How much longer does the United States have as a country? One thousand years from now, how will future historians judge us?

Hanson: We are doing very well at over 200 years, and more if we count colonial America. Aren’t we the longest democracy in continuous existence? I will say at least another 200, longer if we solve this dichotomy between a multiracial society (good) and a multicultural society (very bad). It takes generations to build a multi-ethnic state allied to common values and ties, and just weeks for some firebrand to tear it all down. Watch also our elite in politics, letters, universities, and the media. Do they argue for public service and sacrifice, and talk unabashaedly about honor and shame or do they descend into metaphor, allegory, sarcasm, irony, and nihilism? Some days the op-eds of the New York Times seem right out of late Roman literature with their smug dismissal of the hoi polloi, and the in-the-know uncovering of various machinations and conspiracies by the bogeymen of the military, church, or corporation. On the right, watch the concentration of vertically integrated concerns that mimic big government and have no loyalty other than to its own profit-mad elite. We have some symptoms of decline, but have a long slide to enjoy, primarily because of the wonderful work of our parents and grandparents, and a constitution and 200 years of allied democratic exegesis to guide us.

The end of history, as an historical theory, has been a notion long debated since Prof. Francis Fukuyama propounded the theory in “The End of History?” (1989).  In any event, the theory, that we are living in a post-historical world where liberalism no longer has any competing ideology to resolve the contradictions of modern society, has much to recommend it. In your view, and applying the theory to today's situation, does the rise of Islamo-Fascism as an ideology impact the post-historical world to such an extent that drives us back into the arms of history?

Hanson: I wrote about this a lot, and particularly in an issue of City Journal in the archives “Why History Has No End”. Fukuyama would say in defense that Islamicism is doomed since there is no alternative to consumer capitalism under the aegis of democracy, hence the Chinese turn about. I tend to differ, appreciating his thesis and insights nonetheless. Human nature is the barometer I look to, not the state or political structure. And as long as we are governed by envy, pride, and honor, there will come and go magnetic leaders who will lie to the masses that solution A or plan B can always increase their wealth, reputation, or happiness at little cost and that enemy a, b, or c is the stumbling block, and therefore, presto, do the following:…

I believe history is cyclical rather than linear. But Fukuyama is surely right in one sense. Every time the Arab Street is said to be ready to mount its steed and with scimitar race off to jihad, we see instead increased cell phone sales, more internet cafes, and more DVDs sold. Interesting time these, perhaps better seen as a  short-term/long-term paradox: for the next 100 years getting to Fukuyama’s Lotus land where men without chests lounge around in boredom is going to be pretty rocky.

The only ones that can prevent an impending world war may be moderate Muslims. I would appreciate your thoughts on the potential for a wider struggle against radical Islam regarding these players:  Russia, China—neither of whom would give quarter to terrorists like the US has—and moderate Muslims, who seem to say nothing.  What do you believe the possibility is of a truly “global” war on Islamofascism?

Hanson: Let us look at the world strategically for a second from the eyes of a radical fundamentalist: India is out of bounds, since its nukes and Hindus don’t take lightly to Muslim terrorism; Islamisicsts don’t do well in Chinese provinces, and note the rhetoric about American oil hegemony doesn’t apply to China’s massive entry into the Gulf—a billion nuclear Chinese without a Constitution might just do something stupid if their tankers were attacked. And then there is Japan and Europe who are waking up. And of course the US is not the same country as it was under Bill Clinton in the pre-9-11 days. No need to mention Russia on the issue. So the world does not look good for bin Laden. Even his backyard is shrinking: Afghanistan gone; Iraq going; Turkey off limits; Iran under scrutiny, and reform is elsewhere in the air. We of course wish dramatic results. But this is a weird way of war waged in the shadows as much as on the battlefield; ever so slowly a consensus is emerging that Dark Age Islamicism is failing and the jihadist is a liability that just isn’t worth it for most Middle East regimes. If we keep up the pressure we can crack it all wide open, and in 2-3 years bin Laden’s fascism will be about as viable as Nasser’s Pan-Arabism and all those silly “united Arab republics” he tried to create.

