Right is the opposte of wrong

Megan McArdle, a conservative blogger whom Brad DeLong has nominated for "stupidest woman alive," makes a list of the things she got wrong about Iraq. Most are weasel-speak (e.g. "I trusted our government too much, and governments are always bad," etc.). But #6 on the list really jumps out at you:

6) I paid too much attention to the French. While in general, "Whatever France is doing, don't do that" is very good policy advice, it is not actually true that everything the French oppose is therefore a good idea.

This may sound either like sarcasm or like breathtakingly arrogant stupidity. It may in fact be both. But it strikes me that this really probably was one of the main reasons Bush invaded Iraq. Bush, as we know, is the kind of man who divides the world into "Them" and "Us"; if "They" say something is a bad idea, it must be a good idea. If the French say we shouldn't invade Iraq, invade.

In a way, the entire American conservative movement has degenerated into this strange contrarianism. Conservatives oppose business-friendly environmental policies just because liberals support those policies; they turn up their nose at balanced budgets because liberals worry about the deficit. "Conservatism" is now better described as "anti-liberalism."

If you think about it, this is a frightening development. In the bizarre relativistic world in which conservatism now lives, there is no right or wrong, there is no "good for the nation" or "bad for the nation." In fact, there is no "nation" at all, there are only competing tribes - all "ideas" are simply lies spun by one tribe or another to befuddle and distract the other tribes. In such a world, a wise tribal leader like Bush studiously ignores all words and rhetoric and logical arguments when making decisions, and simply chooses the policy that seems most likely to upset the enemy tribe.

No wonder #7 on Megan McArdle's list is "We should have ignored Iraq and invaded France instead." In the conservative-verse, that really does make much more sense.