Buying Time

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

American Olympic Hockey GM Brian Burke has dumped some much-needed cold water over the heads of his promising squad:

"We got outchanced, 2-to-1," Burke said. "Our goaltender stole us a game. That's what happened. People can say that Canada didn't play well. I disagree with that. They outchanced us. I thought that, except for the goaltending position, we didn't deserve to win that game last night.
In other words, Burke saw his team's 5-3 triumph over the Canadian side for what it was: A mere battle won in the perspective of a larger war that rages on.

Many of Barack Obama's opponents would do well to hear a similar warning.

Megan McArdle, for example, sounds almost complacent in her assessment of the chances that ObamaCare will become law:
Despite having declared the death of the health care bill before almost anything else, I don't want to say that the thing's impossible. But the House has lost three of the votes it used to pass their bill 220-215 . . . which means that you have to persuade someone (probably a Blue Dog) to vote for it, who already voted against it. Progressives have been making the almost-plausible argument that the public is going to treat a vote for the House or Senate bill as a vote for final passage, so Democrats might as well go ahead and pass the thing. But their best argument totally falls apart for those who originally voted no.
I think that her analysis of the short-range behavior of our elected officials is probably sound, except that she could be woefully underestimating the power of the ideas that animate many of the Democrats. Many an altruist has been known to commit self-sacrifice when called upon to do what he feels is right. In addition, as I indicated yesterday, the defeat of ObamaCare will not be the end of this particular skirmish by a long shot, anyway.

And then there's an entire article on "Quiet Libertarian Victories" over at RealClear Politics, which outlines several recent legal efforts by various libertarian organizations. (We'll set aside for the moment the merits of the libertarian approach to fundamental ideas, which is to treat them as irrelevant.)
Last week CEI filed suit in federal appeals court challenging the EPA's forthcoming regulation of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. This came on the tail of a petition filed by CEI and a few other groups asking the EPA to reconsider its rule in light of the recent Climategate scandal. The idea isn't so much to win in court - though they would take a win, they assure me - but to gum up the works long enough for Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski to get a resolution of disapproval through the Senate, which will then be used to force the EPA to back down.
This sounds like it could be good news, at least in the short term. But in the long term, we need to disband the EPA (among many other things) -- and the above legal strategy depends on most of the American people continuing to understand the importance of rule by law. Neither of these things can obtain for long in a culture that does not appreciate freedom on a deeper level than ours currently does.

The greatest threat to freedom in America is the fact that the vast majority of those who do appreciate it in some way do not understand its philosophical roots. This weakness is manifest on many levels, including: advocacy of measures that actually threaten freedom, ineffective opposition to collectivism, moral cowardice, and half-measures. These weaknesses stem from several causes, which include some combination of a deficient grasp of the principles themselves, a failure to appreciate their importance, and the psychological weight of uncertainty, which directly results from not really knowing what to do.

Only time, education, and the unstinting efforts of a relatively few intellectuals can address this problem. Like whatever mistakes the Canadian hockey team made Sunday evening, the pragmatism of our elected officials might cause them to destroy our freedom less effectively, and like goaltender Ryan Miller, legal activists might stop a few potshots from time to time. Both of these things do buy us time, but we lose if we don't take our game up a notch.

-- CAV

8 comments:

Steve D said...

Gus,

“We got outchanced, 2-to-1," Burke said”

Unfortunately, for the Canadian team chances don’t count on the scoreboard. The object of the game is to get the puck by the goaltender and not watch while he makes a series of great saves. How many time I have heard the compliant. “We outplayed them and would have beaten them if not for the goaltender.” However, the goaltender is part of the team so if you include him in the picture then in fact you didn’t outplay them. I didn't see the actual US/Canada game so I can't say this was actually the case here.

Oh well at least Canada whipped the US in curling…and to bad Lacrosse isn‘t a winter sport.

Do you play hockey? In high school and college I played a lot and once I was a fanatic about watching this game. Not so much time for that anymore and I haven‘t had the time to watch the Olympic hockey games or much of the Olympics at all.

