"Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right."
---Robert Park
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MentalBlocks
Throwing Mental Blocks at Glass Constructions
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Friday, May 30, 2003
Den Beste proposes a multi-dimensional political categorization, rather than the common liberal-conservative or left-right sliding scale. My own impression is that something much more complicated that a one-dimensional scale is obviously necessary to describe most people. However, there are a nearly infinite number of possible "axis" on which to measure politic, and if you go beyond two dimensions, you've made the classifications so detailed as to be useless.
For approximating pre-September 11 politics, I always used two axes:
social liberal---social conservative
and
command economy---capitalism
You could group nearly everybody together based on those quantities, although they were increasingly less representative as the 1990s wore on. I don't think this is an adequate approximation anymore, though. I'm thinking that a better set might be:
growth---perfectionist
and
opportunity---outcome
where growth vs. perfectionist is defined by the question "how important is economic growth and scientific progress compared to achieving the best society we possibly can (whatever your definition of that is) with the resources we currently have?" Opportunity vs. outcome is defined by the question "which is more important--that each individual have the best opportunity to maximise his potential, or that all people should be guaranteed a good living?" I think that from these two questions, you can group almost anybody into a region with other people they would agree with. For example, Pat Buchannan would be out in the perfectionist-opportunity region, while Ralph Nader would be at the extreme perfectionist-outcome range. Neo-conservatives would tend to lie somewhere out in growth-opportunity land, while east cost liberals would be more toward growth-outcome.
It's far from perfectly representative, but like I said, I'm trying to keep it down to two axes, and these seem to be more definitive than most.
11:14 AM
Stratfor muses over the lack of WMD finds again in their morning Geopolitical update, in light of yesterday's news. [Subscriber-only link.]
It always seemed to us that the cover story was not as effective as the real reason, but the administration seemed to believe that the international community and the American public would be more likely to rally around the WMD argument rather than the strategic one. Having given that as the prime answer, the administration found it difficult to switch gears in the middle.
It has always seemed likely to us that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction, even if that was far from the primary reason for invasion. The reason for our view is simply this: If Hussein had no weapons and none under development, why did he behave as he did with chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix? Why not let the scientists leave the country so they could discuss the nonexistence of nuclear weapons. Why not produce records of the destruction of WMD? Why not videotape the destruction process? Hussein was facing a war that he could not win where the public justification was false. Why deny the existence of WMD and then behave in a way that supported the plausibility of the Anglo-American position?...
...Bottom line: In the past 24 hours we have the report from CBS that the attempt to kill Hussein on the first day hit a building without a bunker in it; an intensifying set of claims that the hostage rescue was staged; Wolfowitz's interview; and the BBC report. The administration has started hemorrhaging credibility. It normally controls perception, and it has suddenly lost control. Very odd.
9:46 AM
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Heh. A family tree of bureaucrat federalis.
11:44 AM
Ouch! Well, it's an entertaining read, anyway. And I learned two things that I didn't know--DDT is not harmful to humans, and there is at least some evidence that the polar ice caps are not receding. Now why didn't I know that? I would think that would be news.
10:25 AM
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
An interesting entry about conservative-friendly movies that Hollywood squashed. I can't really have an opinion here--I haven't seen these films. But I do think it's obvious that, for example, the unrelenting negative or buffoonish portrayal of faithful Christians in popular culture indicates a very definite bias. And don't even get me started about the portrayal of businessmen.
10:31 PM
Simon Jenkins on the EU constiutsion
Britain over the past 15 years has come ever closer to the community of obedience. A silver lining on the Iraqi cloud may yet be Mr Blair’s bosom-attachment to America and alienation from continental Europe. He may have to give British electors their say, and that say may be “no”. That should keep the nation aloof from this dangerous adventure, still in Europe’s true fast lane, free in the community of will.
Let's hope he's right. Read the whole thing.
By way of Innocents Abroad.
4:01 PM
How deep is the hole?
The director general of Al-Jazeera has been sacked, Qatari sources said, amid allegations that he worked with Saddam Hussein's intelligence services.
9:43 AM
Economic equality is not the same as equality of physical comfort. Inequality isn't necessarily a bad thing.
9:05 AM
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