Case in point: click here to read a short article and see how VDH can use history to make some sense of today's world. Hanson can also be read in numerous online newspapers, and seen on CSPAN and other TV outlets.

Both these men weave their way into a common theme more often than not: The Demise of Western Civilization. Each in his own way chronicles how rich, successful nations/empires have fallen (or are falling) by succumbing to their own complacency. Add in stupidity, laziness and intolerance and you have the recipe for for the end of this great American experiment with human freedom.

Hanson and Steyn both have a reverence for the American experiment and are like rhetorical fog horns trying to warn us of the impending danger in the shallows. Steyn, a Canadian now living in New Hamshire, speaks in defense of his adopted country with a passion that is frankly inspiring. Hanson, who is offically a Democrat has nothing but disdain for the modern leftist Democrats in Washington who are willing to sacrifice America's role on the world stage to regain their political power. He knows full well that these lefists want to an end to the United States as we know it, prefering a more European-like social/political structure.

Like mystics holding a crystal ball that can see both into the past and into the future, Steyn and Hanson are reading to us the proverbial writing on the wall. I would urge everyone to read everything you can by these two men. Each in his own way will describe how America really is a force for good in the world. They will clearly point out how the great American experiment in freedom and democracy is being torn asunder. We ignore their warnings at our own peril.



CW