Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, September 25, 2008 7:24:30 PM
I am a bit sick of politicians expressing anger whenever there is a crisis. While I support McCain, I think his ire in response to the recent Wall Street problems was horribly misplaced, if not self-serving.
First of all, when Washington sees a crisis, and sees public discontent, they have a tendency to respond with anger. However, most often, despite all the public outcry, the best thing the government can do in most crises is wait. A quick response may be the best response in terms of getting votes, but in terms of the actual outcome, very rarely has the knee jerk reaction to a crisis been a good one. The old adage that hard cases make bad laws is quite true. Crises often lead us to make bad decisions, and, as the government is prone to want to "do something" to appease voters, they often drive the government not only to make bad decisions, but to take those bad decisions much too far.
Second, the anger of the government is often rather self-serving. As in the current financial collapse, the government is often partly or wholly to blame for the crises that are upsetting voters. However, as that is often not immediately evident, the government officials have an interest into deflecting blame onto some convenient scapegoat. So, many times, the people with whom the politicians appear to be so upset are not truly to blame, but are simply the most convenient group to take blame that is rightly directed at the government itself.
Of course, so long as people respond to crises with outrage, so long as they favor politicians who "do something" over those who react only when appropriate, so long as they prefer those who react immediately to those who deliberate, and so long as they think the government is a panacea rather than a tool of limited use, the politicians will inevitably respond to a crisis with shows of anger and snap decisions and overreaction. We can keep blaming them for doing so, but we are the ones who drive them, voters provide the incentives to which politicians react.
Much as we might gripe about opportunistic and dishonest politicians, they are only what we make them.They will not change until we do, there is no incentive for them to behave differently as long as we react in the same way.
In the words of Pogo, we have met the enemy and he is us.