Wishful Thinking and False Gods

"Wishful thinking gives false gods to people who hunger for gods, but those who yearn for a world with no gods are no less likely to fall victim to their own wishful thinking."
- Volemak, Earthfall by Orson Scott Card

There is a story circulating that at a White House news conference, in an off-camera moment, President Bush quipped to his arch critic, reporter Helen Thomas, “If I were your husband, Helen, I’d put poison in your coffee.” Ms Thomas cocked an eye at Bush and replied, “If I were your wife, Mr. President, I’d drink it.”

This story is not true but it does represent an example of wishful thinking. Given the hopes and expectations of Bush supporters in 2000 and 2004 and considering the outcomes of the Bush presidency so far, it looks very much like these supporters were also guilty of wishful thinking.

Politically speaking, my relatively small circle of friends (in the USA and abroad) includes a smattering of skeptics, some passionate Liberals and even an assortment of committed Conservatives. While most people combine all these political qualities to a greater or lesser degree, depending on whether one is talking about social issues, government economies or foreign policy, the most striking feature of their common political diet is a generous helping of wishful thinking.

The skeptics seem to believe that, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, rational argument, persuasion and scientific facts are the oil that lubricates the social fabric of democratic society and, like oil, will sooner or later rise to the top and manifest themselves to all and sundry. Such views, it should be noted, have survived centuries of war, political inequality and social ostracism without having made any notable impact on the family of Man. Considering what we know about human nature from modern biology, biochemistry and neuroscience, perhaps skeptics should turn their skepticism to their own basic assumptions. Like other political thinkers, have skeptics reached the top of the mountain or are they condemned to the valley of wishful thinking?

Liberals, despite their professed passion for the Common Man and the underdog, have in many cases taken the political path of least resistance. Consider Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs fiasco or Lyndon Johnson’s ratcheting up of the Vietnam War; Jimmy Carter’s handling of the Iran hostage affair and Clinton’s cave in on gays in the military, to mention only a few examples. Somehow, Liberals in America seem to believe that passion is the sole engine that drives political choice and that passion itself is the be-all of political organization. Despite appeals to the heart and fiery denunciations of greedy capitalists and unconscionable Conservatives, perhaps the assumptions of political and social equality that Liberals seem to share is nothing more than a passion for wishful thinking?

Most Liberals would probably agree with ROBERT ANTON WILSON:

It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.

On the other hand, Conservatives prefer to quote WINSTON CHURCHILL:

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

When one looks for examples of wishful thinking, however, modern Conservatives seem to win hands down. Conservatives of all persuasions share three basic convictions: (1) government should be limited, (2) economies should be free and (3) US foreign policy should enhance and protect American interests around the world.

ANN RICHARDS put in this way:

1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault.
2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.
3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.

Conservatives like to trace their modern political revival to the Reagan years. However, even then, wishful thinking seems to have colored the conservative perspective somewhat.

A funny thing happened to Ronald Reagan on the way to his place in history. At the three-quarter point, he made a sharp left turn, then another, and ended his journey going in the opposite direction from his start.

Historians will also stress the gap between Reagan's domestic goals and his accomplishments. Most obvious is the deficit; what he promised to eliminate he has allowed to swell beyond comprehension. On the social agenda, abortion remains legal, prayer in the schools illegal. Reagan's failure in the war against drugs and related crime activities is so great that drugs were the number one issue in the 1988 presidential campaign.
Heritage Foundation

Reagan is by far the biggest spender in American history. He is also the biggest taxer.
Murray Rothbard

Does George W. Bush meet the above conservative criteria? An increasing number of Conservatives do not think so.

Greetings Disenchanted Conservatives
It's no secret that I've been disenchanted with President Bush for some time now. Recently, it seems, a lot of conservatives have joined the club. Source

George Bush is a big-government conservative. You don't hear this very often because big-government liberals do most of the reporting on budget and economics stuff and, well, they like government spending. Conceding that a Republican president is spending money like Uday Hussein on a Paris shopping trip would seem like a compliment to these people.
Townhall.com

But at this stage in his presidency, Bush's dismal record on spending when measured against Reagan's nullifies that temptation. Better yet, in light of Bush's spending it looks like it would be more accurate to compare him to Jimmy Carter than to Ronald Reagan.
Cato

One of the GOP’s critical thinkers in recent years is Newt Gringrich. He was also one of the first to criticize his own party as a result of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

Gingrich's critique of the federal response is as devastating as that of any Democrat. "For the last week the federal government and its state and local counterparts have consistently been behind the curve," he wrote fellow Republicans this week. "The American people overwhelmingly know that the current situation is totally unacceptable," and for that reason, "it is a mistake to get trapped into defending the systems and processes which clearly failed." He observes in another memo, "While the destruction was unprecedented, it was entirely predictable."
The Party of Performance

Nor has Bush fared any better in freeing the economy. One of his first decisions as president was to impose tariffs on steel imports. This met with so much conservative opposition that he decided to set things right by cutting the taxes of those who needed it least. Certainly, under Bush, there has been no reduction in monopolistic practices, cartel and – especially – externalities such as pollution and environment destruction. Despite Federal efforts to play down or ignore insider trader, price fixing, price gouging, adverse selection, moral hazard and the principal agent problem, the Bush administration has done little to make the economy freer or fairer – such as getting rid of farm subsidies, for example.

As for foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq, the facts on the ground simply do not support the optimistic wishful thinking coming from the White House. The Bush administration is without doubt the most unpopular regime the U.S. has had since Lyndon Johnson turned from fighting a war on poverty to fighting a morally indefensible war in Vietnam. And, as far as the U.S. military presence in Iraq is concerned, the U.S. public seems to be breaking the political ice, growing in skepticism and systematically rejecting the kind of wishful thinking that led to the current domestic and foreign crises in the first place – and perhaps to the very success of the Bush presidency.

Limited government, economic freedom, a world less dangerous? Or just wishful thinking and false gods?



Tags: Skeptics, Liberals, Conservatives, Politics