Porretto on wishful thinking.

We're decidedly on the lazy side just now and what better substitute for thought is there but linking to some smart guy with a lot of insight? Francis Porretto has written a remarkable piece about wishful thinking and social engineering:

We love this particular excerpt (but recommend the whole post enthusiastically):

One of the fantasies being widely entertained at this time is that of a peaceful resolution of our nuclear standoff with the theocracy that rules Iran. Every syllable that drops from the mouths of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expresses an unalterable commitment to the acquisition of nuclear weapons and their use in the destruction of Israel. Western fantasists determined to find some path other than a prompt invasion and the decapitation of the Iranian regime have little to say on the matter except that "nothing could be worse than war" and "it's just bluster, they don't really mean it."

Mr. Porretto describes another fantasy ardently embraced by modern moonbats:

A remarkable number of non-engineers are afflicted with an "engineering mentality" with regard to society, economics, and general human relations. That mentality, which had its heyday in the Nineteenth Century among the Marxians, the Fabians, the Benthamites, and the Social Gospellers, held that the world can be remade to any desired degree, provided only that one starts from the right place and takes the right measures.

For the liberal there is never any need to sully oneself by initiating a messy affray; everything is resolvable by negotiations of the sincerest kind; and everything is fixable by application of enough rational thought and recruitment of enough bureaucratic twinks. People died by the tens of millions in the last century because of the earthly manifestations of the latter conceit but that 100,000,000 death toll is no more an obstacle to liberal dreamweaving than a caterpillar (the nonmetallic kind) inching across the highway on a summer day.

The acid test of an idea for the liberal is simply, "Does it sound like a good idea?" If the answer is "You bet!" then it's pour on the coals to the earthly social paradise.

The motto of realists out to be Murphy's Law; of moonbats, "What, me worry?"

"Reality Be Damned, Just Don't Disturb My Fantasies!" By Francis W. Porretto, Eternity Road, 8/23/06 (emphasis added).