The scientist and thinker René Dubos set forth this valid prophetic theory: Civilizations commonly die from the excessive development of certain characteristics which had at first contributed to their success. Given your vast knowledge and understanding of geopolitical history through the ages, I was wondering if you could draw any parallels between this theory and some historically eminent civilizations.

Hanson: This is a very Greek idea, a subtext in Herodotus and the Attic Orators and more explicit in Tacitus, Juvenal, and Livy and Horace as well. Others have written of the cultural contradictions of capitalism, and of course the German nihilists---Spengler, Hegel, Nietzsche—had seen something scary in Western freedom and materialism as well. In short, the idea from classical times was that the notion of a free society, enriched by free economic activity and personal expression, would thus have the tools to craft a prosperous and humane culture, as thousands of agendas were let loose to build the common good. But as the body politic aged, generations would be too far away from the requisites of sacrifices and hard work and see only the dividends, thinking them somehow their birthright or at least not connected with the original struggle and sacrifice. And the necessary coercives—religion, family, shame of community and kin—that kept our passions under check, would be ridiculed as “unliberating” and “restrictive”, a fatal development in a new world where there was no physical work to exhaust us, no wars and depression to keep us grateful for a brief prosperous peace, and no god to make us worry about our souls in the next world. The ancients fought the Epicureans on these grounds in the same manner as some atheistic libertarians find themselves under assault for their similar embrace of an all-powerful god, Reason.

The key to all this? The ability of prosperous nations—the US in the 1890s or 1950s, Rome in the 100s AD, Europe between Waterloo and the Somme—to find great leaders and accept protocols that still demand of their citizenry responsibility and maturity. We are doing much better since 9-11, but I still think deficit annual spending, trade imbalances, a weak currency, and soaring debt must be addressed for a prosperous society awash in new cars, homes, travel, and clothes. At some point someone can say, “you’re doing great, just either cut spending or fund as you go for a while until you have paid what you owe.” The problem is not just a matter of “tax cuts for the rich” since with sales, payroll, property, state, and federal taxes today, one easily pays 60% of income to government, but run-away entitlements and non-essential expenditures. I got a great education in a two-room Kindergarten building as one of about 5 white kids among 40 Mexican-Americans, all recent immigrants—no class size mandates, no sex education, no drug education, no bilingual education, no La Raza/Chicano studies, no teacher aide, no special esteem building, no videos, DVDs, teacher packets, in short no nothing but recitation of music, poetry, and song as relish each day to writing and reading. We can be saved when we wake up and say, “The problem is not spending too little, but often spending too much.”

I have encountered more and more people on both the Left and the Right who are completely obsessed with weird conspiracy theories. How do you make sense of these disturbing pre-occupations?

Hanson: And many of them are educated as well, though now we are not talking of the Birch Society and fluoride in our water, but Michael Moore and his belief in secret plots to save the bin Ladens. Partly, it is the flight from reason that we see in the artificial and made–up world of Hollywood and television. Partly, it is the secular response to an absence of faith or religion—humans must cling at times to something that requires belief. And partly, it is the Left’s (like the Right of the 1950’s) paranoia that the people have left them behind and no longer listen to their agenda, hence a “reason” or, better yet, a “plot” must exist somewhere to explain the inexplicable: why normal folks simply don’t like what the modern Left has become and vote it out whenever possible.

On what sources of information do you base your insights on developments in Iraq and Afghanistan? From your writings, I assume that you do not rely exclusively on the mainstream television media sources. What Websites, blogs, etc. do you most highly recommend? Also, do you have direct contact with some of the soldiers and commanders in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Hanson: Well, I am worried that I have quit reading Latin and Greek much like I used to for an hour or so a day. I don’t have time lately to do that if I try to keep up with current events. I receive many hundreds of email a week, many from soldiers in the field, returning veterans, and those in the defense and intelligence agencies. That helps. I try to read foreign newspapers on-line, especially the translated Arab journals and papers. I read scholarly journals like Foreign Affairs or Commentary a great deal and review about a book a week for various places. I try to look at the blogs, both Left and Right, and find fascinating things on Little Green Footballs or Real Clear Politics. I also speak or visit on occasion Quantico, the Army War College, the Air Force Academy, or other military educational institutions and try to listen to officers—and note that those of rank between Colonel and below are often more optimistic about Iraq than one-star and above. So I try to be methodical about it and devote, at least until the war is over, about 2-3 hours a day to reading contemporary news. And I think it is very valuable to listen to and read edged news—NPR vs. Rush Limbaugh, CBS News vs. Fox, the Nation vs. National Review, or the Washington Times vs. the New York Times—to see how partisans frame their arguments and address criticism. Oh, and I note in passing the Rush or Fox are much more honest about their sympathies than NPR and CBS News, so I appreciate candor rather than aristocratic dissimulation.

