Debating Disillusionment
Disillusionment over the efficacy of national politics is not particularly uncommon in today’s political arena. Some forms of disillusionment are more extreme than others of course, but all forms have their limits concerning what is too ridiculous or too ludicrous to find within the mainstream political community.
Since I consider myself to be significantly disillusioned, I expect very little from presidential candidates during their campaigns (or after they’re elected for that matter). It is with this low expectation in mind that I allowed myself to watch a few segments of the January 24th Republican presidential debate. Despite my extremely low expectations, a comment from the candidate Mike Huckabee nevertheless managed to completely dumbfound me and drop my confidence in national politics practically into negative numbers.
Regarding the “missing” weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, Huckabee attempted to defend the legitimacy of the Iraq invasion by stating the following:
“Now, everybody can look back and say, ‘Oh, well, we didn’t find the weapons.’ It doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Just because you didn’t find every Easter egg didn’t [sic] mean that it wasn’t planted.”
Basically, Huckabee is arguing here that the government’s decision to invade Iraq was infallible from the day the decision was made. In other words, there was nothing that could have happened subsequent to that decision that would have rendered the WMD justification invalid (i.e. the finding or not finding of evidence of WMDs). Since there is no way to prove that something could never have existed, one can always speculate that it might have existed without appeal to evidence. For example, if I claim that the ghost of Elvis exists and that he appeared in my living room last night, how exactly would you go about proving me wrong? No matter what you might say, I could always reply: “Just because you didn’t see him or find any evidence of him doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.” Clearly, just because you cannot prove that the ghost of Elvis never existed, it does not mean that he does exist, that he likely exists, or that I am justified in acting as if he exists.
It may not be obvious with innocuous propositions like the existence of Elvis’s ghost, but the flaws with this reasoning are incredibly lethal when brought into the real world and wielded against real people. With respect to criminal accusations, Huckabee’s logic suggests that there is no need for sound empirical evidence when accusing another party of criminal behavior. In other words, the accusing party carries no burden of proof. Without a burden of proof to ground criminal accusations, speculative and substance-less “what-ifs” become sufficient for convicting and penalizing the accused. Such a position leaves the accused, dreadfully, defenseless. Indeed, how exactly could the accused ever justify their innocence (assuming they are innocent) if there is no way to negate the charge empirically?
Under this logic, therefore, it was impossible for Iraq to not be guilty of holding WMDs and thus deserving of the ultimate consequence that was, and still is, U.S. Military invasion and occupation. This thinking is tragic when implemented in the real world where people and, in the case of Iraq, entire countries, are subjected to the sorts of consequences associated with the severest of criminal charges. The fact that this type of thinking is even entertained in a serious presidential debate leaves me questioning how, or even if, this political system of ours can function respectably. Of course, I could adopt Huckabee’s logic and conclude that even though I don’t see much legitimacy in our national governance, that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
January 30th, 2008 at 21:54
Nodoby really discusses the absence of WMDs anymore, but when mentioned, the stock response is: “Would you rather have Saddam in power? NO - NO, YOU WOULDN’T, BECAUSE SADDAM WAS A DICTATOR. He would have made weapons at some point.”
Check mate, apparently. I’m too disillusioned to list the ways this doesn’t work. But believe me: it’s a lot. I’m witholding the evidence, which means it must be true.
January 31st, 2008 at 09:11
Well put N8. I think it’s becoming more and more clear how ubiquitous the defects in our political structure are. It doesn’t seem very likely that solutions that aim to work within the existing structure will be successful–the broken parts will simply contaminate any new repairs that are made. It’s not just that Huckabee’s comment was ridiculous because it represents his stupidity; it’s ridiculous because it is a consequence of a wholly wrong-headed political structure. Without an already corrupt system, his point of view would not even make it into the realm of serious discourse. In an ideal system, comments like his would be laughed at and then ignored because the collective intelligence of the people would be far beyond that kind of nonsense. But, we’re obviously not anywhere near such an ideal.
Ha, the “Saddam was a dictator” response is especially outlandish. What the hell does that prove exactly? Oh yeah, that someone’s trying to jerk me around.