"We leap into vast social experiments with no evidence of their efficacy or necessity"
I thought it was amusing that Card spent the entirety of the article defending the invasion of Iraq, which is perfectly described by his later statement, which I quoted above.
He attacks the intellectual elite with valid statements, and then ruins his validity by pretending the economic elite and/or "conservatives" are any better. RARELY do people surround themselves with the views of others, and it is distressing that our government doesn't have a way to force opposing views into the white house. Card accuses the social elite of being discriminatory of opposing views, and neglects the fact that Bush has nobody of an opposing view on his cabinet, and his administration went through that whole, "firing officials because they don't agree with what I think" phase, and they ask for political affiliation before hiring a person for any job under the administration... So essentially Card, who spends the entire article ridiculing the "intellectual elite" for being hypocritical and praising President Bush and his administration is, in fact, doing the exact same thing that he claims to be so disgusted by. Right down to the name-calling.
As for the "intellectual elite" not being willing to go to war, I believe there are serious issues with all sides of the die there. On the one side, the Bush Administration went into a war on false information (which was KNOWN to be false), and yet Card ignores this fact and claims the war in Iraq was always based on the concept of spreading freedom and democracy, yet our reasons for being in Iraq, according to the administration in charge, has changed from WMDs all the way down to spreading freedom and democracy over time. Yet Card has the gull to attack Obama for changing his mind on issues--all politicians change their minds on issues according to what is popular. Isn't the the nature of a democracy? In a democracy, don't we want our elected officials to change their minds as we do, so they are actually representing how we feel rather than how they feel? In an ideal representative democracy, the politician in question would ALWAYS vote with the people he represents, whether they be wrong or right in his/her mind.
However, sometimes force is needed (though usually it is more than adequate to THREATEN force). The problem isn't that we aren't using force in Darfur, but that we aren't putting any TROOPS in Darfur for peacekeeping reasons. If my memory serves me, there were only TWO UN peacekeeping troops in Darfur in 2007. We aren't to send troops and force a solution, but to send non-combative troops to force temporary peace until a resolution can be found, only to assault when one side becomes aggressive, not picking sides in the issue, but only helping he who is being attacked at the time in order to persuade both sides to not attack, for fear of heavy losses.
And politicians, especially those who tend to agree with Card, send in other people's children to war while they rarely have anything invested in the war themselves, other than profit (and perhaps professional dignity, which few of them have, anyway). We could solve two problems with one stone if we would enact a mandatory service in the military, like Isreal. Not only would we be less likely to go into unimportant wars because those in charge, both the intellectual and economic elite, would HAVE to consider if the war is worth life because their family and friends' families would be on the line. In addition, we would have more troops in order to create powerful peace-keeping missions, instead of not having the troops to go around because we are already invested in too many other wars/occupations. Plus, our entire country would be a backup reserve of military force for emergencies, everybody would know how to defend themselves (and in a non-lethal way, unlike having a firearm), which would lower crime rates.
If we are to believe that we need a leader of strong conviction who will blunderingly charge into battle for causes, and never admit mistake, we might as well just suit ourselves a dictator. The nature of a democracy is that those in charge represent US, not their own values or convictions. Our leader should always consider what WE want as a people more heavily than what he or she believes should happen.
Sometimes democracy must be overlooked in a moment of dictatorial power in extreme situations where action is needed but the people cannot see--this is a rare occasion and, in all honesty, may be a rare occasion which is not missed.
Modification: Thanks a LOT for posting this article, Jakobus--good catch and good idea to post it.
