NRO Columnist: Here Is One Sentence That Will Always Be True

I imagine that most SSN readers are also National Review fans, but if you missed it today, the always-discerning Victor Hansen has an essay well worth reading about how history is playing out in world affairs -- why is Russia always autocratic? why are Germans smarter than the rest of Europe? (Hansen doesn't ask this, but why are Greeks so excitable? I know they flirted with communism after the war, but that was two generations ago. We're talking about public employees' unions writ even larger -- and nastier -- than they are here.)

Anyway, Hansen reviews some of the top events of the past 150 years -- the Franco-Prussian War -- France lost; World War I -- France would have lost, without the United States; and World War II -- France lost in a knockout. DeGaullists think they won in the end, but they didn't. We did. (Algeria, France lost in a rout. Is there a pattern here?)

So, the bottom line, according to Hansen is:

"What, then, are we left with? Only the humility of knowing that human nature does not change much."

Get it? You might quit smoking, but you'll still be a jerk. You can quit drinking, but you'll still be irresponsible. And you might want to quit dying, but you'll still be dead.

And liberals? They quit calling themselves that. They're "progressives" now.

But they'll never change.