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Simple Solutions?
I just finished reading Kevin Williamson’s latest piece at NRO, The Stupid Psychopath Problem. Before I continue, I’d like you to have this Reagan quote in the back of your mind: “They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple.”
Williamson argues that Trump and people like Trump suffer from a severe case of what he calls “The Stupid Psychopath Problem:
The Stupid Psychopath Problem is the political distortion resulting from the fact that a great many people — some of them on barstools, some of them dangerously close to the levers of real power — believe that there are obvious, simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems such as the predations of the Islamic State or the woeful state of U.S. public finances, but that these solutions are not implemented because people in government are too soft, unwilling or unable to get tough and do what needs to be done.
I would argue that a simple solution to our national financial problems would be to borrow and spend less money. I happen to believe that some people on barstools might actually have some common sense that is severely lacking in people in Washington. I agree with William F. Buckley, that “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Washington group-think could be a stand in for Harvard University in an updated version of that quote.
Williamson focuses the majority of his critique on his belief that Trump is unprepared to deal with Islamic terrorism in general and ISIS in particular:
Men such as Donald Trump, and a half a hundred million idiots just like him across the fruited plain, really believe that the reason we haven’t eliminated Islamic terrorism is that it never occurred to anybody in the federal government — including the people who run, e.g., the U.S. Special Operations Command — to get tough. These people imagine that the trained killers in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and the often ruthless men who oversee them in Washington, simply are not willing to do what it takes to win. What that means, these people have no idea, because they are unwilling to think very hard about these sorts of problems and generally have no experience themselves. Trump is famously a physical coward who lied to stay out of the military during the Vietnam war, and he knows nothing about foreign policy, national defense, or the workings of the military, which is why all we ever hear from him is “get tough” and “win.”
It’s hard to read this paragraph and then read this story about the Marine Corp, which rather makes the case that those who know how to defeat the enemy are not running our military:
Marines across the Corps will be challenged on their unconscious prejudices and presuppositions as women get the opportunity to become grunts for the first time.
I am not a foreign policy expert, but I do have some knowledge and common sense. Many Japanese wanted to continue the war even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were annihilated with atomic bombs. A similar type of fervor has been alive and well in the hearts of Islamic radicals for 1,400 years. The idea that our current strategy of drones, targeted precision attacks, think-tank discussions on hate, policy papers, and mass immigration will eventually defeat them for good does not have any basis in reality. In the meantime we should continue turning the military in to a blotted social justice project.
Williamson concludes his piece with this:
The problem is that while there is an effectively endless supply of stupid psychopaths, there is no secret cache of simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems just waiting in a filing cabinet somewhere in Washington until a sufficiently tough guy comes along willing to be as cruel and as vicious as the hour requires.
Kevin Williamson attacks Trump as a “witless ape” and a “stupid psychopath,” but he has become just as insufferable. It’s as if he thinks that we are just one more browbeating away from ridding ourselves of Trump.
Finally, returning to the Reagan quote and the question for the Ricochetti I opened this post with: Are there simple solutions to complex problems?
Published in Politics
exactly my reaction after I read that piece. The article is as steeped in stupid as anything Trump has said, and that is saying something.
*sigh*, where to start.
Solutions to problems may be simple in theory, but there are always multiple competing interests to consider. You say a simple answer to our fiscal problems is to borrow and spend less money. There are many Democrats who would say that a simpler solution would be to increase taxes, and since for now they control the White House (and possibly the Senate after the election) their views have to be taken into account. If we did decide to spend less money, which programs would you trim or cut? Entitlements are our biggest outlay, what changes should be made? Benefits cut, retirement age raised? There are multiple loosers in that scenario. Should defense spending be further cut? our military is already suffering material and training shortfalls.
Islamic radicalism is historically a recent phenomenon. Salafism and Wahhabism were founded in the mid to late 18th century, but only became truly radicalized in the late 19th/early 20th century with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The same problems apply. How do you deal with them. Will we invade Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, Sudan and other places with radical jihadists? If we “take the oil” as Trump suggests, does that turn larger percentages of the population against us, aggravating the problem?
