In my last post I mentioned that Megan McArdle had thrown down the gauntlet. The challenge she’d made was that it was not enough just to be right about China. I’ll take this opportunity to pay myself on the back. Here are three big things I have been right about over the years:
We were too quick in opening trade with China.
I opposed extending Most Favored Nation trading status to China and I opposed admitting China to the WTO. IMO the entire world needed to open trade with China in a much slower, more measured and measurable fashion than was adopted. I don’t think too many people disagree with that now.
Confucius said, “If your plan is a one year plan, plant rice. If your plan is a ten year plan, plant trees. If your plan is a 100 year plan, teach children.” We should have had a 100 year plan. We had a one year plan.
We should never have invaded Iraq.
Who disagrees with that now? I opposed it from the start not because I’m a pacifist (I’m not) but among other reasons because I was worried about the stability not just of Iraq but of the entire Middle East after we’d overthrown Saddam.
Race relations are still lousy.
Starting 40 years ago, I thought the single most important domestic problem was improving the circumstances of black Americans, the descendants of slaves. My initial opposition to mass immigration was for that reason. It was obvious to me that the new labor force the immigrants would provide would give those with the inclination the opportunity to kick the race problem can down the road yet again.
I don’t write about race much because it’s such an unsatisfying and discouraging topic. It’s still our most pressing domestic problem. Unfortunately, I think it has now become intractable.
Note that in my list I don’t include anything that is at all controversial. There are lots of other things I think I’ve been right about but I’m quite certain I’d get an argument about (the Gulf War, nuclear power, a gas tax, German re-unification, Russia, healthcare reform just to name a few). I’ll try thinking about some things I was wrong about. That’s a harder job. Right now I can only think of one: I thought Barack Obama had a greater ability to learn on the job than turned out to be the case.
Unfortunately, I think it has now become intractable.
Think of it as a problem of assimilation and the situation becomes even more depressing.
An Economist article highlighting some China WTO admission pros and cons. Spoiler alert: they’d come out pro on balance.
http://www.economist.com/node/21541448
I think you’d have a hard time finding anyone who disagrees on Iraq, although I think it’s incomplete to not mention the Obama Administrations gross miscalculation in abandoning the place.
From my perspective most initiatives designed to improve the circumstances of black Americans have had the exact same result as most government interventions, helping a relative few but harming a majority. It seems clear new approaches are needed but I have no expectations that they will see the light of day. One example that would be on my list as having the greatest pop would be to stop incarcerating people For minor drug offenses. Or more broadly, decriminalization.
What is wrong, Dave, with having opposed Iraq because as Buchanan, Ritter and a host of other non-Elitists on both right and left established, before the war, the intelligence was cherrypicked and provided in the first place by dual loyalists and their fellow travellers?
On the race problem, “kicked the can down the road” might have been improved by “added another problem.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “improved” in this context. IMO the “other problem” has rendered the old problem intractable.
IMO the likelihood is that blacks in the U. S. have their greatest political influence right now. The “majority minority” environment will actually dilute their strength. Blacks, Hispanics, and, increasingly, Asians will be vying for attention. In the U. S. that has always meant that the largest single group—in the case of the “majority minority” scenario whites—capture more power not less.
Nothing’s wrong with it. My point was that even if the intelligence was 100% correct it still didn’t make any sense. The question is, was, and always has been “So you remove Saddam Hussein. What then?”
Look at Libya, for goodness sake. It’s now in a state of anarchy and it’s our fault.
Traditionally, Saddam would be removed and one of his lieutenants who was more tractable to OUR positions would be put in place to rule largely as Saddam had. But several decades of moronic moralizing about foreign policy makes such positions impossible to maintain. So we do nation building instead, with results that any savvy old Roman or Italian could have predicted.
Actually slightly more complicated than that. The new ruler wouldn’t have the culture of personality for support, so you’d have to pay off a group of generals. That would probably cost a few billion a year, but our defense industry could make some of that back. There would be other advantages to accumulate through this method, but I’m on my phone so I’ll skip that.
The big problem, from the USA perspective, is picking the right generals, which requires specific understanding of Iraq, and the IS sucks balls at that kind of stuff. We’d need help from the British or French.
The US, not the IS. Grrr.
“IMO the likelihood is that blacks in the U. S. have their greatest political influence right now.”
I don’t know, but I wonder if that’s correct. By misplaying their hand and dutifully hopping into the hip pocket of the Democrats they seem to have squandered their political leverage. You also consider that they aligned with the race baiters and that every nights TV news is dominated by stories of black crime and the reservoir of public goodwill may be running dry. It’s pop analysis to talk about angry white males. There are an awful lot of angry blacks out there. Maybe rethinking allegiance and strategy is in order. It’s the old saw about the guy who goes to the doctor and says “it hurts when I do this”…….and the doc says ” so stop doing that.”
“hopping into the hip pocket of the Democrats”
Where else would they go? Go read the comments section on any conservative blog then tell me what kind of welcome they would have in the GOP. Not happening.
On Iraq, my sense is that majority of Republicans still think it was the right thing to do. Those who think it was a bad idea still can’t bring themselves to admit that Bush negotiated the deal requiring us to leave, and that it was the right thing to do anyway. I am sure you saw Lang’s comments on the news that we need to stay in Afghanistan for decades if we don’t want it to fall apart when we leave. Same goes for Iraq.
Steve
As you know I am a member of a group that consists entirely of Republicans other than me, a Democrat. Not one defends the invasion of Iraq. Yes, they think that Bush would have renegotiated the SOFA to remain.
That we would either have to give up in Afghanistan in the realization that our choices were to remain forever or leave it to the Taliban was a foregone conclusion from the moment we invaded. It was true in 2001. It was true in 2008. It’s still true. I didn’t put that in my list of things I was right about because lots of Americans still think there was a right way to do it. If you read all of Pat’s remarks, you’ll see that he doesn’t believe in the “right way” notion, either.
As I think I have mentioned, I participate in a long term email group discussion. Mostly Republican and lots of Tea Party. They all but one still defend Iraq. The last poll I saw had about 47% conservatives supporting the war and 40% opposing, so I think we both are in atypical groups.
Steve
The “intractable” race problem could be solved by a gummint policy that offered a special tax credit to the mixed-race parents of a mixed-race kid. It would be a kind of anti-nazi anti-race-purity policy. That would do more in the long term for racial harmony than reparations.
Yeah, hope you get it going. That’s the kind of dysgenic scheme which might just lead to the reaction of creation of an ethnic European American political party with a needed paramilitary wing.