A majority of the American public now believes that going to war in Iraq wasn't worth it, according to two new polls. An ABC News/Washington Post poll reports that 52 percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq was a mistake. A poll conducted by CNN and USA Today puts the figure at 54 percent.

Polls prior to the war indicated American support at around three-fourths of the populace. What happened?

One philosophical concept that we are indebted to Ayn Rand for highlighting is the idea of the "blank out." To blank out means to gush over the benefits of an idea but to fail to conceive of the costs. In other words, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Rand herself defined "blank out" as "the willful suspension of one's consciousness.... the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgement."

On Iraq, the American people blanked out. They liked the ideal presented--free Iraqis, destroyed weapons of mass destruction, a punished Saddam Hussein, a democracy in the Middle East, etc. The reality delivered wasn't so compelling--more than 800 dead Americans, a terrorist Woodstock, anarchy, non-existent or unaccounted for WMD, etc.

In March 2003, Seventy-five percent of Americans bought into a best-possible-scenario war in Iraq. When presented with an actual rather than a fantasized scenario, majorities now believe the war a mistake.

All too true there Dan. It is similar to what I call, "Having the dream, but not the drive."
Too many people have goals, but not the willingness to do the work to acheive those goals. War should be a shared sacrifice, and in this case, we really don't have any. While soldiers are fighting and dying in my name, I get a tax cut? Something seriously wrong with that concept.

First, Dan, I again disagree with you:
http://www.thecrowe.com/index.php?p=297

Second, Dwain, what was that? What about soldiers fighting and dying makes a tax cut wrong? Are you saying that paying more in taxes is a sacrifice for you commensurate to the sacrifice the soldiers are making in the field? How does that logic work? Where's the connection?

Hmm... you have less money in your pocket because the gov't confiscated more than they need, but still have your health, all your limbs, and aren't away from your family for an extended period of time; they may lose their lives or at least a limb at any moment, they don't get paid much to begin with, and they have to be away from their families... not much balance there. In fact, I'd say it's an injustice to not give them a tax cut, at least on the money earned in battle pay.

And giving a tax cut to everyone who pays taxes has repeatedly netted more revenue for the fed since it boosts the amount of investment and retail purchases which means a larger number of individual transactions the gov't can skim money from, so your self-sacrifice in paying a higher tax rate wouldn't even get more money for the troops.

So, again, how is a tax cut unjust when soldiers are in the field?

that last post had my old url, this one has the current one.

Check out Tom's lengthy response to my post at www.thecrowe.com. See also my lengthy rebuttal. Tom is an otherwise sensible young man who has sipped from the war hawk's Kool-Aid on Iraq, so don't let his foolishness on Iraq prevent you from checking out his worthy site on occassion.

I would disagree with your "blank out" hypothesis, which seems to be an overintellectualized way of saying "buyers remorse", incidentally. In my view it took a massive propaganda campaign to get the public to accept the idea of a war in the first place. The public never made a reasoned decision to go to war, the high poll figures at the time of the war's outset were the result of non-stop jingoism in the press. Now even the press can't help but report war's disastous outcome, and so the poll numbers are falling accordingly. Don't be fooled, Mr. Flynn into believing public opnion polls are accurate reflections of people's desires and beliefs. Public opnion is largly determined by the media enviroment in which they are saturated. In regards to Iraq, there is a direct corelation between the level of jingoism in the press and support for the war. It's a pretty simple concept, Danny boy, no need to invent pseudopsychological babble to explain the numbers.

Nothing makes a tax cut during war implicitly wrong. I believe that tax cuts are a good thing, at the right times. Supply side economics do work, Reagan proved that.
All of this being said, my reason for wondering about the prudence of tax cuts during war time are as follows: 1) fiscal responsibility, 2) a sense of shared sacrifice.
I hear my parents generation speak of war bonds, recycling all steel, tin etc., victory gardens and the like. Shouldn't something like this be done so that the average citizen does more than sit on his ever-expanding rear and change the channel? People should be called upon to put their money where their mouths are, regarding the war.
And for the record, I do not have my health.