I wonder if you have any opinions or suggestions or favorite old children’s books that might be appropriate Christmas gifts. 

Hanson: My two favorites are The Wind in the Willows and The Hobbit. Both are well-written and through their author’s lives capture some of the flavor of an England lost that we should all cherish and learn from

In Op-Ed for the New York Times (Nov. 17, 2004), I criticism of the Fallujah operation in “A Victory, But Little is Gained” by Daryl G. Press and Benjamin Valentino. They say “While major operations like the attack on Fallujah create the appearance of progress, over the last 60 years major powers have learned repeatedly that there is virtually no connection between seizing territory and defeating an insurgency. Insurgents do not seek victory on the battlefield.” What do you think of this assessment?

Hanson:

1.  Tell that to Fidel Castro when he took Havana or the Viet Cong when Saigon fell. Insurgents at some point must take and hold territory, and when they can’t they begin to lose. Had Saddam been free to invade Kurdistan, he could have defeated the insurgents, as he had done earlier in the past.

2.  The effort was not just to take back Fallujah but to destroy an accessible nexus of killers, material, and communications.

3.  Listen not to what New York Times op-ed writers profess, but what insurgent communiqués said after Fallujah—blaming Muslims for their own defeat.

4.  Insurgents count on either support or passivity of the local populace, who in turn gauge their loyalties on perceived success, since they always wish to be first on the winning side. Thus clearing out Fallujah will bring intelligence gains as some think “this is the beginning of the end and it is now time to join the victors”; in contrast, ceding large chunks to the enemy lends the impression that we will not or cannot go where we please—sending the message to Iraqis that we are losing and that it is a dangerous thing to cross the terrorists who have taken over an entire city.

How will the UN’s oil-for-food fiasco and the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands affect the citizens of "Old Europe" with regard to the war on terror and growing anti-Semitism?

Hanson: I am not quite sure yet, but at least we’re watching the strangest phenomena of our times. On some days, the Europeans remind me of Tolkien’s Ents—half-asleep in their retreat from the world, suddenly enraged by what their complacency has created, and now about to go on the offensive. But on other days, I see the same old story: let the Muslims terrorize Jews as a surrogate way of expressing the historic anti-Semitism; appease Islamic fascists in hopes that they won’t cut throats or bomb; coddle fascists abroad to get good oil deals and arms sales; and use the Arabs and the Islamic extremists in their midst to triangulate against the United States, out of envy and jealousy. So, we will watch it all play out.

But I suspect the Islamicists are pushing to see how far they can go in Europe: bomb, step back and cry racism or anti-Muslim prejudice; bomb some more, step back and allege victimhood—ad nauseam. It is a sort of insidious process designed to enervate the Europeans and basically allow enclaves of many million to enjoy Western-style luxury, but in some weird deviant fashion as Islamic fundamentalists. Historically speaking, what is truly ridiculous is that these thousands of radical Muslims flock to a hated West; live among hated Western cell phones, medicine, and material goods; and then not only hate themselves for doing so, but hate their hosts for inviting them in—and wish to embrace precisely those protocols whose ultimate logic would destroy the very reason why they arrived in the first place. We are dealing on both sides with some pretty sick puppies.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times argued that, “While major operations like the attack on Fallujah create the appearance of progress, over the last 60 years major powers have learned repeatedly that there is virtually no connection between seizing territory and defeating an insurgency. Insurgents do not seek victory on the battlefield.” What do you think of this assessment?

