Paved with good intentions

There is a Russian saying: “A fool without initiative is better than a fool with initiative.” At least the first fool doesn’t do anything — he is just being an idiot quietly. The second one wracks havoc with his well-intentioned idiocy.

But of course, the lovers of the current President seem to think that as long as he has good intentions (something I also find quite hard to believe), all will be good. Everyone will try really-really hard and believe in our success, and we will succeed. Against the cynicism and the laws of nature.

It’s a bit like saying, “Dude, you’re trying to go from Boston to New York, but you got on I-95 North, not South”, and hearing in response: “Well, yeah, we may disagree about the direction in which we are supposed to go, but at least I am driving fast. You can’t disagree that I am driving fast, right?” Yeah, you’re driving fast — in the wrong direction. At this pace, you will get closer to New York by breaking down. Which is my answer to all those hurting souls who ask Conservatives: “Whyyyy would you want our President to faaaaail?! Doesn’t our country have enough problems?” Yes — people like you and the president you elected.

In any event, as Mises Economic Blog comments, “There are still elected people [...] who make sense.”

PARIS — The European Union’s crisis of leadership during the economic downturn was thrown into sharp relief on Wednesday, as the current president of the 27-nation bloc labeled President Obama’s emergency stimulus package “a way to hell” that will “undermine the stability of the global financial market.”

The blunt comments by the Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the union, came just a week before a crucial meeting of the Group of 20 that was called to show global solidarity in fighting the recession. The comments were greeted with embarrassment by many Europeans who believe that the Czech leader does not represent a European consensus. [source]

Of course not. The European consensus is to cure an allergic response through a blood transfusion: by drawing blood from the leg and injecting it into the arm. What? It’s the problem with blood, stupid. We will inject some fresh blood into the system, and “jump-start” the body…

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The classical model of a liberal from everyday life is that driver who lets someone waiting to make a turn go in front of him, while there are fifty cars standing in the traffic behind him. It’s the typical description of liberal thinking that Henry Hazlitt warns about in his book, Economics in One Lesson: any time you make a decision about success or appropriateness of some policy, you can’t just think about one specific group of people. You have to look at everyone affected, including those not immediately in front of your nose.

You may bail out a company, saving a thousand jobs. So, you helped out a thousand people in front of you. But you hurt tens and hundreds of thousands by the same move! But no, the liberal never looks in a rear-view mirror. Emotion—reflex—response. Thinking too hard is cruel and immoral.

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

So simple. And at the same time, so ungraspable for a liberal mind.

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Now that we are on the topic of Czechs, a cute commercial about Czech beer and Bedř ich Smetana, the famous composer who wrote a piece called “Má Vlast” (“My Fatherland”) while already deaf:

— I can’t compose for you a national song, gentlemen, because I can’t hear anything.
— But sir...
— I can’t hear, gentlemen!..
A servant brings in beer; Smetana looks at it.
— Pen!..