Trump is a witless ape because he has shown no inclination to deal with his massive knowledge gaps, and doesn’t have the humility to know what he doesn’t know.
Stupid psychopaths (not a particularly useful appellation, really) come in all political flavors, and opine from left-leaning as well as right-leaning barstools.
Kevin Williamson’s critique of Trump reminded me of my liberal friends and acquaintances who are, like Trump, absolutely sure that all sorts of problems (abortion, unwed teen motherhood, gun violence, racial profiling, prison reform, crime in the inner city, etc) would be quickly, easily, justly and comfortably resolved were it not for the perverse unwillingness of conservatives to concede a few breathtakingly obvious facts and accept the obvious solution.
Kevin Williamson, having grown up in West Texas, is now the worst kind of snob, one who must be the most extreme due to the shame of his tribal roots.
A sick, sad case, the NR editors find him useful to further their aims. I can no longer read him, it has become distasteful to watch a person so in need of validation he negates the humanity of others.
World War Two had clever and simple. The Germans and Japanese were clever. The Allies, especially the US and Russia were simple. Simple won. Weapons of acceptable quality in great number in the hands of ordinary guys were decisive.
Simple does not mean easy. Only the simple of mind think simple is easy.
Just keep them out of our country. No need to invade theirs.
This is simply not true, expansion of the Islamic world is a central part of the faith. The Ottomans may not have been Salafists or Wahhabist, but their Sufi “moderation” would still be abhorrent to the Western world. What do you think the Crusades were about? They were about reclaiming lands that we once at the heart of Christendom. Whenever the Islamic world has been strong enough to invade non-muslim lands, they have done so. Jerusalem 632, Alexandria 641, Tours in 732, Constantinople in 1453 and the proceeding Balkan Wars, Vienna 1529 just to name the European conquests and to say nothing of Islamic expansion in the East.
I don’t particularly care about what the Democrats have to say because I know their “solutions” are not the correct solutions. The question is whether or not there are simple answers not just in theory but in actual practice. In actual practice, spending and borrowing less means a reduction in debt.
It’s mildly fascinating to note who NRO has chased away or fired- John Derbyshire, Mark Steyn- and who they keep- Kevin Williamson.
It seems to me that the mainstream conservative movement is terribly, terminally political correct- and most people it it haven’t even noticed.
Thus, it is a-ok for Williamson to condemn the white working class, wishing genocide upon us, but John Derbyshire was fired for noticing the grim ugly problems of a more favored group who have turned inner cities into dangerous wastelands.
As a mere lowly Trumkin I’m sure neither National Review nor Kevin Williamson care for my opinion, of course.
My solution for the irrelevant nonsense of both is to delete my bookmark and cease reading either.
See how simple that was?
Spending or borrowing less…how much less? That sounds too complicated; the US government should just stop borrowing and spending altogether.
Is this true? I thought what was interesting about Williamson’s Get-a-U-Haul piece was that everything he said was equally applicable to black Americans. Indeed, I’d say the reasons for their troubles are nearly identical, and the solutions might be too?
Ah yes, the commentator who consistently calls for those in bad situations to use their agency to better themselves, he is the one who is “negating the humanity of others”.
Crack the enigma machine and build the atomic bomb. So simple. Glad the boys thought of it.
The worst thing that might be caused by a Trump presidency: Kevin Williamson doesn’t regain his sense of proportion. (I find it very sad to “see” him ranting like this.)
Sure. But do you believe the simple solutions are easy? Or are the easy answers the simple ones? And don’t forget – there is a difference between simple, and simplistic. Many people offer simple solutions and talk about implementing them as if it were easy. Or, they offer easy/simplistic answers, mistaking them for the simple solutions.
The solution may be simple in theory, but the implementation may be harder and more complicated.
It’s easy to say, “Borrow less and spend less.” And that is a simple answer. And it’s correct. But then the question is, how much less? And what are you going to cut? Does it come mostly out of entitlement spending? Does defense spending get slashed significantly, or does it actually grow, to revitalize the military and combat growing threats in the world? And then there are ignorant and perhaps “simplistic” answers: “Well, we’re going to cut waste, fraud, and abuse in Washington.” No, that won’t actually work.