Actually you made a good point with the battle and the war. Personally, I don’t think the US or any other country will challenge Canada’s dominance in hockey for a while. The reason is because of the seriousness by which hockey is taken in Canada.

An example. Three out of my four nieces played hockey (compared with two out of three nephews). Do you know any American families with three girls playing hockey? Yet that is quite common in Canada.

The fact is that if you take the absolute best players from the US, or Russia or Sweden make a team and challenge a similar team formed from the best players in Canada the level of play will be relatively close. But, if you take the 2nd best set of players from Canada and put them up against the 2nd best team from any other country Canada would be unlikely to lose. (and their second team would still have a chance against the other countries best team). At 3rd best vs. 3rd best Canada would start to wipe the ice with their opponents and so on until all the other countries in the world ran out of teams. Other countries have only very recently begun to challenge Canada at the highest echelons of the various levels of junior hockey, minor pro and women’s hockey.

That’s pretty much dominating the sport I would say.

I know my nephews who play junior hockey in Ontario often travel to the US and even on occasion Europe but they never get beaten by teams from any other country than Canada (and other Canadian teams only very rarely).

By the way, the last count had Canada winning 6 events with only the US and Germany having more at 7. Not bad considering the respective populations.

On to more important matters:

“The greatest threat to freedom in America is the fact that the vast majority of those who do appreciate it in some way do not understand its philosophical roots.”

I can agree intellectually but I would expect that these people might be teachable and would be less likely to react negatively to Objectivism. I had some hope that the Tea Party movement might give some Objectivist a soapbox which would then lead to more people considering and hopefully accepting it. For the same reason it might be useful to have a capitalist (or even semi capitalist) politician elected. It might be a good way to start a conversation - otherwise I fear at this point that only massive civil disobedience will make a dent. (is this taking the game up a notch?)

These days I rarely encounter people who even appreciate freedom so I would say that‘s probably a close second in terms of threat. Most of these people react in astonishment to any suggestion of freedom. This includes some pretty intelligent people, not just rift-raft. There is very little to discuss at this point and not even a way to begin a conversation.

(at least I would have a point to start talking if I met someone such as Glenn Beck for example)

Gus Van Horn said...

Steve,

"Do you play hockey?"

Enjoy the game -- it's a lot like soccer, which I do play -- but I'm a Southerner, and don't even know how to ice skate.

I have no doubt that Canada will dominate hockey for a very long time, but I'll take the occasional good US team.

RE: "Chances:" Missed shots don't count in soccer, either, but it's nothing to get cocky about to win a game in which you sat there under a hail of the opponent's shots. Burke's just making sure the boys remember that.

"These days I rarely encounter people who even appreciate freedom so I would say that‘s probably a close second in terms of threat. Most of these people react in astonishment to any suggestion of freedom."

Fortunately, most of these people implicitly value it and are, intellectually speaking, conventional and inconsequential. They won't have the long-term impact of intellectuals. It's the less-than-well-prepared intellectual, therefore, who poses a real threat. HIS mistakes will get propagated through a culture or otherwise have bigger consequences.

Gus

Steve D said...

"but it's nothing to get cocky about to win a game in which you sat there under a hail of the opponent's shots. Burke's just making sure the boys remember that."

Also, there is a reasonable chance these two teams might meet again. If they make it wouldn't be the first time Canada has had to work through the qualification round because of a loss to the US and still end up in the gold medal game. All it means is that Canada will have to win one additional game - the bye is not always an advantage either in a short tournament.

That said any hockey tournament that comes down to a single game (and often a single goal) can be easily be decided by a fluke. This is one aspect of hockey I don't like and why 'best out of seven' is more likely to sift out the best teams.

I only played soccer one season but it seems to suffer from the same 'fluke' problem as hockey. Soccer is not that popular in Canada - perhaps the only country in the world where this is the case?) I mentioned Lacrosse because it is probably the game most like hockey although much more violent. Most of the best hockey players played Lacrosse and it is Canada's National Sport for whatever that is worth. The US and Canada regularly fight it out for that world championship as well with similar dynamics.

