I think that part of the problem is that people are operating on very different principles at the most basic level (I keep thinking of it as maximizing distinctly different utility functions, but I'm weird).

It's not just that people are weighting things differently, it's that their basic assumptions of what a good outcome is are entirely different. Like your competing visions of freedom essay. The two groups use the same word, but mean almost diametrically opposite things. You can see where that might lead to accusations of insanity.

An excellent point. In modern politics, each side is looking for vastly disparate outcomes: the right wants to give all the money to the rich, while the left wants to ring in a socialist utopia. Both of them think that end state is the best possible outcome, and therefore have a hard time understanding where the other side is coming from because they're not trying to get to the same place. It's a lot like two guys driving. When one has the wheel, he wants to get to New York. When the other has the wheel, he's heading towards Los Angeles. And they're both terribly confused as to why they never get there.

Do be fair Andrew, not ALL the money.

"And he might have decided to stay the course with Afghanistan, in which case perhaps al Qaeda could have had enough of a respite to strike American soil again."

What? Fighting more effectively to eliminate al Qaeda would have given them a respite?

"What? Fighting more effectively to eliminate al Qaeda would have given them a respite?"

It was a series of hypotheticals, Gary. The odds are that had we fought more effectively to eliminate al Qaeda, it would not have given them a respite, but the hypothetical was more along the vein of what might have happened had the Gore administration taken out the Taliban and then declared mission accomplished and spent its energies elsewhere while al Qaeda crept off into Pakistan and elsewhere. National boundaries are a constant problem in a fight like this, after all. If al Qaeda decided to go to ground in south-central and southwest Asia, we would have a hard time going after them very effectively because we'd constantly have to deal with how to conduct military operations in sovereign nations that might well not want us around.

My point, in any case, was not that a Gore administration would have necessarily screwed up on the war, but that I consider it unlikely, in the grand scheme of things, that different administrations make a big difference in the world.

"National boundaries are a constant problem in a fight like this, after all."

True. My assumption is that Gore would have remained focused on Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan (where, as you presumably know, the fight is continuing with relatively little attention from Americans, though the problem has only become far larger in Pakistan), but it's true that I can't say exactly what would have happened any more than you. But thanks for clarifying.

"My point, in any case, was not that a Gore administration would have necessarily screwed up on the war, but that I consider it unlikely, in the grand scheme of things, that different administrations make a big difference in the world."

It seems to me that the history of the last six years demonstrate very conclusively how the folks who claimed in 2000 -- the Naderites in particular -- that there was little difference between Bush and Gore were entirely wrong, but what can I say? That's my perspective. I can run through an endless list of issues on which this seems clear to me: Iraq, global warming and environmental protection, the bankruptcy bill, minimum wage, on and on. (Of course, with a Republican Congress, Gore's ability to manuever would have been limited; and I would imagine they'd have been likely to have found another reason for impeachment. More claims about Gore selling us out to China, for instance.) But if you don't agree, you don't.

"It seems to me that the history of the last six years demonstrate very conclusively how the folks who claimed in 2000 -- the Naderites in particular -- that there was little difference between Bush and Gore were entirely wrong,"

I'm not suggesting that there aren't differences between the two of them, only that, in the long run, I'm unconvinced how big a difference the election would have made.

Let's look at your issues:

Iraq: maybe Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, maybe he would have. It's important to remember that the Al Gore who's arguing right now that we were wrong to go into Iraq isn't the one who would have been in the Oval Office on September 11th. It's possible he would have decided differently if the responsibility had been his. It's also possible he might have gotten us into another problem; imagine if he'd decided to take us into Pakistan, for example.

Global warming/environmental protection: I'm thoroughly unconvinced that Gore would have spent his political capital on global warming if he were actually occupying the White House. Given how strongly against Kyoto the Senate was (97-0, if I recall correctly), what do you think Gore would have done differently? I suppose, on the plus side, that Gore wouldn't have had to worry about the silly restrictions on arsenic President Clinton put into place as a trap for President Bush, but I'm curious what huge differences in the environment you think a Gore presidency would have entailed.

The bankruptcy bill: OK, so this doesn't pass. I'll concede that my knowledge of bankruptcy is extremely limited, so I can't say one way or the other how big a deal this is, but it's hard for me to believe it's really an earth-shattering bill.

Minimum wage: What big effects do you expect an increase in the minimum wage to have, other than to give high school and college students more spending money? You probably know better than I that the vast majority of people making minimum wage fall into those categories.

Bottom line: would things have been different under President Gore? Absolutely. Would they have been so significantly different as to make a big difference in where we are in 20 years? I think the odds are pretty good the answer is no, although there is, of course, no way to prove that.

In terms of pursuing Al Qaida, it's pretty clear to me that the Bush administration screwed up big time, by shifting resources to Iraq. He then compounded that screw-up by starting a war in Iraq, with no clue as to what to do, and no resources ready to deal with what he had been repeatedly warned about. Assuming that the [elected in 2000] President Gore would not have done that, it's a good argument that we'd be better off. In short, the Bush administration has commited numerous errors so egregious that nobody on the right, the center or most of the left would have anticipated, back in 2000.

An analogy is that, if Lay and Skilling were not in charge of Enron, their 'replacements' might be just as corrupt, or moreso. The way to judge that is to look at how bad the actual historical performance was, and to compare it against the distribution of possible 'replacements'. As the performance becomes more extreme (either for good or for bad), it's more likely that the 'replacement' performance would be less extreme.

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