Risking Turkey

The decision to antagonize our most important ally in the war against Islamist extremism to make a symbolic point about the Armenian genocide of almost a century ago is foolish in the extreme. David Boaz cites an Armenian-American, David Hovannisian:

As the great grandson of genocide survivors, the grandson of genocide historians, and the son of Armenian repatriates though writing, I’m afraid, without the sanction of the generations I am insulted by that sticker. That Congress “finds” the genocide to be a fact makes the tragedy no more real than its refusal, so far, has made it unreal. Truth does not need a permission slip from the state.

As an heir, moreover, of an American tradition of limited government, I am annoyed that the legislature is poking into a sphere in which it has neither business nor experience: the province of truth. It is bad enough that a committee of aristocrats governs the conventions of politics, economics and human rights. We the citizens scarcely need to sign over the laws of nature, too, lest gravity be repealed and the whole race goes floating about the universe.

Rod gets the bottom line:

Not everything that's true needs to be said, or said by Congress. I think we've learned a lot this decade about what can happen when the US acts on moral idealism without fully thinking through the real-world consequences.

A contrarian take can be read here.