At one time I was a hockey fanatic - I was a Maple Leaf fan and one time they went into overtime in the 7th game of a playoff round. I was so uptight about it I couldn't watch the overtime. I had to leave the house and sit on the porch. A little while later my step mother came out and told me they had won.

These days I do not like to put to much emotional investment into sports. I don't think it is exactly rational to put that much emotional investment into something you have absolutely no control over. You end up upset or depressed over something really not all that important. Over time my teams rarely won. The Leaf's never won the Stanley Cup, The Expos did not win the World Series and finally lost their team. Even the Nebraska Corn Huskers waited until I no longer lived in Lincoln to win their national title. So these days I try to watch the games more objectively and calmly when I have time to watch them at all. (My son likes racing so I have to watch the Indy and Daytona)

So in the last paragraph you mean that it is people like Glenn Beck who are the most dangerous threats? As a long term threat I agree with you although they can as you say sometime buy time. Beck himself is a bit of an enigma to me - he seems to get so close sometime and then he goes and ruins it on something like 'states rights' He does seem close enough that someone might be able to get through to him, though. Especially since it seems to me that people like him are making for most part honest mistakes.

The others that I mentioned are not completely inconsequential since they represent cultural inertia and they do vote. However, mostly it just frustrating to me that people who can think so well in some ways (e.g. science) do not even begin to question the prevailing attitudes in other ways (economics, philosophy).

Gus Van Horn said...

"I don't think it is exactly rational to put that much emotional investment into something you have absolutely no control over."

The New Orleans Saints taught me that lesson long ago!

"So in the last paragraph you mean that it is people like Glenn Beck who are the most dangerous threats? As a long term threat I agree with you although they can as you say sometime buy time. Beck himself is a bit of an enigma to me - he seems to get so close sometime and then he goes and ruins it on something like 'states rights'."

I agree with each one of the things you say about Glenn Beck. Take states' "rights", which many conservatives and libertarians get too excited about. Consider what that idea would mean if it were the main objection anyone could come up with to socialized medicine. Guess what that sort of "opposition would lead to. Oh, wait... You don't have to guess.

"However, mostly it just frustrating to me that people who can think so well in some ways (e.g. science) do not even begin to question the prevailing attitudes in other ways (economics, philosophy)."

That baffles me, too. I was alerted to that fact when I was young, thanks to my mother, who called it, "compartmentalization." (No, neither of my parents were Objectivists, and yet my father taught me the difference between the metaphysical and the man-made at an early age -- although he didn't call it that.)

Jim May said...

Glenn Beck has always struck me as a bit flakey, and this doesn't help.

As for that hockey game, Gus got it right.. it's a battle, not the war. If our guys meet the U.S. again for the gold medal game, I'm sure they will have something in mind for dealing with Miller, seeing as the score would be something like 10-5 at the same shot conversion rate. That indicates that most everything is working out well, and Miller's the difference. Our guys just need to solve that. (I just hope it isn't by means of anything bush league, like running the goaltender).

Canadians have a habit of choking under pressure (hell, even non-Canadians playing for a Canadian city have that issue... it took seven years for the Blue Jays to work that off before finally taking it all in '92 and '93), but I'm still confident in their chances.

Gus Van Horn said...

Jim,

The link in your comment goes back to this post. I'm now dying of curiosity...

The Blue Jays? You don't know the meaning of prolonged choking! The Saints took my whole life up to that point to win the Super Bowl!

Here's to a re-match in the final. LOsing to the Canadians would be no disgrace, and defeating them quite an achievement.

Gus

Jim May said...

Aw, criminey, that was a whopper of a bad edit.

Here is the link that should be there.

P.S. Looks like we took care of the Russians. NEXT!

Gus Van Horn said...

That's quite interesting... Thanks for pointing that out to me.