Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Being Right Is No Consolation

 I can remember in 2003, telling students that there was nothing that could be done, we were going to war with Iraq. We would win the war but find the country ungovernable because we simply didn't care enough to understand Iraq before we invaded it ("welcomed with flowers and candy"). I can remember bring right about the fact that all the GOP can do in control of Congress and the White House is cut taxes and confirm reactionary judges. It's not me, it's the informational ecosystems that "liberal" inhabit. When the pandemic hit "believe the science" was a shorthand for a largely liberal (and college educated) vision of the world. There ARE things we can know and act on that knowledge. 

Global warming is the thing that the left of center is currently right about. Being right isn't going to help in 20 years, though.

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