George Will's America

George Will is a thoughtful, thought-provoking guy. I don't agree with most of his politics, but his reasoned arguments help me to better understand my own positions.

His ambivalence toward McCain is no surprise. McCain is no conservative, and that is Mr. Will's position. George can spot a conservative-wannabee a distance away, and isn't pleased with attempts to lure folks from the conservative position. He is a realist, however, and I suspect he will vote McCain over one of the other options.

Great job on this interview, Tom. George Will is intelligent and wily, but you didn't let him skate easily. I would point out that when he decries efforts to curb global warming due to it negatively affecting the economy, he also considers himself an adherent of a free-market economy that can take care of itself.

This is typical George Will...inconsistent and even hypocritical if you dig deeply. He cannot stand "liberals," and is haughty in that regard.

To me, a liberal who believes in personal responbility, the difference between the right and left is that liberals are willing to overspend to help the needy at the risk of having some take advantage of the system, while conservatives think the needy should fend for themselves.

Would love to ask Will how wheelchair access ramps would have come about in the free-market, how a 29 year old widow with 5 children is supposed to manage without government assistance, etc.

I'm happy you destroyed George Will's straw man argument that liberals want equal outcomes for all by pointing out that liberals actually want equal opportunity for all.

Well done,

Tom!

George Will is an interesting and thoughtful man. For his essential Madisonian outlook, I have nothing but respect.

On the issue of global warming, however, I have to ask what rock he's been under. Unlike the "Our Cooling Planet" fad he referenced, the "excitement" about global warming has sound scientific underpinnings. Mr. Will speaks as if all he's seen are the headlines, and as if he hasn't read scientific journals for the last ten years.

I also must provide a counterpoint to his argument against John McCain's admittedly flippant point about climate change legislation. He is correct to point out that there IS a downside to the legislation; if we are wrong about global warming, then attempts to curb it now will unnecessarily slow economic growth and hurt the pocketbooks and lifestyles of millions if not billions of people. ON THE OTHER HAND -- if Mr. Will is wrong about global warming, and we do NOT attempt to curb it now, it is very possible that we will be unnecessarily causing our own extinction.

McCain's remark was indeed flippant; but addressing global warming now is still the more prudent choice.

There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer reviewed literature even then.

Rather than George Will's outdated personal opinion, I refer you to the forthcoming peer reviewed scientific article By Thomas Peterson et. al soon to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. All articles in this journal are open access to the public - check out the Early on-line release of this article at http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/preprint/2008/pdf/10.1175_2008BAMS2370.1.pdf

George Will's sonorous voice was like a warm day in January. It invited me to relax and believe that "here is a reasonable person". Yet upon hearing his opinions, I again felt the cold, self-serving logic that compels me to dress heavily for a hostile environment.

His climate change denial - which is easily found on Gather dot com - reeked of selective use of evidence, and for me completely discredited him.

His claim that Conservatives are rigorous empiricists made my jaw drop - did he only just shave 10 years of growth from his chin, after being in a cave? If the current crop of conservatives are using the philosophy improperly, does not that philosophy need revision? Where is his self-reflection?

I was willing to listen to George Will as a reasonable voice from the conservative movement, but found him to be a sort of "Rush Limbaugh in the garb of Academe". No more thoughtful or honest, and no more worthy of our attention. No more a signpost to reason than a warm day in January signals spring.

I wish Tom had pressed Mr Will harder on his claim that Conservatives base their thinking on empirical reality, and that in contrast, liberals are mush minded dreamers.
If this is the case, then the last few Republican administrations aren't really conservative. (Which Will does seem to partially agree with.)

Just think of James Watt on the loss of the ozone layer: "Buy sunglasses", and on the usefulness of slowing the rate of environmental destruction: "Armageddon will be soon, so why bother"?
Reagan on what if nuclear tipped ballistic missiles are accidentally launched: "We'll just call them back"
Bush: "We make our own reality"
Rumsfeld: "It's just a few criminals and Baathist dead enders"
And who is it that said: "They will welcome us with open arms"?
and "They have weapons of mass destruction and we know where they are"?