Hanson:

1) Tell that to Fidel Castro when he took Havana or the Viet Cong when Saigon fell. Insurgents as some point must take and hold territory, and when they can’t they begin to lose. Had Saddam been free to invade Kurdistan, he could have defeated the insurgents, as he had done earlier in the past.

2) The effort was not just to take back Fallujah, but to destroy an accessible nexus of killers, material, and communications.

3) Listen not to what New York Times op-ed writers profess, but what insurgent communiqués said after Fallujah—blaming Muslims for their own defeat.

4) Insurgents count on either support or passivity of the local populace, who in turn gauge their loyalties on perceived success, since they always wish to be first on the winning side. Clearing out Fallujah will bring intelligence gains as locals begin to think, This is the beginning of the end, it’s time to join the victors. In contrast, ceding large chunks to the enemy leads to the impression that we will not or cannot go where we please—sending the message to Iraqis that we are losing and that it is a dangerous thing to cross the terrorists who have taken over an entire city.

Do you believe the Judeo-Christian tradition puts a high value on the individual—the right of that person to have an opinion, and be fairly represented in the free marketplace of ideas—in a way other religions do not?

Hanson: I do. And I say that not just from what is written in the New and Old Testaments, but from the strange nexus that took place in the 2^nd to 4^th centuries between classicism and Christianity, when the Church sought out rational methods of exegesis borrowed from the Greek and Roman tradition to bolster the idea of faith. So early on Christianity was in the arena of ideas, and was attacked from left and right and had to defend itself using argumentation as well as faith. The result is a confident religion that does not issue fatwas of death when a writer insults Jesus Christ nor believes that one should face criminal penalties for converting to Islam. An Enlightenment and Reformation would do wonders for Islam and make it compatible with the modern world; but the problem is that any who attempt such a thing would face a 15^th century sort of resistance. How Christianity found itself at the heart of Greco-Roman reason, rather than an impediment to it, is one of most amazing developments and legacies of Western Civilization.

While many West-bashing American leftists—smug Hollywood, hand-wringing NPR, etc.—certainly deserve some censure, do you ever fear that a backlash from an equally shrill and mean-spirited conservatism might be the result? I'm not thinking of Bush or the many thoughtful conservative writers we hear from, but the Rush Limbaughs and Gordon Liddys who generally confuse liberalism with leftism (as do leftists themselves, in fact). It is liberalism, which has given us civil rights, freedom for women, modern democracy, belief in the rule of law, and indeed, a role for government in creating all of this. Could any of these traditions be threatened, do you think?

I think most Americans profess an allegiance to what I would call 19th-century classical liberalism—freedom of the individual, consensual government, and free markets. At various times in our history, each of our two political parties has, for political considerations of the moment, forsaken that belief. There was a time, for example, when Republicans in the 1950s and 1960s did not do enough to ensure civil rights or mandate national equal opportunity. Today, however, many self-proclaimed Democrats seem to believe that government mandated equality is to be privileged over freedom and liberty-and want a large enough central government to enforce such an agenda, even if it means using the courts to overturn popular referenda.

I think our shared confusion results from the Orwellian nature of the direction of liberalism today toward what I would illiberalism—university speech codes that suppress free expression, political correctness that discourages honest debate and language, de facto racial quotas that pre-select job candidates, hierarchical and aristocratic media like the New York Times, National Public Radio and CBS News that have abandoned their disinterested stance of the past, and yet do not tap into grass-roots, populist audiences to the same degree as Fox News, the Drudge Report, blogging and talk radio. How odd that the US military has more liberals than the university does conservatives, or a general who voted for Kerry would have less problems than an Ivy-League President who was a Bush supporter. The emergence of a George Soros, Teresa Kerry, or Michael Moore—all wealthy, all condescending, and at times illiberal in their loose disparagement—calling themselves "liberals" was no surprise.

Modern liberals must return to their prior allegiance to freedom and then use mechanisms other than government coercion and biased media to eliminate poverty, want, or other pathologies. They must again accept the unchanging nature of man, rather than believing that as self-appointed angels they can, with enough government money and power, alter human nature itself. So let them relearn a little humility, accept the tragic nature of our brief lives, and do not equate not being perfect with not being good.

