The other day, I mentioned Taft and the treaties of arbitration. Today marks the 100th anniversary of a TR op-ed dealio denouncing Taft. In it, he argues that the Spanish American war was one of many incidents in which the US put "righteousness" ahead of "peace." Plus, he argues that the US would never push around smaller countries, like Cuba or Columbia, just to get what it wants. Furthermore, what if those danged foreigners told us we couldn't discriminate via immigration policies and laws? Outrageous idea he fumes.
Clearly, TR was a loon, whose ability to ignore reality was quite stunning and whose bizarre notions of masculinity meant more and better killing of things in the service of peace, prosperity, and environmental protection. Still, it's worth asking if today's morons any worse?
Or is it the case the cumulative errors, fibs, self-deception, lies, and the terrible policies that result have created a situation in which more of the same means we're doomed?
I am starting to think our elites view everything in terms of bragging rights, sort of like sports fans, but they do it with things like school test scores and winning wars. I don't think they can really understand that for some of us having the highest per capita GDP is not really the most important thiing in our life.
ReplyDeleteFor these people wars are just one more event for them to have a rooting interest.
I'm going to say that it's not the political elites so much that view things this way but rather the badly educated dolts who make up the nation's press core. A more useless group of dunderheads, I can't imagine. I used to teach at a school with a really well regarded journalism school and, without exception, the students thereof where the dimmest of bulbs.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to figure out which parts of our system are the most broken, it seems that dim bulbs are very good at rising to the top because they don't make waves. I know in my current position as a data analyst for a school district I would much rather be employed than right, and I guess the bonus is that it's much easier to spout conventional wisdom than challenge it
ReplyDeleteI really do understand the employed versus being right argument; it's just in practice I've always been happier being right even if poverty looms.
ReplyDeleteI got dogs and cats to support so poverty is not a option. One thing I have noticed is that it's much easier to go along when you don't have a whole lot of passion for what you are doing. Again, I think success may favor the mediocre.
ReplyDeleteBrian MaGee, in his memoir -- which is inherently unreliable, claims that every successful politician he ever met was an intellectual mediocrity. So there's that.
ReplyDeleteBryan it is.
ReplyDelete