Hubris is overreaching pride and arrogance. Many Greek tragedies have the gods punishing those like Oedipus. Shakespeare tragedies have circumstances punishing those like MacBeth and Othello. It seems that rarely do the electorates punish those with overreaching pride and arrogance. They do it by not voting and those with hubris never count the non-voters.
Scott Walker is one who is showing overreaching pride and arrogance in his abilities.
He touts his electoral success but ignores that he won with a low turn-out. Many other newly-elected Republican governors won with higher vote counts (of those who bother to vote). Those who signed the petition to recall Walker but then didn’t show up to vote were also arrogant.
He talks about the “invisible hand of the free market”, but ignores Adam Smith’s admonition of trusting those who live by profit.
He is proud to have passed a “right to fire” law, but ignores Smith noting that the masters could organize to keep wages down but it was illegal for the workers to organize to raise wages. If workers can refuse to pay union dues, is there a complimentary law that businesses can be part of Chambers of Commerce without paying dues?
He thinks that facing down demonstrators qualifies him to take on the likes of ISIS. Facing demonstrators armed with pizzas is not same as facing a few thousand jihadists armed with AK-47s, rocket launchers and more. Also, he ignores the history of meddling in the Middle East; it has always backfired, maybe not right away, but within a few years.
I only have my keyboard against Scott Walker’s many microphones. If you are a Wisconsin voter who didn’t show up in one of more of Walker’s election “landslides”, please show up the next time.
Many politicians other than Walker cite their belief in American exceptionalism. Sorry, but many people in other countries, well-governed or not, believe their countries are exceptional. The difference is that many of these people don’t think their exceptionalism gives them the right to tell other countries how to conduct their own affairs. Those who believe in American “exceptionalism” refuse to see how often the “gods” have punished this hubris: Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and more. The proponents of the “domino theory” seemed to have ignored that a game of dominos can go off in unexpected directions.
The hubris of the jihadists of ISIS and other terror groups make the hubris of American politicians look like a parlor game. The jihadists claim they are doing Allah’s will, but how do they know this other than repeating it to each other? Where is their forgiveness to others that Allah gives them? And if they believe “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”), can’t Allah right these “wrongs”.
If God could flood the entire world, killing thousands of pregnant women and their unborn children, couldn't God send a lightning bolt to strike “blasphemers” dead? If God could destroy the tower of Babel, built out of bricks, couldn’t God bring down the skyscrapers of steel in all the cities of the non-believers? If God could destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the residents were sinful, couldn’t God destroy all the much larger cities of today where there is much “sin” according to purists who believe in an Almighty God?
The greatest hubris of all is that of countries with nuclear weapons. They want to prevent other countries from having any capacity to build nuclear weapons, but they seem very disinclined to reduce the number of their own nuclear weapons. These nuclear countries are ready at a moment’s notice to cause more death and destruction than the God of the Old Testament did from the beginning of the world.
Mel wishes the pen were mightier than the sword far more often than it has been.