Are you familiar with the work of Bat Ye’or and the issue of Dhimmitude, as well as her more recent research into the issue of Eurabia? I tend to be somewhat skeptical of ‘conspiracy’ theories (not that her views on Eurabia are conspiratorial in the classic sense), but it does suggest some rather worrying possibilities with regard to European alliances with Arab causes (and personalities) and the long term implications this has for American-European relations.

Hanson: Yes, I am familiar with her work. She is not a conspiracist at all, but an empiricist, whose work is based on observation, facts, and logic: look at the demography of Europe; look at the history of Christians living under Muslims (going to Church in Saudi Arabia is not the same as worshipping in a mosque in Madrid); and read not what Western elites say about Muslim clerics, but what Muslim clerics themselves say. So, yes, she is a scholar and should not be dismissed because her views bother us because they are largely insightful. Europe has a gut-check time coming very soon as it ponders Islamic populations in its own borders, the admission of Turkey into the EU (in some ways very good for the US, a disaster for Europe), and nuclear missile capability of Iran. We shall see whether it reawakens or not.

The behavior of the left suggests to me a 2^nd American Civil War by 2020 if not sooner, although it may not be as violent as the first Civil War. Much of this passion and anger has been fueled by the behavior of the old media with its obvious disdain of President Bush or conservative ideology. As you know, the American public is much more intelligent than any old media outlets will ever give them credit for.  What are your anticipations for these issues over the next 20 years? What trends do you envision in the 21^st century?

Hanson: I disagree. The radical left has no support. Most Americans despise it. The military hates it. If anything it is more likely that in the future things like the NY Times and CBS News, as well as the whole notion of Hollywood, will be changed or gone. Matt Drudge’s computer has more readers each day than many of the thousands in the big newspapers. And most Americans are growing up without a clue who Peter Jennings is. Oliver Stone is a bad joke; who cares about Sean Penn? More and more Americans watch cable news, listen to talk radio, surf the Internet, and don’t care a bit for the NY Review of Books or Harper’s. Professors, trial lawyers, unions, and the cultural elite have little resonance with the public. So I see instead a gradual decline in what we know as utopian liberalism. World government, socialism, and pacifism turn most off and have failed miserably—just look at the UN in all its fiscal malfeasance, its cowardice, and its amorality, and see what international bodies end up like when the majority will hinges on the lowest common denominator like an Iran or Syria.

How will the U.N. Oil-for-Food fiasco and the brutal murder of Van Gogh in the Netherlands affect the citizens of "Old Europe" in regards to the war on terror and growing anti Semitism in those countries?

Hanson: I am not quite sure yet, but at least we are watching the strangest phenomena of our times. On some days, the Euros remind me of Tolkien’s Ents—half-asleep in their retreat from the world, suddenly enraged by what their complacency has created, and now about to go on the offensive. But on other days, I see the same old, same old: let the Muslims terrorize Jews as a surrogate way of expressing the historic anti-Semitism; appease Islamic fascists in hopes that they won’t cut throats or bomb; coddle fascists abroad to get good oil deals and arms sales; and use the Arabs and the Islamic extremists in their midst to triangulate against the United States, out of envy and jealousy. So, we will watch it all play out. But I suspect the Islamicists are pushing to see how far they can go in Europe: bomb, step back and cry racism or anti-Muslim prejudice; bomb some more, step back and allege victimhood—ad nauseam. It is a sort of insidious process designed to enervate the Europeans and basically allow enclaves of many million to enjoy Western style luxury, but in some weird deviant fashion as Islamic fundamentalists. Historically speaking, what is truly ridiculous is that these thousands of radical Muslims flock to a hated West; live among hated Western cell phones, medicine, and material goods; and then not only hate themselves for doing so, but hate their hosts for inviting them in—and wish to embrace precisely those protocols whose ultimate logic would destroy the very reason why they arrived in the first place. So we are dealing on both sides with some pretty sick puppies.

In your essay, "Brace Yourself," you refer to yourself as a Democrat. Did I read this wrongly? If it is so, could you set out in 3 or 4 short concepts, what it is you hold dear or vouch for as a Democrat?

