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Bob Anderson of Englewood writes:

I want to write to say Paul Campos’ recent opinion piece on nationalism was easily his best and most provocative column to date. And this is from someone who has never before agreed with him. That is not to say however that I agreed with everything. I too believed that we had a sound moral argument for going into Iraq and let this reasoning overwhelm my suspicion of the WMD argument. Before the war I saw the argument has (1) Saddam is a mass murderer (proven), (2) he will attack again as soon as he has the ability (probable) and (3) that he has or is developing WMD’s (unproveable at the time). I figured if they didn’t find any in Baghdad, Cheney would go out a bury some in the desert from his own private stash. So I let the swing vote go to it being a historic opportunity to establish a stable democracy in a world trouble spot. I should have weighed the objective and the subjective differently and thanks to his essay I will try to do better in the future.
I do think though that he missed a broader perspective by bringing in a political slant and using the words “nationalism” and “exceptionalism”.
To me nationalism means “my country right or wrong” not my country - always right. The “American exceptionalism” he refers to has some basis in fact when taken overall, but would be far from persuasive when applied to a specific situation. (The “apologists” cited are not identified, so I can’t find out if this was used out of context.) I imagine this line of thinking was included to punch up the essay and make it less theoretical and more political. The broader point he missed is that any decision is usually decided by a combination of facts and analysis followed by “does my conclusion feel right”. We add this emotional swing vote in most of our decisions because only the simplest ones have all the facts. With this we can bring our moral background, training in other fields and outside agencies to bear on the question at hand. We use this because we come at problems that are important enough to require a philosophical underpinning. The problem is that we sometimes use this to override the facts. The worse case is when we haul out the philosophy first and then pick the facts that fit that conclusion. This is true of both parties and applies to our most contentious debates, private or public. That is what makes them contentious. One side or the other has to fundamentally change their thinking and definitions before there can be consensus. So, thank you Mr. Campos. You got me thinking.

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

"This is your brain...and this is your brain (sizzling fried-egg in a red-hot frying pan) on drugs.

Campos is a 1960's poster boy for the famous TV ad, and he's still frying his brain. PC is a living example of why affirmative action can't work.

Campost is nothing but a male version of Molly Ivins. Only with tenure.

STOP BRAINWASHING THE CHILDREN

Keep sucking that limp chimp, Hank, you're a natural.

"The broader point he missed is that any decision is usually decided by a combination of facts and analysis followed by “does my conclusion feel right”. We add this emotional swing vote in most of our decisions because only the simplest ones have all the facts."

So are you saying that if logic provides one answer, and emoting provides another, the emotive option should be taken. How irrational.

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