The Patriot Post® · Thursday Opinion


https://patriotpost.us/articles/48639-thursday-opinion-2017-04-20

Today’s Editors’ Choice

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Opinion in Brief

Victor Davis Hanson: “Shortly after the 2008 election, President Obama’s soon-to-be chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, infamously declared, ‘You never let a serious crisis go to waste.’ … [I]n Alice in Wonderland fashion, just as drilling was supposedly no cure for oil shortages, building reservoirs was no remedy for water scarcity. In the same manner, neglecting the maintenance and building of roads in California created a transportation crisis. Until recently, the preferred solution to the state’s road mayhem and gridlock wasn’t more freeway construction but instead high-speed rail — as if substandard streets and highways would force millions of frustrated drivers to use expensive state-owned mass transit. These days, shortages of credit, water, oil or adequate roads are no longer seen as age-old challenges to a tragic human existence. Instead of overcoming them with courage, ingenuity, technology and scientific breakthroughs, they are seen as existential ‘teachable moments.’ In other words, crises are not all bad — if they lead the public to more progressive government.”