Hayward, Hanson and Steyn all together in one evening!

Bookworm had the privilege of attending an event in San Francisco where the speakers were Steven Hayward, Victor Davis Hanson, and Mark Steyn! Steyn poked fun at California.

Silly, yes, but no sillier than the coercive regulations that . . . I was going to say “drive California,” but that’s wrong. These regulations drive nothing. Instead, they bring California to a grinding halt. No wonder that Californians are fleeing the state. Of course, those who flee are too . . . dare I say stupid? . . . yes, stupid to realize that California is failing because of the Leftist politics that control the state. That’s why, when they move to Colorado or Texas, both of which were/are prosperous because government kept its grubby, greedy, all-powerful hands mostly to itself, they bring their damn, locust-like California politics with them. The result is a blue Colorado and a Texas election in which hard Left O’Beto managed to make a decent showing against Ted Cruz.

...After reminding us that California’s policies and instincts, when seen from 30,000 feet, are risible at best, Steyn got serious. He told us that VDH is correct that California’s real problem is that it is indeed a bifurcated society. This bifurcation shows up in the fact that the rule of law is gone. Instead, there is a class of people to whom the law does not apply, while everyone else in the state is hyper-regulated.

...But even as TSA workers are stopping granny’s pie, our government cannot stop 70,000 Latin American caravanners from storming our border. Heck, the latter are so confident of their welcome they’re suing us before they’ve even arrived, causing Steyn to say, “You can’t tell me they’re not eager to assimilate!”

...Meanwhile, even as our bureaucracy has abandoned the southern border, over which millions of illegals are flowing, it’s spending crazy sums of money and putting huge effort into policing the northern border, which has an average crossing rate in New Hampshire of about two people per hour. Steyn described crossing the border with his children around Easter, when his son was in happy possession of a Kinder Egg, a European treat that has chocolate on the outside and a toy in the middle. It turns out that, when you cross the border from Canada to the U.S. it’s no longer a toy. It is, instead, a “non-nutritive embed.” I won’t butcher Steyn’s funny, depressing story by trying to narrate it myself. Here’s how he told it at his blog:

I’d smuggle in a dirty nuke before I’d risk another Kinder egg in the car. Three Easters ago, the United States Government gave me a delightful seasonal gift of a Department of Homeland Security “Custody Receipt for Seized Property and Evidence”. Late the previous night, crossing the self-same Quebec/Vermont border post, my children had had two boxes of “Kinder Eggs” (“Est. Dom. Value $7.50″) confiscated by Customs & Border Protection.

Don’t worry, it’s for their own safety. Hitherto, I had had no idea that the United States is the only nation on the planet (well, okay, excepting North Korea and Saudi Arabia and one or two others) to ban Kinder Eggs.

What’s not in the above blog post is the fact that, when Steyn’s son suggested letting the Customs agent have the chocolate, while the boy took the toy, the Customs agent got quite huffy about the son “disrespecting the process.” Steyn suddenly worried that his son was two answers away from Gitmo.

...In 1939, said Steyn, the average American had an 8th grade education. Those marginally-educated Americans — by modern standards — weathered the Depression, won WWII, and then drove America to become the greatest, richest country in the history of the world. Now, the average American goes through to “the 28th grade” but knows, and can do, less and less. The problem, of course, is that in those 1st eight years of our endless education, and extended adolescence process, they learned nothing. That addition 20 years don’t change that.

The ignorance that results from American education means we’re perpetually living in the Year Zero. Nobody knows history. It is, instead, a series of catch phrases that Leftists use to demonize people. As Steyn reminded us, just a couple of weeks ago, astronaut Scott Kelly, a man of great accomplishment, quoted Churchill’s “in victory, magnanimity” saying. Kelly was immediately lambasted because Churchill is now the avatar for racism and imperialism. Said Steyn, “In an age when everyone is literally Hitler, even Churchill is literally Hitler.” Thank goodness we laughed, because crying was the only alternative.

...Regarding post-election counts and recounts that, in the past 18 years at least, invariably result in surprise Democrat victories, Hanson said that the philosophy behind these late counts is that the all-knowing states know what good voters meant to do. It’s inconceivable that voters could have meant to support the -isms that so offend the Left: racism, sexism, homophobia, transgenderism, etc. This situation — in which the government kindly interprets your vote for you — puts us squarely in a post-bureaucratic world (which, after a night’s sleep, I would call a “post-bureaucratic dystopia”). A noble government, divining the true intent behind voters -isms, ensures that social justice carries the day for the good of all. Hanson added the sad truth that making the preceding argument at any American university today would get him fired.

Hanson also reiterated Steyn’s point that conservatives always lose the argument before they begin because they believe that they first must defend against the name-calling before reaching the main point. And because the Left defines terms, it’s impossible to defend against the assertion that you, as a conservative, are a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, white supremacist.

...The three men looked at whether America’s education system can or will change. One thing that hints at a possible systemic collapse is student loan debt, which now totals $1,500,000,000, with tuition ascending at a rate that exceeds inflation. Young Americans are destroying their financial futures so that they can spend six years getting degrees that will not lead to financially remunerative jobs. Aside from their innate Leftism, academics can keep students on this disastrous trajectory only by teaching them that it’s bad to get married, have babies, start businesses, or hold jobs that generate useful goods and services.

Hanson noted that, when he began his academic career, his local state college had no classes with the word “studies” in their name. Now, there are over 70. He characterizes “studies” classes as therapeutic exercises that neither teaching students facts nor critical thinking. Were it up to him, he would cut in half the number of students going to college. Steyn said he would cut the number by 80%. He also suggested that we should put Mrs. Bernie Sanders in charge of America’s colleges, because she managed within three years to wipe out completely the one college that she headed in Vermont.

Finally, all three men stated that our new hard Left social media technological overlords are dangerous. Trust busting seemed to be something of which they approved, with one of them (Hanson?) saying that Google is far more dangerous than big oil was more than 100 years ago, because big oil controlled only a product, while Google controls human knowledge.

One of the men pointed out that the tech companies have become more powerful than many governments. At which point someone (Steyn? Hayward?) said that he can imagine a poker game in Hell, with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot gathered around the table, when one of them exclaims, “We could have had true world domination if only we’d figured out that you just need to publish other people’s cat pictures.”

Read more here.