Hanson: Well, I am still registered as a Democrat and on occasion vote for local Democrats—although I could never support national candidates such as Gore or Kerry, much less Senators like Daschle or Kennedy, or have anything to do with a Michael Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, George Soros or the other celebs and elites who find common cause with Democrats these days. In any case, here are your 3-4 reasons:

(1) Habit and tradition. All my family was Democratic. I live in the same house that my great-great grandmother built and it is haunted by the old farmer-populist ghosts. So lethargy and stasis count for a lot. I grew up with lectures not just about FDR, but even William Jennings Bryan, whose Cross of Gold Speech my grandmother memorized and recited well into her 80s.

(2) Memory and romance. I also grew up on the nobility of Harry Truman and JFK. My father was born on a dairy farm nearby ours here, and a WWII vet who used to praise the two to the skies—muscular Democrats who believed in a strong US and were neither left-ring radicals nor aristocratic country-clubbers. So I still am again in a time warp, as you see. My dad was a big fan of JFK’s “pay any price” speech—however caricatured that later was during Vietnam.

(3) There is always a need for a Democratic voice to question and keep honest the more fortunate; that is why a two-party system is necessary. From 1980-85 I never netted more than $10,000 despite working 70-hour weeks on the tractor. I saw my grandfather ship raisins and fruit east and make nothing, and occasionally receive visits from shippers, packers, and brokers who were millionaires. And the resulting unease was not just envy of their riches, but puzzlement about why a little more could not come the farmers’ way.

In my teens, I noticed that the attitude of so many brokers was that their profit was their birthright, and devotion to the soil was not proof of a love of agriculture or rural values, but rather of my grandfather’s own stupidity. I never got over that. We all need to remember that in a competitive society some just won’t make it and need some consideration and help; and it should be done without waste, fraud, or the destruction of incentive. The Democrats used to wish to give an equality of opportunity rather than the present mantra of government-enforced result. So their input is still vital. I see some wealthy Republicans whom I like and respect a great deal, but I still think 1-2 weeks picking peaches or plumbing under the house would do them wonders since a few have forgotten how hard it is to make a living in many areas of the economy today.

(4) On some issues of the past, like engagement abroad in the 1930s, civil rights in the 1960s, or the need to confront the Soviets in 1961-2, the Democrats have been the more sober. The usual cliché about why old Democrats don’t vote Democratic anymore fits me as well: the Democratic Party has become elitist. Its agenda is run by DC insiders and captive to race, class, and gender hacks in the university, Hollywood, corporate board rooms, and journalism. It has no idea of what it is like to start or run a small business, but apparently thinks being a tenured professor, trial lawyer, union teacher, or government employee is about all Americans do now.

Will Iraqi culture be harder to deal with than that of, say, El Salvador, Nicaragua or other countries we’ve helped liberate in the past? Or will Iraq be reminiscent of Vietnam?

Hanson: In the former countries, we had some advantages: greater familiarity with Latin America, a common Christian heritage, no petro-dollar reserves to arm and finance our enemies, and, of course, logistical proximity. Unlike Afghanistan, there is no India or Russia nearby Iraq to scare off Islamicists. Also, Saddam had a lot more time to ruin a country than did the Taliban and lots more money as well. The French and Kojo Annan were not running to Afghanistan for a reason, and it was not humanitarianism, but simply the lack of billions in loose cash to be made.

All that being said, I think we can avoid a Vietnam. Remember, Afghanistan is now not on the front pages. It was invaded about 18 months prior to Iraq, so let us at least see what Iraq is like in a year and a half after the elections. All through 2003 the Left was assuring us that Afghanistan was lost. The stakes are rising in Iraq for a variety of reasons, but then so are fruits of victory if we crush the insurgents and establish a consensual government: the world of a Syria or Iran is getting smaller and smaller.

After reading The Other Greeks and thinking about the implications of the demise of the American family farm, I wondered if anyone in America (or elsewhere) has used the concept of franchising to counter large corporate farms? Franchising, at least in theory, would provide the family farm most of the advantages of scale with few of the disadvantages of centralization.