Trump knows little about history, government, and public policy, and has shown no inclination to learn and correct his ignorance.
Yep. Except no one- certainly not our tame PC conservatives of the political class- will ever tell black Americans to go get jobs elsewhere, because they will never ever criticize people who vote left. Never.
Literally everyone I have ever known or worked with or been related to has moved for a job, temporarily or permanently, at some point in their lives. Everyone.
That Kevin Williamson is oblivious to this or pretends to be, and thus felt comfortable launching a vile screed condemning the hated pale people of European ancestry for our imagined laziness, makes me despise him and the petty boutique publication he writes for.
I emphasize again that the mainstream conservative movement and the Republican party are terrible unwilling to criticize leftists and the people who vote for leftists- but they have no trouble at all being very nasty against the rank-and-file voters still willing to support them. For example, Mitt Romney said Obama was nice guy in over his head- but he came out swinging against Trump.
I’m done with this. I will not support a party or a publication that despises me so much that it would tolerate what Williamson wrote- especially considering that it fired John Derbyshire for criticisms of left-leaning voters.
In theory yes, but in reality to stop spending and borrowing you need to have the cooperation of the Democrats, so their views have to be taken into account. Further what would you spend less on. Everyone has their own spending priorities that conflicts with others. Each has to be appeased in some way or the spending reduction doesn’t pass. Democracy sucks huh?
I don’t believe that simple solutions are easy to implement, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The current problem with the military is not necessarily underfunding, but how the money is actually spent. The new modular handgun is an example of massive inefficiency and waste, but more importantly the culture of military appropriation.
The Crusades were as much about making pilgrimages safe for Christians. They were fast to ally with Muslims in control of Egypt and Damascus when it suited them. Most crusaders though of themselves as pilgrims, which is why after they conquered Jerusalem, many returned home, and why the Crusader states were always begging for armies from Europe. As for Muslim expansion, in what ways is that different from any other Empire in history? Rome, the Mongols, the Carolingians, the Angevins. Medieval Muslims were also quick to adopt certain Western ideas: architecture, science and literature, and were usually more tolerant of the religious minorities in their midst than the European states were at the time. Wahhabism and its like are “purification” movements that attempt to take Islam back to its pure Mohammadean form.
So all the battles fought were a waste of time because of enigma and the bomb? The bomb ended the war, it did not win it. Enigma was an advantage, but I expect Stalingrad and other grind it out killing of armies had more to do with the loss. But hey, fantasies are free. By your logic, the ME-262 won the air war, just because it existed.
Poor Kevin was one of the first victims of the Trump fiasco. He lost his mind early in the war. He became one of the biggest prods that kept so many well meaning, good people, stuck in the stampede that is The Donald.
He is like one of those insane preachers on urban street corners, that screams at homosexuals and single mom’s about hell fire and damnation. It isn’t about truth. It is about being a judgmental, bitter, lunatic towards the wounded people around you.
Why were pilgrimages unsafe for Christians if Muslims were so accepting? Why were the Byzantines asking for help? And another reason for the Crusades was that in 1096 the Europeans finally had the military might to reclaim the lands, unlike in the 7th century. Centuries of Viking raids gave the Europeans a professional fighting class.
Islam is a conquering force like the Roman Empire or any other expansionist group in history. So why don’t we treat it as such?
I think most problems have pretty simple solutions. But people are afraid to think creatively.
Israeli-Arab peace? Like all wars that are followed with peace, one side needs to win. Israel needs to win so emphatically that Arabs stop thinking they will push the Jews into the sea.
Iran? Airdrop handguns to the populace. Put a bounty on the heads of the top 100 bad guys.
Evil dictators? Make St Helena (or equivalent) a protected ex-Dictator playland, and give all evil dictators a guaranteed “Get Out Free” offer. They go and live out their days without fear.
The Middle East/ISIS? Cities of Refuge, exporting economic and religious freedom to enclaves that are built from the ground up, not the top down. Instead of importing refugees, export the dream.
Bad public schools? Charterize them all.
And so on and so forth.
