Watch Out For Ideologues

Ideologues are dangerous. George W. Bush is an ideologue. Evidence means nothing to him. All that matters are his beliefs. Normally, I don't care what anyone believes. But when an ideologue sits in the Oval Office, we are in trouble.

Bush believed that invading Iraq was the right thing to do, even though Iraq was never a threat to us. Why? Neocons convinced him that Saddam Hussein had to go. After Bush bought into this idea, no amount of contrary evidence (e.g., there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) could change his mind. Also, the mindset of an ideologue is closed. It cannot adapt to new information, such as "the occupation of Iraq is, on net, bad for the United States".

Another example of Bush's ideology concerns taxes. He "believes" in tax cuts. He thinks it is better to borrow and spend than to tax and spend. Consequently, we have to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from countries like China and Saudi Arabia, and our grandchildren will be taxed very high just to pay the interest on these debts. Moreover, it cannot be wise to owe so much money to adversarial countries. Bush also believes in "supply side economics": that cutting taxes raises revenues. (His father George H. W. Bush at least called that idea "voodoo economics".)

But enough about our worst president ever, for now. While Bush at least has his heart in the right place, Osama bin Laden is a different kind of ideologue: a purely evil man. His religious beliefs are his ideology. While I agree with Michael Scheuer (the author of "Imperial hubris : why the West is losing the war on terror") that bin Laden hates us for what we have done (as opposed to who we are) bin Laden is guided in his hatred by his ideology. The same was true of Adolf Hitler.