Hanson: I more or less gave up on agrarian idealism with Sun-Maid’s near collapse in 1983, when I saw a cherished organization of small farmers turn over the reins to leaders to engage in near criminal activity and through sheer incompetence bankrupt a third of its membership, reneging on its obligations to pay capital retained after its malfeasance came to light. Cooperatives almost seem worse than private packers in their treatment of farmers. I discussed possible remedies in Fields Without Dreams and The Land Was Everything, and some articles in magazines once, but with the duo-combo of globalization and subsidization of megafarms, plus vertically-integrated hyper-farms that seem to me to violate anti-trust statutes, I was pessimistic. Every farmer in my neighborhood without a single exception has either gone broke or quit—even after direct sales to farmer’s markets, merchandising directly to the consumer, and ad hoc sharing arrangements, including all those in my own family. A few others in the area have made it, and I have only admiration for their courage and skill. Imported food gets cheaper, food prices still climb in the store, returns are lower to the farm, society presses the agrarian on environmental and social concerns, and real estate in choice farmlands become pricier—a perfect storm that says ‘sell for the only profit you might make in your lifetime’ And the weird thing, it is all gussied up with slogans like “family farmer” and “bedrock values. ” Mention ‘why the need for subsidies’ and you are called a free market pirate; mention cheap and dubiously safe food dumped on our market from abroad and you are called a protectionist; mention crazy regulations and you are called an eco-exploiter—so many who can call the real estate agent instead and say ‘six homes per acre makes a lot more money than 120 trees.’ And then all those in town that were oblivious to what made rural life impossible now say, “Why did you sell out, and let the ‘developers’ ruin our open spaces?” I saw it all for 30 years and it left me dumbfounded, though I tried to write about what I saw.

What philosophic traditions and ideas do you find attractive and so live by? I detect some structural-functionalist foundations, a dose of yeoman pragmatism, and a classical sense of civic 'exceptionalism,' but there is also something else that I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps, an Aristotelian...?

Hanson: I don’t have any conscious blueprint of thought. Although as I grow older I realize that three more or less constant ideas have guided most of what I wrote and believed. (1) I grew up and live on a farm, and was early on given a strong dose of what you call pragmatism, along with a deep suspicion of intellectual airs and pretension. My parents made us work hard, and when I took over the farm I learned immediately the difference between theory and reality, especially when the farmer pays through the nose for any of his own mistakes. I tried to outline this world view in The Land Was Everything and Fields Without Dreams—a sense that action, not talk, is what ultimately matters.

(2) As a classicist, I read for about 8 years as an undergraduate and graduate student, both here and in Greece, pretty much just Greek and Latin literature—especially Thucydides, Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Tacitus, Livy, Caesar, Juvenal, Horace, and Petronius. My special exam authors at Stanford were Aristophanes and Petronius, and from all that I learned to appreciate irony and satire, and not to take one's self too seriously. But above all, Classics gave me a sense of the tragic, of the innate limitations that we as humans face, and a deep suspicion of all who say that with enough money or education they can change the nature of mankind. Civilization's role is to ameliorate our innate savagery, and to guide such energy into productive and humane channels. That is success enough in such a brief span on earth. And of course, Classics teaches a method—not just of prose expression and clarity in thought, but also that knowledge is not finite, but rather can be systematically investigated by examining all source material in a professional way.

(3) Finally, growing up in the San Joaquin Valley, out here on the farm, and with parents and grandparents who were veterans, as well as a mother who was a State judge, I grew to appreciate deeply the United States, and especially its constitution, values, and optimism, naïve though that sometimes could be. My parents and grandparents almost weekly reminded me of how fortunate we were to be Americans, and how unusual this experiment of the United States really was.

 I hope all that is of some help. Of all the authors I have read who seem the most resonant, it is Thucydides and perhaps Aristotle as well, especially his Politics, and his methodological examination of all possible alternatives without emotion or prejudice—and his blunt honesty in assessing what he takes as the truth.