I’ll clarify my comment. On average they were more tolerant, not accepting. There were periods, usually after defeats or setbacks when Muslims went back to basics, but Christians did the same (Byzantine iconoclasm). They Byzantine wanted an to take back their territory for themselves, not for Christians, and only wanted a few hundred knights, not the thousands that arrived. Its why the crusaders had to take an oath to turn the lands taken over to the Emperor. The Europeans did not have a better fighting force in the 11th century than earlier. In the 7th and 8th centuries the Frankish kingdom had more power than any kingdom of the 11th and had been constantly fighting other Germanic tribes that had carved up the Western Roman Empire. The crusaders made it to Jerusalem because they made their attempt when the Muslim rulers of Damascus and Egypt were about to start a civil war, and were thus divided.
North Korea? Air drop food and propaganda. Plenty of it. Then, when the people start believing in the United States (a year or five – it is standard Cargo Cult thinking), provide them with the means to defend themselves.
Negative rights are simple. It is positive rights that make everything complicated.
The Franks of the 7th century were no where near as powerful as the armies of the 11th century. The nature of the soldiers were totally different, they were not professionals and would only fight in the spring and summer. The horizons of the Frankish Empire in the 7th and 8th century were the Germanic tribes in the East and Moorish Spain south of the Pyrenees. The Frankish invasion of the Spain described in the Song of Roland illustrates the weakness of the Frankish Kingdom.
The Franks couldn’t invade Moorish Spain successfully, let alone retake Jerusalem. The army did not have the resources. It was the constant and random Viking attacks that forced the western Europeans to develop professional soldiers who were at the ready throughout the year. They could not rely on the unprofessional armies that would be raised in the spring campaign season. When the Viking raids ceased to be a threat in the late 11th century, a new knightly class was available to retake the holy land. Professional soldiers who were disciplined and could fight a long campaign far from home. Even when armies of the 11th century were defeated they did not break up and scatter as the armies of the 7th and 8th century would have, as described in the Song of Roland.
This does not match my experience of the last 7 years at all. If anything, I’ve seen a whole lot of Republican officeholders railing against the left all day long, to the point where I wonder if they have any thoughts at all other than “D=bad, R’s=good”.
After an entire campaign season dedicated to bashing GOP officeholders and “establishment”, now you’re out when someone says a bad word about you? Also, which part did you feel was directed at you?
The Fletcher Memorial Home, perhaps?
“The Fletcher Memorial Home”
take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
and build them a home a little place of their own
the fletcher memorial
home for incurable tyrants and kings
and they can appear to themselves every day
on closed circuit t.v.
to make sure they’re still real
it’s the only connection they feel
“ladies and gentlemen, please welcome reagan and haig
mr. begin and friend mrs. thatcher and paisley
mr. brezhnev and party
the ghost of mccarthy
the memories of nixon
and now adding colour a group of anonymous latin
american meat packing glitterati”
did they expect us to treat them with any respect
they can polish their medals and sharpen their
smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for a while
boom boom, bang bang, lie down you’re dead
safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye
with their favourite toys
they’ll be good girls and boys
in the fletcher memorial home for colonial
wasters of life and limb
is everyone in?
are you having a nice time?
now the final solution can be applied
The 11th century crusading army was not anymore professional than earlier armies, the knights of lore were still at least a century away. The Vikings weren’t any better fighters than previous Germanic tribes, they just moved swiftly and unpredictably because of their boats and confronted a fragmented Europe. 8th century warriors fighting the Lombards, Saxons and Bavarians required the same skills. Many of the European princes paid off the Vikings rather than fight them. Crusading armies could break up as well. Stephen of Blois returned home and Baldwin of Boulogne moved to take Edessa instead of moving on to Jerusalem. These knights had to use large portions of their estates as collateral, something earlier warriors wouldn’t do.
The “knights of lore” being a century away would have been a surprise to the Saxons who fought mounted knights at Hastings in 1066. The Viking swift tactics and unpredictability did make them better; surprise and swiftness were their weapons. The ability to show up anywhere at anytime required armed professional soldiers at all times, which was a change from the 7th and 8th century traditions. British housecarls being a prime example.
From a recent Williamson article: