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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (391682)	4/14/2003 8:12:17 AM
From: H-Man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

It is hard when people are shooting at you. It is hard, without Iraqi cooperation. In a relatively short time we have found several sites, which UNMOVIC did not know about. In a relatively short time we have Iraqi's STARTING to come forward to “Show us what they did not show the Inspectors". Your innuendo that there are none at this point in time is quite silly. Searching for WMD has only just begun. Why anyone would believe Baghdad Bob and Saddam is beyond all reason.

To: Land Shark who wrote (391682)	4/14/2003 9:08:32 AM
From: briskit	Respond to of 769670

Thomas Sowell has written two books pondering why the same people end up on the same side of issues that have no intrinsic connection. In "A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles," he writes that this is because they operate from two different "visions" of how the world works, indeed of human nature. In "The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy," he argues that the prevailing vision in the press, academy and politics has become so dogmatic that it has lost touch with reality. Mr. Sowell labels the competing visions "constrained" and "unconstrained." The constrained vision argues that perfection is impossible, that social policy consists of structuring incentives for self-centered men, that life is a series of trade-offs. This vision is represented by the likes of Adam Smith, Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton (and of course, Dick Cheney and the Bush administration mindset). The unconstrained version argues that man's imperfections are the result of bad institutions, that pure intentions matter more than actual effects, that rationality can solve problems once and for all. In the time of Smith and Burke, this tradition was epitomized by William Godwin, whose "Enquiry Concerning Political Justice" was popular in Great Britain until the public started to witness the excesses of the French Revolution. For the path of the unconstrained vision ran through Rosseau, Voltaire and Thomas Paine (a defender of the French Revolution as well as a hero of the American one). Today's academy is in thrall of descendants of these French ideas. The academically popular "deconstructionism" promoted by Jacques Derrida argues that the conception of meaning or truth is another corrupting institution, merely expressing power relationships. Students and journalists who have never heard of Derrida reflect his influence in preoccupation with issues of gender, class and race. As Mr. Sowell writes, the "vision of the anointed" has become impervious to evidence. Rather, it's "a badge of honor and a proclamation of identity: To affirm it is to be one of us and to oppose it is to be one of them." This is relevant today because these two visions were put to a stark test on the streets of Baghdad. Those who followed the constrained version were proved right; those associated with the unconstrained version, Mr. Sowell's "anointed," proved foolish. This rare empirical test should be weighed in the competing claims offered on other issues--energy policy, the environment, racial quotas and, to come to the present crux, economic policy. opinionjournal.com