Kim Jong Il Thinks He's a God-King: Why Ignore It?

[Brad De Long]

>At 01:00 PM 5/25/00 -0700, Brad DeLong wrote:
>>Then why do politics at all if you can't judge whether you are making
>>a better world? Why don't you leave politics to those of us who can
>>make empirical judgments as to the likely consequences of actions?
>>
>
>
>There is a big difference between doing politics and second guessing
>alternative courses of history.  Politics, in my book, involves debates
>about possible courses of action (e.g. are we going to have public health
>care or private health business) and claims justifying those courses of
>action (e.g. social justice vs. profits before people).  All such
>possibilities share same ontological status, even though their
>probabilities of implementation may differ markedly.
>
>Second guessing alternative courses of history, otoh, involves pitting
>conjectures against empirical facts.

If I understand you, you are saying that

--when we do counterfactual history we are attempting the impossible 
task of figuring out what would have happened.

--when we do politics we choose between alternative courses of action 
by choosing the course which rests on whatever principle makes us 
feel best.

This is quite possibly the silliest thing I have read on this list...

Brad DeLong