Anyway, as I was saying, this epiphany has caused me to question and indeed understand the world around me in an entirely new light. Specifically, I now perceive that logic and rationality have very little to do with people's opinions. Perspective and pride are much larger determiners of how individuals view the world.
One specific case comes to mind. President George W. Bush lead the country in an invasion of Iraq based upon the recommendations of the Intelligence Community. He was told that Saddam had WMDs, in particular chemical weapons. His possessing such items was in violation of international law and UN declarations stemming from the first Gulf War. Now whether you agreed with GHW Bush's invasion or not is immaterial. It happened and Iraq was bound.
Going in everyone in a decision making role (including Hillary Clinton and ALL the other leading Democrats) accepted the CIA reports as factual. After hitting the ground though, our specialists were not able to find the massive stockpiles that everyone expected. Since that time the mantra, "Bush lied-People died" has become "fact".
I put scare quotes around that last word because as it turns out, Saddam DID have the remnants of a chemical weapons capability AND the ability to revive it at a moment's notice. Read the end links carefully (note the credible sources of each) and you will soon recognize that Saddam's capabilities were just as robust as ever. And remember that even a few liters of mustard gas or sarin, deployed carefully or given to terrorists, could have killed or maimed hundreds if not thousands.
However, that is not the main topic of this discussion. What I would like to point out is the strange disassociation between actual facts and the opinions formed prior and after those facts come to light.
There were large segments of the population that were opposed to the war. They had their reasons from pure pacifism to political posturing. And I recognize that they may use any one of those reasons or none at all. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion regardless of truth or facts or logic. But being against the war already, they seized upon the derth of chemical weapons as proof that Bush in fact LIED to get us into the war.
It would be helpful here to define exactly what a lie is and what it is not. If I stand up and say that the price of a loaf of bread in Rome is 10X the price in Bakersfield, I may or may not be wrong. Granted, I probably am wrong (not that uncommon an occurance) but even if I am, THAT IS NOT A LIE. Only if I knew what the average price of bread in Rome was and then deliberatly said differently would I have spoken a lie. Just being wrong carries no direct burden of evil or maliciousness. I would hazard a guess that almost every single one of you reading this has been wrong at one time or another. Except of course my dear wife who is my superior in every possible way.
So, "Bush Lied-" becomes "Bush listened to experts who, after careful consideration of the scant information available to them, determined a particular situation as highly probable which left little choice for the leader of a nation determined to prevent additional terrorist activities but to use force in conjunction with the other civilized nations of the world and under mandate of the United Nations to contain and destroy the ability of a highly unstable nation to perpetrate such activities either directly or through like-minded groups- People died".
The pejorative "lied" however rolls off the tongue much easier and gives the impression of some evil and nefarious purpose. I am sure that every one of you can remember the often deranged personal attacks upon Bush's character and humanity which followed.
Since then a large number of chemical weapons have in fact been found in Iraq. Gasses, liquids, delivery systems, shells, production facilities etc have all been located. Individually they may pose little threat but as a whole it shows that Saddam had had them (no one disputes that he used the damn things against the Iranians in their war as well as against the Kurds) and could use them again in a matter of hours. Some even present evidence that they were used against the US during the invasion, though I do not present any links because I could not discover any really credible sources.
The point is that even though the facts have generally vindicated Bush, he is still vilified and accused of lying, making him an accessory to mass murder and practically equal to Hitler.
This type of disconnect between reality and the perception-induced opinion which people maintain is often startling.
Recently in my hometown an Asian store owner shot and killed two Black men during a fight. It all began over the price of a soda. Now many hundreds of people are saying that it was downright murder over the price. But the facts are that the owner was in a physical confrontation with two men and had had enough. Did he have the right to kill them? I don't know, I wasn't there. Did his danger or fear of harm rise to the level at which the law justifies homicide? My first guess is no. One man had already left the store and then walked back in. There was no IMMEDIATE danger though it may have escalated quickly.
Yet was what he did murder?
Again I would say no. He did not go out looking for someone to kill. He did not plan to shot those two men. I suppose it is possible that he had decided to kill the next person who caused trouble in his store but the known facts do not yet bear that out.
So throwing around the word "murder" is incendiary and not warranted. Why are people screaming that most offensive of words? Because they are bringing in all of their own past experiences and perceptions about racial injustices. It is a generalization to be sure but it seems the crowd is simply convinced that that Asian man was so deeply racist that he wanted an excuse to kill Black men and no facts or fears can justify his actions. Just yesterday there was a call to close the store over the incident regardless of what happens legally. Here we see the absurdity of acting upon factless opinion. There are few stores servicing that area of town. Being the local market, the community depends upon it. Now members of that very community are agitating to punish the "murderer" and starve themselves at the very same time.
We see this type of intellectual poverty throughout our culture. Sweeping pronouncements are made about how "this group is trying to destroy our country" or "that group doesn't care about the poor". Rarely does anyone give concrete facts and logical analysis to justify their incriminations.
We have become a nation of name-callers and tale-tellers. A massive, seething, emotion driven collective of 4-year-olds who think everything belongs to them and anyone who disagrees must be a hateful poo-poo head.
I would give the lot of these screaming, inarticulate, selfish OWSers for one well-spoken person who could explain and defend their postion. The rest are just the rabble that historically are used for cannon-fodder and the guillotine.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3386357.stm
www.un.org/depts/unmovic/new/.../s-2006-701-munitions.pdf (See #10 and 12 in particular)
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