How To Radicalize a Moderate In a Few Easy Steps

I think when Kevin and Steve and Josh and I talked about our process of gradual radicalization over the past few years, the language, which focused on our "moderate" natures, was somewhat unclear. I tried to get at this a few days ago, but what's really warped in me is not where I stand on the political spectrum, but the trust and assumption of good faith with which I can approach the news, and the Republicans, and all the rest. What I found, and what drove me to change, was that my imputation of good intentions and willingness to trust official information were creating a profound analytical deficiency where, time and again, my observations and predictions would be proven wrong because I'd chosen to believe that I wasn't being lied to. It wasn't that my rage bubbled and broiled till, with one ear-shattering roar, I became an aggressive partisan, it's that I had a metric upon which to judge myself -- the eventual accuracy of my arguments and assumptions. And by actually paying attention to those results, I found I had to repeatedly recalibrate my cynicism and partisanship.

But to show how tricky old habits are to break, I tumbled into the same fallacy this week. My mother kept insisting that the London plot was largely smoke and mirrors, an illusion meant to change the subject and scare the populace. Convinced I was cynical enough in my belief that it was being wildly politicized, I argued for the basic authenticity of the sotryline, largely on the strength of British involvement. But there too my assumptions are being proved wrong. As the WaPo writes today:

Home Secretary John Reid, Britain's chief law-and-order official, acknowledged that some of the suspects would likely not be charged with major criminal offenses, but said there was mounting evidence of a "substantial nature" to back the allegations.[...]

Two top Pakistani intelligence agents said Wednesday that the would-be bombers wanted to carry out an al-Qaida-style attack to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 strikes, but were too "inexperienced" to carry out the plot.

The two senior agents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if the terror cell members arrested in Pakistan and Britain had appropriate weapons and explosives training, they could have emulated massive attacks like those five years ago in New York and Washington as well as the July 7, 2005, London bombings.

Well that's a walkback, ain't it? Now some of the the allegations will probably hold up, while a fair number of the suspects in this massive plot to generate incalculable casualties will get off with a shoplifting charge. This was a cell that'd been widely infiltrated by British agents, had seen its leaders travel repeatedly and suspiciously to Pakistan, apparently lacked the operational knowledge or capacity to actually pull off their plot, and seem to have had evil intentions but few evil geniuses. As Kevin Drum says, "if I had an IQ of 200 and a PhD in oncology maybe I could find a cure for cancer. But since I don't, no one should stay up nights waiting for me to produce one." And nor should they rush to the television cameras and laud me for "intending mass salvation on an unimaginable scale."

I remember when I was six or seven, and won the Invent America contest. My innovation was the Ice Cream Melt Stopper-Drip Catcher because, when you're seven, the technical shortcomings of an ice cream cone are of Great Historical Import. If my Cookies and Cream cone melts, the terrorists have truly won, and modernity itself is imperiled. So I dreamed up a sort of donut-like bowl that would slide up your cone and be filled with a cooled gel, thus delaying the melting process while catching the runoff. In return, I got a $100 savings bond (wonder where that is, incidentally). A few weeks later, I was invited to audition for a the nationals, or a TV show, or something. I remember being asked by the interviewer what future inventions I was planning. Having solved the ice cream conundrum, I moved on to bigger issues: A gas that I could release into the air to end pollution. My intentions were, to be sure, laudable, but I didn't make the cut. Why? Because seven-year-olds lack the technical capacity to save the ozone layer. They should stick to ice cream cones, and folks shouldn't -- and don't -- pay attention to their delusions of grandeur.

This plot -- like the guy with a blowtorch ready to take down the Brooklyn Bridge or, for that matter, Saddam Hussein -- was good for scaring the American people, but little more than that. And once again, my cynicism proved unworthy to the task of effectively analyzing the data before me. So now I'll turn it up a notch, believe even less, become ever more skeptical, and shift ever further from the earnest, credulous type I once was. No doubt it's necessary, but it's rather sad. It is, however, a good week for it to happen, because with all the musing about the dynamics of this very evolution, it's probably instructive to have an example of exactly how it works.

Update: Steve Benen is feels me.