Welcome to the Post-Factual Era

Post by **Dardedar** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:43 pm

Welcome to the Post-Factual Era

David Sirota:

A simple question: Why is politics the only arena where those who turned out to be right still get flayed as outcasts, while those who are known to be utterly wrong get rewarded as visionaries? In business, if you make the wrong calls, you lose money and, most often, lose your job. If you make the right call, you make a lot of money, and you usually get promoted. There are exceptions to this axiom, of course - but it generally works this way. In politics, it generally works the opposite way. The people who make the right call on the big issues are punished with elite vitiriol, and those who repeatedly make the wrong calls on such issues are vaulted into the highest echelons of the Establishment.

Nowhere was this more obvious than on the Iraq War. As Jebediah Reed at Radar Magazine has shown in detail, most of the major pundits who led the cheering section for the war have been rewarded with promotions, while those writers who actually accurately predicted the war as a disaster have been cast aside like pieces of garbage.

source

Hogeye · Post by **Hogeye** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:35 pm

Yes, that is a point libertarians have been making for ages - the perverse incentives of government. When private firms screw up, they lose money and, in many cases, go out of business. Take Enron (please!). But when the CIA and NSA fail miserably to anticipate terrorist attacks, or the US military creates terrorists, or when FEMA displays gross ineptitude, instead of going out of business, they get more money! In government, failure is interpreted by politicians as indicating a need to throw more money at it, and maybe expand the failed policy or program. In government, nothing "succeeds" like failure!

Who was it (Will Rogers?) who said, "There's nothing more permanent than a temporary government program."?

Post by **Dardedar** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:42 pm

DAR
I guess you didn't read or understand the post you are responding to. If you did, you may observe that it contradicts your point.

D.

Hogeye · Post by **Hogeye** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:12 pm

"In business, if you make the wrong calls, you lose money and, most often, lose your job. ... In politics, it generally works the opposite way. The people who make the right call on the big issues are punished with elite vitiriol, and those who repeatedly make the wrong calls on such issues are vaulted into the highest echelons of the Establishment."

This is a variation on the perverse incentives in government theme.

Post by **Dardedar** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:58 pm

DAR
Hint: second paragraph. Try again. Reading the link makes it especially clear. The free market doesn't give a flip about truth or accuracy. Just the buck.