I'm a regular reader of Thomas Sowell's columns and this week's really hits a home run about at least one of the things that divides the left and right -

A reader recently sent me an e-mail about a woman he had met and fallen for. Apparently the attraction was mutual -- until one fateful day the subject of the environment came up.

She was absolutely opposed to any drilling for oil in Alaska, on grounds of what harm she said it would do to the environment.

 He argued that, since oil was going to be drilled for somewhere in the world anyway, was it not better to drill where there were environmental laws to provide at least some kinds of safeguards, rather than in countries where there were none?

 That was the end of a beautiful relationship.

...T.S. Eliot understood this more than half a century ago when he wrote: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

In this case, the man thought he was asking the woman to accept a certain policy as the lesser of two evils, when in fact he was asking her to give up her sense of being one of the morally anointed.

Ah, that age old intentions vs. outcomes debate.  The Walmarts and their ilk which have done far more to raise the standard of living of the poor in this country than any high-minded Habitat for Humanity.   BUT, Wal-Mart is nevertheless doomed to be reviled rather than cherished by a good chunk of the population.  Thier sin is not one of commission - remember, they're actually solving the problem in a durable, systematic way - but rather one of not flaunting the right ideals.  As a result, their accomplishments will be marginalized and their foibles magnified.

Sowell perfectly connects this with a conversatoin I had with a colleague about society's memories of the 70s vs. the 80s.  It's pretty common to hear folks lament about how bad the 80's were (oh we were all just so repressed!).  And yet those same folks have a rather convenient memory hole when it comes to just how much WORSE the 70s were.   At least when it came to the cold war, It's not the outcome of the 80s they oppose (we won!) so much as Reagan's "peace through superior firepower" means.  Consequently, we're provided a rather convenient litmus test -

Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace -- not for actually producing peace but for being part of what was called "the peace process," based on fashionable notions that were common bonds among members of what are called "peace movements."

 Meanwhile, nobody suggested awarding a Nobel Prize for peace to Ronald Reagan, just because he brought the nuclear dangers of a decades-long cold war to an end. He did it the opposite way from how members of "peace movements" thought it should be done.

 Reagan beefed up the military and entered into an "arms race" that he knew would bankrupt the Soviet Union if they didn't back off, even though arms races are anathema to members of "peace movements." The fact that events proved him right was no excuse as far as members of "peace movements" were concerned. As far as they were concerned, he was not one of Us. He was one of Them.

Amen.