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The Constitution, The COVID-19, The Mowers And The ‘Nanny State’

One group of Americans is marching and shouting in protest against perceived excesses of the “nanny state.” My rantings against the “nanny state” arouse the neighbors’ dogs, cats and chickens, a quarter-mile distant from my yard, where the rantings take place. The anti-nannies focus on too-strict lockdown terms intended to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. My screamathon focuses on my riding lawnmowers. Both sets of protests have two things in common: They invoke the Constitution, and they require yelling, not just speaking. The anti-lockdown protesters ...

Storytellers Of This Pandemic

At the beginning of each semester at Kent State, where I teach in the journalism school, I make a point of opening my arms wide and saying to students, “Welcome to your adulthood.” The frequency of alarmed faces affirms both my suspicions and my intentions. I teach mostly juniors and seniors, and so they’re already in their early 20s. They’re still full-time students, and most of them are also holding down one or two hourly wage jobs to be able to afford school and housing. So, in some ways, they already know what it feels like to be out in the world and working hard. But ...

Today’s And Yesteryear’s Americans

Dr. Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a military historian and a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He has written two articles relevant to today’s society. Last October he published, “Members of Previous Generations Now Seem Like Giants,” and he recently wrote, “Is America a Roaring Giant or Crying Baby?” In the first article, Hanson starts with some observations and questions regarding the greatness of previous generations compared with today’s Americans. He asks: “Does anyone ...

Frank Advice From A Close Friend

There was, I can testify, a lot more drinking in Washington, D.C., before May 15, 1978. That was the date, through the grace of God, that I had my last drink of beer or booze or wine. Previously, I had given up drinking at different times, for Lent or to lose weight (a waist is a terrible thing to mind), always to return for another round. But what changed my ways — beyond a miserable hangover while playing hours of duck, duck, goose with a dozen happy kids at my daughter Amy’s sixth birthday party — was the eloquent example of my very close friend and favorite ex-drinking ...

Why People Will Leave, And Stay In, Big Cities

The coronavirus has rearranged American life. Mask wearing and social distancing is still required in the stores, gyms and restaurants now open, or set to be, across the nation. But what about the big, crowded cities? New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco and, of course, New York have become the virus hotspots mainly because they put people in close quarters with other breathing people. That’s how infection spreads. In hard-hit New York City, residents of means grabbed their kids and left for second homes or moved in with family outside town. Though stay-at-home orders have done a ...

Certain Victor In The Pandemic War

“War is the health of the state,” wrote the progressive Randolph Bourne during the First World War, after which he succumbed to the Spanish flu. America’s war on the coronavirus pandemic promises to be no exception to the axiom. However long this war requires, the gargantuan state will almost surely emerge triumphant. Currently, the major expenditures of the U.S. government, as well as a growing share of total federal spending, are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. None of these programs will be curtailed or reduced this year or next. And if the Democrats win in ...