The Doctrine of Liberal Preemption

Commentary Magazine ^ | June 26, 2008 | Abe Greenwald

[Jbny]

At NRO, Victor Davis Hanson diagnoses our society as being in a chronic state of hesitation, a nation of “Jittery Hamlets:”

The causes of this paralysis are clear. Action entails risks and consequences. Mere thinking doesn’t. In our litigious society, as soon as someone finally does something, someone else can become wealthy by finding some fault in it. Meanwhile, a less fussy and more confident world abroad drills and builds nuclear plants, refineries, dams, and canals to feed and fuel millions who want what we take for granted.

There is an inverse side to all this dithering: the rush to resolve gargantuan problems that do not exist: global warming, institutional racism, “Islamophobia,” American military overreach, etc. Hanson is right. Action brings risks. Perhaps the hand-wringers figure that treating a non-problem involves no risk. If you multiply something by zero, after all, you end up with zero. So: by applying aggressive policies to challenges that don’t yet exist, they once again feel safely ineffectual. This is a mad type of preemption.

In fact it’s hard to imagine a group more overzealous about the doctrine of preemption than present-day liberals. Over the course of 100 hundred year global temperatures have risen, in zig zag fashion, less than one degree. The climate has been virtually flat for a decade and it looks as if it will be flat for a decade to come. Yet, the doctrine of liberal preemption demands that we either tax, fine, create an artificial cap and trade market, or turn food into fuel in order to (ineffectively) fight what could (anything could) develop in the distant future.

[xuberalles]

Great read. Thanks for posting!