Two and a half years ago, I wrote about Five Things that Are Killing America: cowardice, dishonesty, ignorance, sloth and mush. The state of the world now compels me to add a sixth — pretend rationality.
“Pretend rationality” as I’m using it, is shorthand for a blend of two of the others, cowardice and dishonesty. This kind of “rationality” has almost nothing to do with seeking a rational solution or even a vaguely workable one. It has lots to do with pretending we’re seeking a solution while intentionally avoiding it, mostly because we know an actual solution is going to be hard and scary or because we know that, even if it’s not that hard, it will go against the cultural grain the Left has erected and therefore will land us in a heap of trouble with the chattering class.
The two most obvious examples now are items I noted a few days ago: Our foolhardy dealings with Iran; and our further dive into national bankruptcy.
As to the former, the President talks constantly about a “deal” he can’t help but know is a con job and nothing more than a fig leaf to get him off the hook until (he hopes) it will become someone else’s problem. It’s simply not possible to get a “deal” with Iran because any such deal, as the NYT correctly implies (and it’s an expert on this kind of sleaze) would involve the kinds of supposed “limits” and “inspections” that are never going to happen. Thus, as the Times reports,
The Trump administration is proposing an arrangement that would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium at low levels while the United States and other countries work out a more detailed plan intended to block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon but give it access to fuel for new nuclear power plants.
The clearest thing about this is that it doesn’t even work as a fig leaf. No sane person thinks that the US or anyone else is going to enforce this “low level” enrichment plan, and Iran will barely even pretend to be abiding by it. (Still less will there be any future “more detailed plan”). Iran is going to keep enriching uranium for exactly the same reason and at exactly the same speed (or faster) that it’s doing now, to wit, to build a bomb either to launch at Israel (for starters) or, if the reigning Supreme Leader is slightly less of a Jihadist fanatic than the last few, to use to intimidate the rest of the world, starting with the Gulf States. But because we simply will not face up to the fact — and are eagerly dissuaded by the MSM among others from facing up to it — that Iran cannot be untracked from getting The Bomb unless we and/or Israel destroy its nuclear capacity, we pursue the “rational solution” of a deal.
The problem with this is less that it’s arrant nonsense and knowingly dishonest with the American people (although one might think those are problems, too). The problem is that it’s extremely dangerous and could, in short order, force us to decide whether we get into a nuclear exchange after Iran launches The Big One, or not.
Raise your hand if you want that choice.
It’s often pointed out, of course, that war with Iran is also extremely dangerous. That’s true. But it’s less dangerous by far if done now than if, by swallowing our own delusions, we wait until Iran goes nuclear.
The other form of pretend rationality is the proposed federal budget. Elon Musk is being more honest about this than the President. As quietly reported, the Big Beautiful Bill expands our already gargantuan national debt by trillions. And the President has said he agrees with — ready now? — Elizabeth Warren that the statutory debt limit itself should be abolished. Not that the limit has any real consequences, mind you. It’s just a slightly nettlesome reminder about how much and how mindlessly we’re digging ourselves in.
And what are we offered as the pretend rational solution to our explosive debt? Well, DOGE for one thing, and DOGE is in concept all to the good. But its savings, even if fully realized, are infinitesimal compared to the debt.
That is for one simple reason: DOGE, rational as it is, does not address the cause of the debt, that being, far more than anything else, entitlements and “mandatory spending.”
Of course, there is no such thing as “mandatory” spending, not really. We decided to enact the programs that call for such spending and we can decide to repeal or massively reduce them. But we’re not going to because we’ve become addicted to the goodies. “Addicted” is the right word; indeed, it’s the only right word. We’ve become a welfare state but we won’t say it out loud, and even less will we (or should we) raise taxes enough to pay for it; hence the limitless borrowing. The need for individual responsibility to sustain yourself, and sustain what we think we have to have — a need that was drilled into me as a kid — has simply disappeared.
I was brought up on one pretty much unvarnished lesson: Learn to do without or, if after thinking it through, you truly need it, PAY. YOUR. OWN. BILLS.
That thinking is now as extinct as a pterodactyl. But until it returns as the mainstay of how we undertake our expenses and obligations, individually and collectively, we’re going to stay addicted and, even worse as a matter of moral living, pass on the consequences of our addiction and its drunken borrowing to the people who never had a say, that being our children.
*****************************************************
Believe it or not, all the afore-mentioned “Get off my lawn!” huffing is really just a preface to my main point, which arose in my discussion this morning in another forum of the fatuous thinking running through, not just our diplomacy and our finances, but our criminal justice system.
Most of the country, and the Supreme Court, support the death penalty at least for the most horrifying crimes, but we seldom seem to be able to carry it out even in the clearest cases. This is, I think, for a reason closely related to pretend rationality: pretend perfection.
The argument goes that we should forego the death penalty because we know we’re not perfect. If our imperfection leads to a mistake, there’s no going back. That’s true enough as an abstract matter, but capital cases are tried one at a time, not in abstraction. There are some cases where there is simply no chance we’re making even a microscopic mistake about anything that matters, yet even in such cases, pretend perfection casts its shadow and morphs, not into caution — which is both justified and needed — but into paralysis, the first cousin, in its way, to addiction.
The Boston Marathon massacre from 12 long years ago is one such case. We know who did it, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. No sensate person doubts this. At his trial 10 years ago, his lawyer (Judy Clark), the best capital defense lawyer in the country, admitted it. We know he was sane when he did it and that he intended to kill. We know that race and racism had nothing to do with it and were not involved. We know that a unanimous jury in one of the most liberal cities in the country sentenced him to death, and that the case was affirmed on the merits by the Supreme Court. We know that Tsarnaev committed multiple murder, terrorist murder and child murder all in one fell swoop. We know that even a barely functioning, left wing President refused to commute his sentence even while clearing out almost everyone else on federal death row.
Yet there he sits in prison, many years later and still yet more years away from getting what he earned. He’s there and will continue to be there because we lack the sense and the moral fiber to demand a legal system that embodies the accountability we’re endlessly promised.
As noted, this is what’s killing America.
So that we can remember exactly what Tsarnaev did, I’m including below some pictures of the murder site. But I should warn readers that they are awful, and that once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
This is a picture from about a month before the bombing of the boy, Martin Richard, who bled to death in his father’s arms. He wanted to become a Boston Red Sox baseball player. At the time he was blown apart, he was not yet old enough to go out for Little League.
We live in a post reality age. Actually ket me correct that. Our institutions and elites live in a post reality age. Unfortunately that includes the man and his followers who we elected to replace the senile president and his delusional followers. It appears we are going to waste this opportunity to turn the ship of state around because we are being led by an undisciplined unserious fool who today is getting into a flame war with Elon Musk. He has no idea what he's doing. Its really not that much better than the prior deranged morons. God help this world. I hope Israel acts on its own against Iran if necessary but I don't really believe Netanyahu will.
My only difference with Bill about the death penalty is that it should apply to more crimes. I don’t see why the lack of premeditation for instance should be a reason not to execute. I don’t see why a drunk driver who kills should not be executed. It’s true that such occurrences are tragic for all concerned. But why should the author of the tragedy be the only one who gets to live. I might even want to add the denial of tragedy to Bill’s list. Accepting just punishment is a base requirement for being gentleman. Or I suppose for being a lady but a gentleman would not execute a lady which somewhat complicates matters