Political rant (I haven't done one of these for a long time)

[paulhope]

"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

This is the first time I've seen the guy as broken, as outwardly humiliated, as cautious as this.  And I've never trusted him more.  For once (and not without exceptions within the speech) he's stating his foriegn policy in realistic and practical terms as opposed to the

Comments

Fox > Hedgehog

[rachiestar]

Re: Fox > Hedgehog

[paulhope]

By random coincidence, I just saw the speed run of Sonic 2 last night.

synchronicity now

[polishcyclist]

I object! "Apostate Randroid" is a smear, I think, although one that I am willing to reluctantly concede for now. However, my views on consequentialist classic liberalism are not derived from JF. It more or less reflects longstanding opinions (which is why I got into Objectivism in the first place). The JF seminar may have reinforced/expanded some ideas, but his perspective also involves baggage that I don't subscribe to.

And I think that we broadly agree on the approach to intervention, but the difference is that I am much more skeptical about our ability to know what is best for people than they themselves know. Likewise, I am skeptical about our ability to understand the full consequences, side-effects, subsequent path dependency, etc. of intervention (very Burke). That makes calculating long run cost-benefit very difficult, and when in doubt we should err on the side of liberty.

[paulhope]

Hey dude--I didn't think you read this any more :)

I object!

To what? Apostate Randroid isn't a smear...unless you are saying I've misrepresented you by calling you "apostate." Are you confessing continued Objectivism? Then we might see some smearing....

As for JF, I meant to use "inform" in a lighter way than I think you interpreted.

Incidentally, which parts of his baggage would you say you don't subscribe to?

and when in doubt we should err on the side of liberty.Why? And what is liberty here

[polishcyclist]

I checked after the ski trip. Anyway, my "smear" comment was meant as a denial of ever having been a Randroid.

Exam period means I'll beg off the baggage question. The "liberty" I mean as "leave decision making to individuals", recognizing that we are all influenced by environment to greater or lesser extent. Just because we can't have complete liberty doesn't make the concept nonsensical. And the reason why I think we hsould err on the side of respecting individuals decisions is because I think that these outcomes will produce more happiness/utiles/etc.

-Piotr

[paulhope]

But your principle of "leave decision making to individuals" doesn't really conflict with (soft) paternalism. In fact, no matter what the system is, they are going to be making decisions. To say that only individuals are making decisions is a rhetorical disguise for the fact that the very legal apparatus that defines liberty is itself a particular policy decision setting down an economic framework.

The question of what options and prices (and other consequences) an individual is faced with is always going to be external to that individual. They might be dictated top down, they might be some function of some aggregate behavior of other individuals, they might be due to natural circumstance. If "liberty" is going to be a coherent idea, it can't just be in terms of the decision-making capacity of the individuals. It has to be about the kinds of options available to people.

[theshowmustgo0n]

I've been thinking about this Bush thing, and after sitting in on the various political pundit shows my parents always watch on Sunday mornings, I don't think I can exactly trust, like, or call Bush a fox...in any sense of the word. While of course he's right to say shit hasn't worked in Iraq so far, and responsibility rests with him, I think it's safe to say that this newfound humbleness of his is a way of getting the public to trust him--or to get us to believe that this whole deploying-more-troops thing is a new idea, a change of strategy. It's not. I think the result of sending more troops will be an abilility to say in 6 months, when we've failed, that we gave it one last shot and are going home.

[paulhope]

That's all fair. I was trying to state my opinions about Bush in relative terms: I like him better now, but that doesn't mean that I like him very much.

I haven't yet heard any reason not to take his speech a little bit more at face value here though. If Iraq collapses, then that will suck for pretty much everybody. It may be very unlikely that we'll be able to prop it up, but the stakes are high enough that it seems to make sense to increase our chances of success if we can. From his speech, it sounded like the new troops were going to be used in a different way. And the prospect of more dead American soldiers--which he has basically admitted to be inevitable--probably will offset any political gains from any sort of "last hurrah" move.

Of course, I don't know enough to really evaluate foreign policy. But what he's saying sounds at least plausible to me. What have you heard which is good reason for suspicion?