Intellectual Folly

Mark suggests that comparing Saddam to Lincoln is intellectual folly. He is right of course. They are very different men. Lincoln would ponder the point, Saddam would kill me. It reminds me of the time I heard George F. Buckley, when discussing school lunch initiatives, ask, (or state) “Has anyone died of starvation in an American public school?” He was implying that we did not need to feed people until a full fledged famine was in effect. The hypocrisy of three square meals a day for some and not others was not something he could pierce. Nor, I fear, most conservative thinkers can do even today.

There is a news report that Saddam was not captured by American forces, but liberated! The report suggests that he was already being held prisoner. Here

Mark says “Peace is always the highest form of integrity, but as humans we continually come up short” I agree. But there is a complacency with Americans that the shortfall is worse with others and less so with ourselves. We put Saddam in power, and people like him all around the world. We have destroyed democracies around the world, and when I offer a plausible reason as to why, Mark calls me asinine. (Meant nicely of course.)

The American Revolution was a break with complacency. The Civil War broke the complacency of slavery. We have today a complacency with the Marketplace. No matter what problem arises, we say this is the best that can be achieved. This is the exact attitude that the Revolution sought to overthrow: “Whatever is, is best.” A nation is great because of moral courage, and the willingness to shed its own blood for peace.

Complacency is an attitude well demonstrated by Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide.

Your volly, Mr. Pangloss? 🙂