Let’s start compiling a list of the crazy and damaging ideas that people have these days. I’ll start. Believing that opening China up to trade would inevitably cause China to liberalize politically was both nuts and damaging to the United States. The people who peddled that pile of horse-hockey should have been removed from office and, probably, been forcibly restrained so they couldn’t harm themselves and others.
The idea that we could invade Afghanistan and create a coherent modern state there where none had ever existed before was crazy and dangerous. Escalating our efforts there would lead to success? Crazy and dangerous.
I could go on like this for days.
The idea we can separate medical treatment from the ability to pay. Never having to say we have a cure, but you can’t afford it. I don’t pretend to understand them, but new cancer treatments called Biologics can cost 1/4 to 1/2 a $million per dose.
The idea that there exists an “arc of history” that quite naturally, bends toward justice. This is sophomoric. Tyrants will bend that arc for you if you don’t tend to it.
I certainly agree with that GS. Whig history is the root of much evil.
I’ve given the example of slavery before. There are probably more slaves right now than at any time in human history but since we don’t have many here Whigs cite it as an example of the arc of history bending towards justice. If you ignore enough things you can prove anything.
which is why I think that proclaiming that we’ve created a right to health care or that health care should be a right is so disastrously damaging. A right to health care (any positive right for that matter) creates an irreconcilable conflict among the right to property, the right to self-determination, and the right to health care.
“Whig history is the root of much evil.”
It is evil to believe that the world is trending towards better behavior? We ma have more eslavery, but we also have more people. Also, we dont have open chattel slavery so it is recognized that it is wrong whereas in the past there was not moral angst over slavery. So, I dont think there is much doubt that the world is a much better place than it has been in the past, but ZI would agree that this is not a natural arc. It has involved a lot of hard work and loss of life.
Steve
That was my point, that progress is not natural or inevitable.