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The Seen vs. the Unseen
I like to think that I write better sober. But you, dear reader, are unlikely to ever find out, because, without the input of my writing partner (Mr. Beam), I rarely find my thoughts interesting enough to be worth sharing. Also, with Jim’s assistance, I tend to see connections between things, real and imagined, that make me want to try to explain these relationships to myself. Then Jim says, “Cmon – share that! It’s good stuff!” So this is not my fault. But my point, as best I can recall, is that my Uncle Freddie also had a point when he wrote 200 years ago about the seen and the unseen.
He spoke, of course, about government spending. The government engages in what Bastiat described as “legal plunder,” and would then do something with that ill-gotten money which was “seen,” like a bridge or a highway or some other obvious positive contribution to society, designed to generate more goodwill (and power) for politicians. The problem, from Bastiat’s perspective, was that if that money had not been confiscated, it might have had much more benefit to society in ways that would have been much more difficult to describe or perceive. And certainly, much more difficult for a politician to take credit for. Mr. Beam and I think that this concept is applicable to many other aspects of modern society and politics; like school shootings, missile technology, murder rates, low-income housing, race relations, and so on; in ways that are clear to Mr. Beam and I only until I sober up. So I will type rapidly.
Democrats use the occasion of any murder to promote “common sense gun laws,” which they never define, but are likely to be fairly draconian. We already have “common sense gun laws,” so the Democrats’ modifications are likely to be more punitive. Do our current gun laws decrease our number of school shootings? Perhaps. The potential number of school shootings without these laws is purely hypothetical, and thus, unseen. But the Democrats want to be seen as doing something. Something that is seen. Something that will lead to positive press coverage that can help them get elected.
Democrats promote the rights of transsexuals (or whatever the victim group of the week is) because this will lead to happy pictures of joyous (though odd) couples which make for great headlines in newspapers. This is publicity that you cannot buy, and it works because you can see it. What is not seen is the impact that this has on society over time.
Bill Clinton can sell missile technology to China because we all see what a wonderful, worldly, unbiased realist he is. The North Korean nuclear attack on California is unseen because it happens sometime later when he is out of office, and by that time everyone has forgotten the headlines of 20 years ago.
Democrats build housing projects and thus demonstrate their love of the underprivileged. So would those people have been living on the street without publicly funded housing projects? Of course not. They likely would have better and safer housing absent government intervention. But that better housing is unseen.
Democrats succeed in elections (despite the unpopularity of much of their ideology) largely because, in the opinion of Jim and I, they work almost exclusively in the realm of the seen. This is difficult to resist in an election year, or in a 24-hour news cycle. Calvin Coolidge is credited with the proposed response to an emergency: “Don’t just do something – stand there!” But doing something wins elections, keeps Margaret Thatcher’s ratchet of socialism moving inevitably forward, and generates positive press (and thus, electoral victories). The conservative voice of restraint is understandably viewed as mean-spirited and curmudgeonly.
Bastiat’s interpretation of Adam Smith and John Locke to develop his understanding of the management of scarcity led to the Austrian School of economics. Remarkable, because all his important work was done in about 5 years, and then he died of tuberculosis at age 49. Think how history might have been different if Isoniazid had been available in the 1800s.
But here we are, predictably taking sides the way we always do in response to whatever happened to happen today, thinking we’re discussing the issues of the day. When in fact, Democrats are talking about the seen. And the rest of us are talking about the unseen. Again. With predictable results. I don’t think the unseen can win in a public debate. Thus, Marx’s view that history has a predictable course may actually be true, although not for the reasons he wrote about.
I like to think I’m over-simplifying things. But not much, I think. Jim agrees.
Do you?
Published in General
It seems right to me. It doesn’t help that the press is actively engaged in preventing the seeing of seen things that line up with a conservative view.
My grandfather, an MD, claimed that the key for a physician dealing with helping with child birth was the ability and or patience to seat on your hands. What would Jim say about that policy?
First do no harm.
This makes sense in the high stakes world of medicine. Mistakes can be costly.
I would argue that this makes more sense in the higher stakes world of public policy. Mistakes can be catastrophic.
And the FBI would have been right on it except that procedures were not followed. There seems to be a lot of that going on. Ask Cliven Bundy. Ask LaVoy Finicum (Oh. You can’t.) And going farther back, we see that there have long been people at the FBI who like the idea of being the secret police.
One of the things the upper echelons of the FBI is very good at is leaking to shape the narrative and using the narrative to drive the public demand for policies the FBI brass likes.
A thought experiment: If the goal of the Leftist lawyers Obama embedded into DOJ (and other agencies) in its eight year rule was change public opinion in order to do away with the private ownership of firearms, what would the FBI have done differently in response to the calls about the Parkland murderer?
The results of public-policy mistakes are seen, but years down the road when they are no longer seen as stemming from the poor public policy. Community-Reinvestment Act>>>>>Sub-prime mortgages>>>>>Collateralized Mortgage Securities>>>>>Financial Crisis.
Always “unexpectedly.”
No wai! That was greedy Repugs, I saw it on HuffPo.
What’s unseen here is how much better your thoughts would be if you’d let your Maker leave his Mark. PS: I have gotten the Beam out of my own I
Your observation is the essence of public choice theory, the heart of conservatism, and at the center of our political dilemma.
This is why “virtue signaling” and Horowitz’s “intoxicated with their virtue” are such perfect phrases describing the Left.
You’re on fire with these posts, Doc! Not that I’m encouraging a drinking habit here…
I can quit whenever I want…
#MeToo
I sure as heck don’t.
I’m on a Rocky Mountain High with Mr. Coors . . .
How will you know if you never try?
In most cases, the “good results” of leftist policies are not “seen.” They are merely expected. For example, in the last 50 years we have spent about 20 trillion dollars on anti-poverty programs. That’s right, trillion with a “T.” All of this has had absolutely zero effect on poverty. That’s right, zero with a “Z.” Poverty continues to vacillate between 11% in good economic times and 15% in bad times. But voters don’t bother to look at the results, because anti-poverty programs are “good.” After all, who is for poverty? Only those evil and greedy Republicans, of course. People expect that anti-poverty programs will reduce poverty.
Explaining the unseen may be difficult, but shining a light on the seen shouldn’t be that hard. We just need to do more of it. Every time a Republican speaks, it should be in front of a backdrop photograph of the crumbling city of Detroit, the homeless encampments in Los Angeles, or some equally obvious visible evidence of the catastrophes wrought by leftist policies.
So, Doc, let me know what Jim thinks about that and I’ll take it up with my friend Johnny Walker.
Write drunk, edit sober.
Fantastic point.
Another fantastic point. Wish I would have thought of that. You would think Republicans could find ways to highlight the actual results of all these good intentions.
When I’m splurging I have Laphroiag. Gosh, that stuff is yummy…
Here’s even more incentive:
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/drinking-alcohol-key-living-90-article-1.3829634
A quote from that article: “Researchers discovered that subjects who drank about two glasses of beer or wine a day were 18% less likely to experience a premature death”
So if I drink 10 glasses of beer or wine a day I’ll never die.
I would guess that 80% of college students could not tell you why that is wrong. They might suspect that it is wrong, but they wouldn’t be able to show the specific flaws in the reasoning.
Islay ftw!
That’s my analysis and I’m sticking to it . . . hic!