kent_allard_jr | Being Wishy-Washy

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Being Wishy-Washy

I admit I can't resist bashing Bush. (Hey, attacking Republicans is my job, OK?) That's why I quoted Michael Kinsley in my last post. But... I must say I'm not convinced, one way or another, on the whole War-in-Iraq thing. Just in case you were wondering.

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Neither am I. I'm leaning towards the direction of thinking that getting Saddam out of power is a Good Thing, while also thinking that the Cheney Regency are lying about why they want it done, and will do it very badly.

Yeah, there's no point in disputing the fact that Saddam is a bad guy. I wouldn't trust him with nukes, and the Iraqi people will be much better off without him. I also have no doubt that the US would win the war against Saddam. But the Bush administration has already fucked up the diplomatic side of the conflict (will someone please shut off Rumsfeld's microphone?), and I'm sure they'll do so even more in the future.

I wouldn't call the administration "the Cheney regency," though. From what I've heard, it seems that Bush is very much in charge of the White House. Personally, I'd prefer to have Cheney in charge... (Not because Cheney is a genius -- Josh Marshall has shown how much he's fucked things up -- but because Bush seems like the airhead we always knew he was.)

I should probably have said "the Rove administration", because from what I've read Karl's really calling the shots.

Yeah, that would do. Although I think George makes his own little contributions, insisting everyone jogs, goes to Bible Study and wears a smart suit. (Yes, from what I've heard, he is that shallow.) And I think Rove sets domestic policy because, these days, George doesn't give a shit about anything other than tax cuts or Iraq.

It's always the problem, isn't it? Leaders you despise lead directions you might just have to go. I don't know whether we have the luxury of choosing whether or not to follow our leaders based solely on their character rather than their direction... and that's even presuming I am sure of my direction, which, like you, I am not in this case. I think maybe it would be a better world if everyone refused point blank to accept *anything* a bad leader did, even if what they were doing at the time was good or even crucial... but since that isn't going to happen it becomes a prisoner's dilemma game quickly.

Well, on a practical level, of course, there's no real dilemma: I'm a spectator. The war will go on, or it won't go on, and my opinions won't matter one whit. It's a personal question for me, whether I can maintain a level of intellectual independence. It would be all too easy for me to mouth a party line (the party pays my bills, for Chrissakes!) but I want to resist the temptation. (There's no literal "party line" against the war, of course, because the Democratic leadership have been appallingly mealy-mouthed about the whole thing.)

Of course your opinions count. Individual opinions always count; that is how they are translated into masses. I watched, as, I suspect, did you, a huge group of unarmed civilians march on an armed palace in Romania, tell the soldiers, "You don't want to do this, you want to help us," and force a dictator to step down on the basis of their word alone.

The private citizen has responsibility on every subject to run through a series of questions: "Does this matter to me enough to hold a serious opinion?" "What are the facts I need in order to form a serious opinion?" "What *is* my opinion?" "Do I care about it enough to try to take action on my opinion?" "What action should I take?" "How will this action interrelate with other opinions I hold?" "If they conflict, which one should I follow?"

The fact that most of these questions usually end up with the result of doing nothing doesn't mean they need not be asked, at least nonverbally, if only for the sake of needing to identify the few cases where action *is* necessary. And I don't restrict that to the citizens of a democracy, either -- the Romanians weren't. It's both right and duty of anyone with the wits to grasp that there has *never* been a government which could exist without the consent of the governed, for some sufficiently valiant definition of 'nonconsent'.

Yes, but... I'm not willing to overthrow the government over this. :-)

Seriously, under a democracy, I feel you owe the government a certain amount of tacit support, at least in action (certainly not in words), unless it's doing something truly horrific. Otherwise there's nothing to keep the US from looking like Venezuela. So it really is a purely intellectual issue for me.

I think you're probably right, although I think I am more willing to use words, or at least legal forms of actions (civil disobedience, boycotts, words designed to crush all support the government may have) than you are. At the same time, I know they can sometimes work, so I try to be careful about my reasons. I haven't decided whether "this is a bad person, but he is doing something right and we can't get it doesn as effectively without him" constitutes reason to attempt seriously to destroy his reputation and therefore his functioning capacity, or reason to shut up and let the man work. This is independent of whether I *do* think he's doing something right or not.

Sure, under a democracy. But...

I knew that would come up. :-)

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