Butterflies, Bill Clinton and Bombs.

Most of us have heard about the butterfly effect in one form or another. The basic premise is that a butterfly in some remote jungle flaps its wings which sets off a chain of events that changes weather patterns and causes a hurricane that destroys Florida. While we admit we are more likely to get struck by lightening and mauled by a 3 legged zebra in the same day, the butterfly effect does give us pause to think about the way individual events can ripple through the world around us. Some can even be as profound as the metaphor illustrates.

Take, for example, President Bill Clinton. Ask a few people around you why Bill Clinton was impeached. Assuming they understand that impeached does not equal removal from office, they will probably say it was because he had an affair with an intern. Wrong. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath to a grand jury. Regardless of how you feel about it, these are the facts. I don’t wish to debate the Clinton case, impeachment or Lewinsky. I do, however want to pose a ‘what if’ scenario. What it, when Clinton was asked about his relationship with Lewinsky, he simply told the truth. It could have been in a statement something like this:

“I have had some indiscretions with a White House employee. I am not proud of my actions and indeed am profoundly sorry for the pain and embarrassment I have caused my family, my staff, and the American people. I ask for your forgiveness; and I ask that instead of dwelling on the past that we return our attention to the critical issues we face as a nation. I am optimistic about America and will do everything in my power to earn the trust you have shown by electing me President.”

In more simple terms, this reduces so “Yeah, I fooled around. Busted. What does this have to do with Whitewater or running America?”

Republicans would have been shocked and outraged about the moral degradation, but they would be throwing stones from their glass houses. And Americans would have thought, ‘hmm. What does this have to do with running America?” By confessing his guilt, he would have portrayed a sympathetic character and simultaneously demonized the republicans who were ‘unforgiving’. Does anyone not believe that Clinton’s impeachment and the accompanying media circus had anything to do with the way people voted in the 2000 election? Follow me on this ripple effect:

If Bill Clinton would have told the truth:

* Al Gore would have certainly collected another 200 votes in Florida and been elected president in 2000.
* Dick Cheney would be enjoying retirement from Halliburton.
* George W. Bush would be remembered only as a good governor of Texas.
* We would have at least 2 different Supreme Court justices that would likely not be conservative constructionists like Alito and Roberts. We have yet to see how this dynamic will shape the country.
* Al Gore would have been in the white house on 9/11/2001.
* The US would not have invaded Iraq; 4,400 US soldiers would not have died in Iraq; and the US would have $700B that was not spent on operation Iraqi Freedom (but we would have probably spent on reducing carbon emissions).

* In a few years, Saddam’s UN sanctions would have expired and he could resume oil production, providing a new stream of revenue to the Iraqi government to funnel to Sadaam’s favorite projects.
* Iraq would be a safe-haven for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations who shared Iraq’s hatred for the US and democracy.
* Increasing nuclear tensions from Iran would motivate Saddam to reinstate his own nuclear program rather than fall victim to his hated neighbor who he went to war with in 1980. His ambition and intent were clearly documented in the Duelfer report by his scientists and government/military officers.
* Nuclear tensions around the globe would ratchet up as 2 power-hungry dictators in the Middle East flexed their nuclear muscles. North Korea makes clear that having nukes makes people notice. Pakistan gets even more uneasy about nuclear terrorists next door in Afghanistan, which makes India more nervous about their geographic status. The former Soviet states have multiple buyers for their left over nuclear arsenals, and the bidding could get high in a part of the world where a million dollars can still make you the richest man in the country. The nuclear club would expand like never before, and everyone has a hair-trigger.
* The US has lost any initiative they might have had to attack Iraq, and can do little other than suggest more UN economic sanctions that we now know were heavily abused by Saddam.

You can decide whether this is a better scenario than the one we are living. But you can’t deny that the world would be a very, very different place if Bill Clinton had simply told the truth.

Makes you think.

Tyranny of the Ignorant and Lazy

Upon historical review of all forms of government, it’s hard to find a better model than democracy.  But that doesn’t mean it always works. In my house, pure democracy would have given 3 children majority rule and we would have had cotton-candy and cheezits for every meal, watched TV and played video games all day, never visited the dentist, and only gone to school 1-2 days a week when they had pizza in the cafeteria. Most of us wouldn’t try to defend that as a ‘responsible environment’.   As parents, we are supposed to make responsible decisions for our dependents to protect and promote their health, development and well-being. And that, in fact, is the criteria we use to determine whether to remove kids from neglectful or abusive homes and put them is protective custody. Notice that the democratic balance of power between the kids and parents is not a factor in these decisions, only the welfare of the children. Seems reasonable, right?  So why do we abandon that philosophy regarding the dependents of our society? 

To quote George Bernard Shaw, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.”  When you get enough Pauls to outnumber the Peters, democracy transforms into a mob of dependents that exercise their majority power to demand more and more until all the Peters are extinct; strikingly similar to the way parasites destroy their hosts.  “Leaders” become merely administrators of entitlement programs.  Innovation loses its rewards, economic achievement is penalized, and we are reduced to a nation of fat, lazy children who become dependent on a government wet nurse rather than accepting responsibility for ourselves. 

I don’t claim yet to have a better solution than democracy, but we know what happens when we let the children decide for themselves what they want.