The Present in Plain Text

The Scourge of Empire (Or, Perhaps, Mea Culpa?)

Anthony Gregory has quite possibly written the best article -- speech, actually -- I've ever read. This essay highlights the many inherent contradictions among the arguments for America's wars and the results they've effected, and quite clearly identifies the problem in Iraq as that of empire.

Gregory notes that more than 70 percent of Americans are sick of the war in Iraq. Though there is much about this current conflict to lament, he identifies this fact as something to celebrate, for if it causes folks on the right to adopt a greater appreciation for civil liberties and those on the left to question the effectiveness of big government -- in essence, if it awakens the populace to the importance of libertarianism -- then much future good could come from our latest wars.

This article strikes a particular chord with me as someone who once struggled with the moral implications of going to war in Iraq -- I'm ashamed to admit that at one point I even wrote in its support -- but who ultimately grew to oppose it, along with other government programs and agencies I may have tacitly supported in the past.

There's a lingering sense of shame and embarrassment that accompanies a realization that you were once wrong about something, whatever it happens to be. At least that's the case with me. My primary goal in writing has always been to keep a running account of my stance on particular political issues and to be able to gauge my learning in the process. It's always nice to be able to go back and read your old ideas if your arguments are vindicated by reality after you've written them down; it's not so fun to go back and realize you were wrong, especially when you realize you might now vehemently disagree with the position you initially took.

Anyhow, maybe this is my mea culpa for writings and opinions I no longer agree with, or maybe it's just time to admit to myself that it's OK to change your views, especially if they evolved in earlier days as a result of naivete and misplaced trust in politicians. Suffice it to say, I've come a long way in the past several years upon understanding the inimitable importance of property rights and civil liberties, not to mention the government's addiction to doing its level best to erode them.

For years, I have been haunted by the belief that I should always know what I'm talking about. Clearly, that is subjective to a point and even more absurd on its face -- there is, after all, a reason we value education so highly. Certainly no one knows everything the moment he or she pops out of the womb, but that can be of little consolation once you realize so many people seem to have "gotten it" before you did.

Today, my goal in writing is to remain a consistent advocate of life, liberty, and property. At the very least, I suspect my relatively new awakening to the importance of strict libertarian principles will account for just that.

The E_E: Throwing Live People After Dead Ones?

Link: The Eclectic Econoclast: 08/21/2005 - 08/27/2005.

John wonders if this statement by George W. Bush can be considered a representation of the economic term, sunk cost:

"We owe them something. We will finish the task that they gave their lives for."PRESIDENT BUSH, on the American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the things that led me to becoming the person I am today was a disastrous bit of stock trading (or more accurately, lack thereof -- if only I had taken my own advice and sold SBAS at 12 5/8's... oh well.) which cost me a substantial amount of money (to me, at least).  The road to figuring out what happened and why led to studying economics and all of the things I used to discuss here on a semi-regular basis.  The one lesson I learned early on, though, the one mistake I didn't make was summed up by the following advice:

"Never throw good money after bad."  

We may be hard-wired to consider the sunk costs and regrets of past decsions, but the path away from making the same mistakes (otherwise they wouldn't be regrets) is to admit what they were and move forward. Wallowing in guilt and/or obligation for errors past is the surest way to repeat them, and in my mind the worst kind of tribute to those who have given their lives for this operation.

This statement by Bush is what the Mogambo identified as "The cure for what is ailing us is more of it not less."

Einstien called this insanity.  I call it time to stop chasing the dead and the wounded all the way to the bottom.  The Dead Cat Bounce from the War on Terror is going to be a doozy!

Ta,