(My quotes are by memory - if anyone can provide references or corrections, that would be great.)

Mr. Will has some interesting opinions on markets, a topic on which he is trained (I presume) and has some experience. His opinions, and I call them opinions because of his rather limited knowledge, on global warming are shameful. I use 'shameful' carefully, as it is the only description that I can use because I do not consider Mr. Will either dogmatic or ignorant; thus, his fully formed views must be otherwise deceitful. I do not opine on economic principles or policy trends but yet this man somehow has the knowledge to tell us scientists that we are (a) either wrong or (b) liars. It is a shameful position indeed when the science and trend data demonstrate (and I wish it were not true) a warming trend that has already had impacts on much of the northerly and southerly high latitudes.

Even without dwelving into the non-apology given by Mr. Will for so willfullly and deliberately (although he would argue it was based on sound information, as he so inaccurately did) on the present threats presented by Mr. Hussien's Iraq, it is clear that this ill-informed and misguided statements about how climate change is not occurring or how 'more information is required' are tired and pathetic chants. Please Mr. Ashbrook, let's move forward and extricate ourselves of these ostriches. I am afraid for my children while these naysayers dig us deeper.

Will seems base his skepticism regarding global warming on his attachment to empiricism and distrust of models that derive from theories on how systems behave. (Which sounds like an ideological position, and one might expect that someone who claims to be a conservative to shy away from dogmatic ideology, but that's another argument.)

But there are limits to empiricism. We don't see a lot of people shooting themselves in the head because they think those theories about projectiles and brain damage might be exaggerated and maybe don't apply to them anyway, and in any case should be empirically tested before we make any grand pronouncements regarding gun safety.

Will's claim to empiricism absurd. Journalists are supposed to be skeptical but skepticism entails closely questioning evidence not disregarding it out of hand. In the case of global warming, Will concludes that since a few scientists made wrong predictions about climate in the 1970's we should disregard the overwhelming consensus about climate change now. This is the furthest thing from empirical thought. To the contrary, it is typical thinking for today's conservative: If we don't like the message discredit the messenger.

On the other hand, when Will tried to excuse his support for the war and the overblown claims made about the threat posed by Sadam he says he was in "good company." In that case, Will liked the message and the messengers so there was no need for skepticism. What is absent in Will's analysis both with regard to his initial position on Iraq and his current position on global warming is any regard for evidence and facts. In short, both conclusions were not in any way based on empiricism.

George Will is a smart man, he's also a conservative who believes that government should saty out of the way of the 'people'. He kept talking about free markets, well this country flooded the world with cheap corn and wheat that was subsidized by our tax dollars. One result was it put 1.5 million Mexican farmers out of work. Hmmmmm, where did the go???

This is just one example of the BS that people of Will's ideology use to fool people into thinking that its the American way to fend yourself and keep government out of the way.

The other issue is that we have over 45 million people without any health insurance and another 25 to 30 million who are under insured. Which means that they have insurance but it's so awful that they might as well be uninsured. That's 75 million or more people who do not have proper health coverage in this country. How does a man like Will deal with this problem? Conservatives like George will are always going pull out socialism card when we start to talk about National Health. We need this NOW, not in 10 or 20 years when half the country is living in third world conditions.
75% of this country is asking for some kind of relief in this area.

I have one question for Will, if the conservative idea of government works then what happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina? How does he answer to fact that to this day not enough is being done?

His comments on Global warming are a joke and I can't even bring myself to comment on this.

The fact is that the Republican ideology and conservatism has failed. How is it that he does not see this? Eight years of Bush/Cheney and all the BS that has come out this government, from the war, to the housing crisis to all the nepotism in the Bush appointments that have all but destroyed the checks and balances of our government.

I have to ask, what kind of society do we want to have?

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