Sowell’s false no-brainer
In a column last week, Thomas Sowell presents what he sees as an open and shut argument on the presidential election: Obama won’t do anything about the Iranian nuclear threat, McCain will. Therefore electing McCain is a no-brainer.
But whoa—we’ve had Busherino as president for seven years, and after declaring in January 2002 that Iran was part of an “axis of evil,” which sounded like a virtual declaration of war, and then making numerous grave statements that he would not tolerate the creation of an Iranian nuke, statements which led to the widely shared assumption that he would take military action against Iran before leaving office, he lapsed into several years of weenie EU-type negotiations, making the U.S. look weak and allowing the Iranians to continue their nuke development.
So if Mr. Axis of Evil himself ended up doing nothing, what makes Sowell so sure that Mr. Son of Axis of Evil will do anything?
Where is the basis for the belief that there is such a stark difference between McCain and Obama on the Iranian threat that McCain’s election is mandatory?
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Terry Morris writes:
“So if Mr. Axis of Evil himself ended up doing nothing, what makes Sowell so sure that Mr. Son of Axis of Evil will do anything?”
This is just a theory, but somewhere deep down inside himself Sowell might believe that McCain, as a first term Republican with a “conservative” base, will do something about the Iranian nuke threat whereas Obama, as a first term Democrat, will feel no pressure from his base to do anything about it.
LA replies:
But Bush was supposedly under the ultimate pressure—that he either take action before he leaves office, or be succeeded by a Democrat who would not take action. Yet he has done nothing. After years of Churchillian talk, he ended up like Neville Chamberlain.
Mike Berman writes:
I’ve heard it predicted that Jorge Busherino might take military action (or allow Israel to act) after the election but before he leaves office. Is there any possibility that such an event might play out? Bill Clinton did some outlandish things during his final days as president. Whatever else we may think of Jorge, he is a believer. Perhaps he might make a bold move on that basis. This is, of course, irrelevant in terms of the election.
LA replies:
After years of dire warnings that the U.S. would never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, meaning that the U.S. would take military action to destroy or radically downgrade Iran’s nuclear capabilty (something that I have repeatedly said is necessary), all of Bush’s actions for the last couple of years have moved steadily in the direction of appeasement. I don’t see him suddenly switching again after the election.
He’s a spent force.
From: Ken H.
Subj.: Why pick on Sowell?
It seems to me that Mr. Sowell’s contention is very logical: that McCain is more likely to do something than Obama. I don’t believe he was asserting more than that. He certainly wasn’t assuring us that Mr. McCain would do something where Mr. Bush hasn’t as you went on to aver.
Furthermore, Bush still has six months in which to act or get our proxy, the Israelis, to do so. After the election would be a fine time for that. [LA replies: If you’re so sure Bush will take action after the election, then if Obama is elected, Bush will take action before Obama takes office. So, in terms of Sowell’s argument, where’s the necessity of voting for McCain?]
Finally, as noted by Kim du Toit, the political reality is that “I love my country more than I hate John McCain” and, as satisfying as it is to merely snipe at the supporters of both candidates, as you have with Mr. Sowell, there are clear differences between them, in what they might be expected to do. Sure they are both liberals or, as Mr. Moldbug says, members of The Cathedral, but that does not make them equally poor choices.
LA replies:
I am not “picking on Sowell,” and I am not “sniping” at him. I am disagreeing with his argument.
Do you understand the difference?
Do you further understand that by describing disagreements over ideas and positions as “picking on” people and as “sniping” at them, you would render it impossible to have public debate? Or rather, you are using a tool that would enable you to silence debate when YOU want to silence it, by accusing the other side of “picking on” someone, but you would allow yourself to make arguments when you want to make them.
Accusing a party to a discussion of “sniping” at someone is part of the same spectrum of charges as “You’re showing a lack of compassion … You’re being mean … You’re being divisive … You’re being contemptuous … You’re being racist … You’re a Nazi.” People who use such charges may differ greatly in the degree of their intent to delegitimize and silence disagreement, but they all share that same intent.
LA continues:
While the type of comment coming from Kevin H. is very common today, it’s astonishing in this case, as I said nothing remotely disrespectful about Sowell. I made a direct, simple argument challenging the premise of Sowell’s argument, and that was it. (I was disrespectful toward President Bush, but not toward Sowell.) Yet Kevin’s knee-jerk response was to say that I was “picking on” Sowell, as though Sowell were a helpless victim and I were a bully beating him up.
Thus we see how the culture of self esteem and “niceness”—which tells pupils in school that they should never say they disagree with another pupil in a class discussion, because to disagree with somone else’s views is to portray oneself as superior and the other as inferior, but rather that pupils must respect all views as equally valid and seek “consensus”—has permeated our entire culture and has shaped the attitudes of conservatives as well as liberals.
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Ironically, that same culture of niceness liberates extreme nastiness, as we see on everywhere on the Web.
How can this be?
The answer is that once liberalism has said that all views are as good as all other views, and that we must be equally open to all views, an attitude that makes rational discussion impossible (as Allan Bloom unforgettably argued in The Closing of the American Mind), the only way left for people to have an interchange with each other is to trade personal insults.
The upshot is that we have a culture today in which legitimate, rational disagreement is attacked as meanness, bigotry, or racism, while the nastiest kinds of personal attacks are considered perfectly normal and ok.
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To expand on this further: As long as you think that what you are saying is true, or at least is more true than an opposing position, you are claiming to be superior to others, which under liberalism is not allowed. But if you simply insult people, that does not carry any notion that you have a better truth, in fact you’re all together on the same low level, mud-wrestling with each other. And liberalism has no problem with that.
Terry Morris writes:
“As long as you think that what you are saying is true, or at least is more true than an opposing position, you are claiming to be superior to others, which under liberalism is not allowed.”
Which is why liberalism ultimately is self-defeating and completely irrational. Liberals believe that their position that all truth is relative and equal is superior to the position that there exists objective truth which is, by definition, superior to untruth. Thus liberalism defeats itself in that it denies the very basis of its own existence, i.e., it denies its own truthfulness and superiority while asserting it.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 08, 2008 02:26 PM | Send