Saturday, September 01, 2007
An Observation
Listening to the anti-Iraq war arguments and the arguments in favor of illegal immigration over time, it strikes me how similar those arguments are to those put forth by environmental activists. To wit: "Whatever we're doing now is bad, and we should be doing X." When we in fact begin doing X, the argument becomes, "Whatever we're doing now, including X, is bad, and we should be doing Y."
After several iterations of this, one might suspect that the people using those arguments don't really want to solve the problem. That is why I no longer believe those people have any greater moral authority than the people against whose policies they are protesting. The protesters know they'll never be in a position where they are actually responsible for solving the problem, because none of them will ever be elected to a policy-making body, so they can criticize with impunity, and be as inconsistent as they like.
After several iterations of this, one might suspect that the people using those arguments don't really want to solve the problem. That is why I no longer believe those people have any greater moral authority than the people against whose policies they are protesting. The protesters know they'll never be in a position where they are actually responsible for solving the problem, because none of them will ever be elected to a policy-making body, so they can criticize with impunity, and be as inconsistent as they like.
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