Today’s Editors’ Choice

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Old German Problem
• Cal Thomas: What Price Separation From Europe?
• Tony Perkins: Deadliest Cash: Planned Parenthood Reels in Record Profit

To view all of today’s opinion, click here.

Opinion in Brief

Victor Davis Hanson: “Since 1989, Germany has worked hard on its post-unification image as a largely pacifistic country. It is eager to teach other nations how to conduct themselves peacefully and to pursue shared global goals such as reducing global warming or opening national borders to the world’s refugees. Implicit in Germany’s utopian message is that postmodern Germans know best what not to do — given their terrible 20th century past, with the aggressions of imperial Germany and later the savagery and Holocaust perpetuated by Hitler’s Third Reich. Yet being guilt-ridden does not equate to being humble (never a German strong suit). The same conceit of an ethnically, linguistically and culturally uniform state that drew Germany into conflict with the U.S. (whose late entry into both World War I and World War II helped ensure German defeats) has never quite disappeared. Instead, German condescension merely has been updated. … Yet if German haughtiness works on a dependent Europe, it certainly does not always impress a wary America. The United States is still far larger, wealthier and more powerful, just as it was in 1918, 1945 and 1989. It does not necessarily listen to German sanctimoniousness on climate change, immigration, trade or the occasional need for the use of force. Instead, America more or less does what it believes to be in the best interests of itself and its allies. Germans find such American independence cowboyish and insubordinate — and believe they can teach Americans about the dangers of such misplaced chauvinism. Americans usually ignore these weary sermons. Instead, many of them believe that whenever Germany sticks to worrying only about Germany, the world is a far safer place — both now and in the past.”