What do you think of Rice's rise to Secretary of State to replace Powell.  Apart from Rice herself, do you believe that the State Department is more in need of gutting than any other part of our government? The Department of Defense seems to fight wars spectacularly well but when I look at the combination of Arabists, appeasers and stability-above-all civil servants who reside at State it looks like a domestic version of the UN.

Hanson: What Rice lacks in experience, she more than makes up in resolve and integrity. She has no illusions about the world abroad, and I think has a certain insight into the liberal elite mind here at home, and its tendencies to be both arrogant and naïve at the same time. So, yes, I like the appointment.

From those few whom I have met in the intelligence agencies and the State Department, and what I have read about many, there is projected a sense of smugness— that they are fine, high craftsmen of sorts, versed in the arts of diplomacy and attuned to the pulse of the academic and intellectual communities. Worse, they always seem to go overboard by doubting or undermining US resolve, perhaps as a sort of recompense for becoming “tainted” with promulgating official American policy. I see it a little at the Service academies as well, among some professors who think that they can regain fides and intellectual independence by biting gratuitously the hand that feeds them. And then again, there is a strain of East Coast, aristocratic noblesse oblige, evolving out of prep school and the Ivy League that is prevalent in the State Department even today. Those in the ranks of State are to American foreign policy what CBS and the NY Times are to the media, self-proclaimed pillars of respectability and supposed receptacles of sober and judicious thought—mostly to be unexamined and unquestioned by the rest of us. Finally, there is a trust that words and dialogue will work abroad in the manner that they have worked at home—in the newsroom or on campus. We need a State Department, of course, but it would be nice to see more who genuinely believe in American exceptionalism and who are far more skeptical of the thugs and creeps who inhabit most of the world beyond our shores—whether a Castro, Arafat, Assad, or Kim Il Sung. None of this is new—go back and read of the squabbles in 1919-22 or between 1946 and 1949.

What is your opinion of having embedded reporters in combat?

Hanson: Mixed. The Left sometimes complains because they bond with the soldiers and empathize with the horrendous pressures and dangers they face—and thus do not in their dispatches always mouth the Left’s often anti-American, anti-war talking points. The Right is suspicious that a few of a deductive and prejudiced bent burrow in, looking for one big scoop that can make their careers—like the recent purported killing of the wounded Iraqi insurgent. But by and large, I think it is a pretty good idea.

You keep asserting that the recent elections in Afghanistan were the first in 5000 years. However, my understanding is that the first nationwide elections were held in 1965.

Hanson: Those were constitutional and parliamentary elections under the aegis of the monarchy and not held for direct executive rule. Although they were impressive for the time, and especially for the region, I don’t think they were truly free of monarchial control.

Have you read some of the commentators, such as Gary North, who claim that Bin Laden is using tactics to provoke us into actions that benefit him directly? This theory holds that Al Qaeda gets the U.S. to do the dirty work of removing the regimes he opposes, so that after our pull-out from Iraq, he can undertake an assassination campaign against the weakly established rulers of Iraq and Afghanistan. How does this kind of argument hold up historically?

Hanson: I don’t think he has such political sagacity, given his surprise that the US didn’t do a Mogadishu after 9-11 as he expected. And it was in his interest to keep the Taliban in power who had de facto ceded to him large portions of their country. Furthermore, each day that he is in hiding, his prestige erodes and the process of democratization goes on, with its innate attractions for the people. From his strange fatwas, and unreal expectations, I think bin Laden is a cagey foe of the eighth or ninth century, not a sophisticated student of geopolitics—though for a while in the 1990s he had insight into the Western mind, and its occasional tendency for self-loathing, appeasement, and complacency. It is hard to plan in such a Machiavellian way. Our aid to the Afghan resistance blew up in our face a decade later. Few at the time thought the billions given the Soviet Union to stop Hitler, so immediately would have ensured the slavery of Eastern Europe—whose freedom was in fact the reason the war started in the first place in 1939. Unintended consequences, not diabolical planning, I think explains most of the strange political fallout we often see after wars.

Since the murder of Theo Van Gogh, “Islam or the sword” appears to be the order of the day in the new Europe. Should the United States prepare itself for another vast transatlantic migration? Aren’t the first signs already here--the removal of many EU businesses to our country in one form or another?