… But never fully grasp or repudiate the multiple THOUGHT PROCESSES and CONSTRAINTS that led to the mistake (and will predictably lead to their next itsy-bitsy boo-boo), nor do they willingly relinquish the power to “err” destructively in the future!
Quoting part of Tom Woods’ email newsletter:
Three and a half years too late, New York magazine just published an article called “COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure.” It’s the most popular article on their site right now.
I think we’re long past the point at which we say: good for them for figuring it out, even if belatedly. The time for that has officially gone by.
We don’t award partial credit for admitting the problems with lockdown three and a half years after the policy was implemented.
These belated statements of regret do no good. First and most obviously, it’s far too late to undo the damage from the policy. But second, these tend to be the same kind of people who always, after the implementation of some disastrous policy, can be heard saying, “This was a mistake in hindsight, but nobody could have known at the time.”
Yeah, sure.
Instead, we should draw lessons from episodes like this so we don’t get snookered the next time something stupid and evil comes along.
How’s this for one such lesson: the American establishment is not to be trusted, does not deserve the benefit of the doubt, and does not have your best interests at heart.
Whatever the establishment’s current obsession is, it’s almost certainly a boondoggle based on lies, and it never makes your life better. It only impoverishes you.
Oh, and if you have a dissenting opinion you’ll be called evil, a fool, a conspiracy theorist, a dupe of a foreign power, whatever.
Just a super bunch, these people.
John McCain ultimately admitted that the 2003 Iraq war “can’t be judged as anything other than a mistake, a very serious one, and I have to accept my share of the blame for it.”
Well, that’s super. But as a result of this mistake, how did McCain look at the world differently? What new caution would he now exercise? How would his approach to future conflicts change?
We never got any answers, because nobody bothered to ask him these obviously central questions.
So again, what good does it do to admit, years later, that Boondoggle X was a mistake, if you’re assuredly going to go along with Boondoggle Y, as if Boondoggle X never occurred?
Don’t be the dolt who years later has to say, “We now know X was a mistake.” Be the person with a functioning brain who says at the time, “No way am I supporting X.”
…
End quote. (The aforementioned article is here, and well worth the read.)
For more reading, start with Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell, and… something by Nassim Taleb.