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by Scott Stirling.
Original Post: Bush Speaks: We're Doing the Right Thing
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Bush said one thing that stood out loud and clear before the media reps started asking a mix of intelligent and not so intelligent questions about the 9/11 commission and Iraq tonight: "We're doing the right thing." He meant that in reference to America's on-going involvement in Iraq, which he showed no signs of abating in the least.
What do you think of that claim? We're doing the right thing? He didn't mean the right thing just for America, or just for Iraq, or for himself. He meant the RIGHT THING, as in the one and only right thing to do. What the hell is that? It's funny, right? Because no matter whose side you're on, if you're taking a side, you think you're doing the "right thing."
If you're pulling for John Kerry in this November's election, you think you're doing the right thing. If you're a Palestinian suicide bomber about to blast out a crowd of people on a bus in Israel, you think you're doing the right thing. If you're standing on the sidelines, trying to stay out of all this political bullshit (like I usually seem to be), you think you're doing the right thing by staying neutral. Go ahead, laugh! You can't win!
Aristotle said in book one of his Nicomachaean Ethics that every person pursues action with the intent of achieving happiness, but people don't agree on what happiness is (some say money, some say power, some say pleasure) or how to go about getting it. When Bush says "we're doing the right thing," what does he mean, i.e., what does he think we're doing and, what is the "right thing" in his view?
Personally, I don't think Bush is smart enough to believe or plan anything more than exactly what he said all evening in his speech and question/answer session: WE'RE MAKING HISTORY BY CHANGING THE WORLD, FOLKS! He thinks that we're turning Iraq into a democratic country. That's what he thinks we're doing, plain and simple. And he thinks this is the right thing to do because he believes in God, guns, guts and the American way. I've never seen anything on TV or in print to suggest that Bush's world view is any more complicated than that. And I don't think he's deceptive or devious at all. He's a Bible thumping Texan billionaire with an ego to match.
So what do you think John Kerry believes is the right thing to do? Is he from another planet or something? Of course not, right? He's an American, first of all, and he's a long time Washington politician. I seriously doubt his view of what's right is a world apart from Bush's. He just might have a different, possibly better ("better" needs to be defined, but for now assume it means more peaceful, less expensive, more expedient) way to carry on the American way in the world. He might, I'm not sure. But with soldiers and civilians (American and Iraqi) dying every day in Iraq, maybe we owe it to them if no one else to consider these issues and vote for someone this year. That puts the decision in our hands to some extent, limited as our information may be about these people we put in charge of so much of the world.
Choosing the the "right thing," i.e., the right goal is half the battle. As Cheri Huber would say, what you do is content and is largely irrelevant because content doesn't change anything and content is basically just interchangeable stuff. It's process that works on content to produce change. Process is about how you do things; how content is created or transformed. Really, Iraq doesn't need to be a democracy, does it? There have been stable, economically prosperous monarchies in history, France under Louis XIV (err, right? I barely remember), Rome under Augustus, to counter the belief that (republican) democracy (which has its own problems, as Plato, Aristotle and other ancient Greeks vigorously argued, not to mention the Federalists in our own history) is the one true way of government. The point is, how we get there matters. Bush needs to convince us that he understands that doing the right thing includes doing it "the right way," but his persuasiveness in that area leaves something to be desired.
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