Comments on: Flip Flop! Flip Flop!?

By: Alex B.

Alex B. — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

Right On.

What makes it even stranger, though, is that this blogger Alina goes on to say: “Now [Will] takes Max Borders to task for his seemingly misguided ‘Contractarian Position’ supporting the war in Iraq.” As though your critique of Max is further *evidence* that you are waffling.

Of course, your critique of Max was simply that his contractarian view doesn’t remotely entail his hawkishness. Big deal. That’s a philosophical argument that someone might make whether they are a hawk, a dove, or whatever. It is logically independent of the policy views that one happens to hold.

Intellectual honesty commits us to both develop and employ our ability to critique the validity of an argument, independently of whether we happen to agree with the argument’s conclusion.

I could perhaps see how writing such a critique counts as waffling, but only to someone who measures the strength and identity of all arguments by how closely she agrees with their conclusions.

By: McClain

McClain — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

For what it’s worth, I remember you opposed the war before it started, on the grounds that Iraq wasn’t a big enough threat.
I disagreed, and still do, but I wouldn’t accuse you of “waffling.”

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

Does Alina remember Stand Down? You know, the antiwar website Max Sawicky & Jim Henley & I started? The one where both you and Alina were on the freaking masthead during the whole run-up to the war? I took that as a pretty unambiguous indication of which side you were on, unless you were just being polite to Jim & Me…

By: Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

The very first sentence of the Doublethink essay describes you as “barely” opposed to the war. I think it’s fair to call that “wishy-washy.” I don’t know what else you were saying/doing at the time, but based on that single piece of evidence it seems like a fair characterization. I was wishy-washy myself….

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

Will, your position is honest and frankly I have had it with libertarians who treat the war as some sort of ideological vanity contest. Being willing to admit that one’s views change in time is surely the sort of honest stance to be valued, not mocked.

Good for you, Will.

By: shulamite

shulamite — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

Isn’t there going to be a problem with having to prove a negative here? We have found no WMD, true enough. Is this a sufficient proof that Hussein had no access to them, especially given that he had fair warning enough to move them or hide them? It is not my desire here to split hairs over some logical point. We have found nothing. Why do we assume that this is because there was nothing to find?

There is another problem of judging the case ex post facto. An analogy migh help. Assume that the police have conflicting reports about a man, who has a history of using guns on people, as to whether he has a gun. The man is confronted by the police with his hands behind his back. The man insists that he has no gun behind his back, and certain other people, who can partially see behind his back, insist that he doesn’t have it either. Others deny it, and say that he does have a gun. What should the cops do?
Wouldn’t the reasonable course be to insist that the man show both his hands, and if he doesn’t, to suspect that he has a gun and take him down in some way? If, after he is disabled, he is shown to have no gun, how can we blame the police for acting like he did? This is to judge the case ex post facto, on the basis of evidence that was not available at the time.

If someone wants to argue against the war on the basis of whether or not there was WMD’s, they must do so on the basis of evidence that was available before the war, not subsequent evidence. At the very least, this will temper the discussion, and show the decision to go to war as a difficult one. Let those who assume that Saddam had no WMD’s infer the fact from our not finding them till now. It is at least as reasonable, and more relevant, to infer that someone who acts like they have something to hide is actually hiding something.

By: Begging To Differ

Begging To Differ — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

I Wish - That - I Knew What I Know Now

Alina Stefanescu and Will Wilkinson are having it out over whether the war in Iraq was supportable back in 2003. Stefanescu alleges that Wilkinson faltered in not taking a side for or against; Will presents his case: A change in…