Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
They don’t, not really, although one could be excused for thinking so.
I think the old observation that, “when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” better explains the Left’s unremitting criticism of, and apparent animus toward, the free world.
Someone forwarded this to me and it looks like a worthy cause and an interesting opportunity for qualified individuals, so I am passing the word. Perhaps some of our readers will be interested or know other people who might be.
As I noted in an earlier post, apparently some good news has been going on beneath the surface of the chatter about stem cells. That we see little information about this is irritating: the assumption appears to be that the public has a right to know the mechanics of wiretaps but little context about issues such as these – also ones on which we judge our politician’s choices.
We hope other news – about Iraq, education in America, our health, energy sources – is good. But, we don’t know. Hell, the high level of home ownership wasn’t discussed all that much, but I suspect mortgage defaults will be. I suspect some bad but more good news, like the green revolution, is taking its course while we remain oblivious. What will prove important in the future? We don’t know. It isn’t all that important, probably, that we do know most. But not knowing some stories may affect us in subtle but important ways. One such story is that of heroic self-sacrifice Michael Yon reported (audio interview).
Bad news is entertaining. We like to consider the Alps and Grand Canyon even though we know life is a good deal more like the Nebraska sandhills. A frisson of terror followed by relief that we haven’t been destroyed entertains: the reaction of an audience when the heroic, tragic hero (the scapegoat Aristotle tells us) is exiled, the reaction of the Puritans to Wigglesworth’s “Day of Doom,” the reaction of the audience to Gore’s doom. We fear we are the goats but assure ourselves in the end we are sheep.
Bad news can be motivating. But bad news also leads to despair. Fearing consequences, fearing responsibility, we don’t act. We become mired in hesitations and doubts. Politicians hedge their bets. They say the surge won’t work but do not question Petraeus about the plan – preferring to say there is none. That debate, the sarcasm of the press, reinforces our sense that to be wise is to be ironic, cynical – passive. The twentieth century began with Marcher, James’s hero whose great tragedy is that he is the man to whom nothing happened because he did nothing, felt nothing, committed himself to nothing. Our politicians begin the twenty-first arguing their positions follow the polls better than do their competitors’ votes passive before the winds, two-dimensional, turning like tin roosters, weather vanes on the barn roof.
Senator Obama states that the more than 3000 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq were “wasted”.
NBC Nightly News reports that the soldiers beg to differ.
Those who have seen Jarhead know that what’s reported from the front might not always be what the soldiers really think. The insinuation in that movie is that any time you see positive, upbeat videos of American soldiers in the front lines, it’s been carefully censored by the Pentagon, or if not, the front line commanders have exerted much pressure on the soldiers not to complain. (Along that line of thought seems to be the implied message that complaining, a trait commonly thought of as “unmanly”, is preferable to “manly” stoicism. Would that mean that having an “unmanly” armed forces is what those who think along those lines really want?)
Is Senator Obama right? After all, he’s a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Moreover, he was president of the Harvard Law Review. In other words, he’s about as educated as a man can be. Surely his education has enlightened him in a way that no mere grunt in the sands of Mesopotamia could possibly understand. After all, as Senator Kerry once sagely remarked: “You know, education–if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
I’m sure all those chicken hawk neocons are completely out of line to believe the self-congratulatory propaganda of the American military-industrial complex (run by none other than Vice President Cheney through his vise grip on all things Halliburton) could possibly be worth any more than the enlightened dismissal of the doyens of our brilliant, public-spirited intellectuals, whose Ivy League education places them leaps and bounds above the mean existence of mere mortals.
Yes, that was a bit arch and snide. I actually don’t necessarily believe that Senator Obama is a preening elitist. (For all I know he’s just a regular elitist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) The point is, I’m afraid there are people out there who probably do buy into that world view. If you see one that effuses about how magnificent this or that current darling of the media is, smile and politely remind him (or her!) to take everything with a grain of salt, including the advice of those who would tell them to take only one side’s story (such as those of the soldiers) with a helping of a salt lick.
By the way, Matteo found some interesting commentary about the rhetorical parlor game against so-called “chicken hawks” (quoting Ace of Spades HQ):
Exit question: Since Arkin asserts that the troops should not be allowed to influence the public’s opinion on the war, and since the entire left demands that anyone supporting the war become a troop himself — has the left pretty much created a Catch-22 by which any and all support for the war is illegitimate?
Campaign ’08 is well and truly under way!
(Hat-tip: Instapundit)
[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]
Nick Cohen was raised by liberal and very political parents, and never met a conservative until he was 13. In this post, he writes about the evolution of his thinking and about leftist attitudes toward Iraq.
Cohen’s book, What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way will be published in February.