Over the weekend an old friend and I were discussing an economist who, he said, truly believes that refusing to raise the country's debt limit was not only a risk worth taking, but not a real risk at all.

And, given that expert opinions on the matter differ, he asked, how could one fault men and women who stand by their principles, vote their convictions, and refuse to betray the trust of those who sent them to places like Washington to govern on their behalf?

One should honor, he said, their steadfast convictions, their loyalty to their principles, and their respect for both their mentors and those who elected them.

Admirable traits, I conceded, with the caveat, that dogged loyalty and intellectual consistency, in my experience, have always been less reliable measures of a man's convictions than a look at their real-world effects on others.

False perceptions all too often trump reality, especially when what is (or was) "real" only becomes evident after damage is done.

One doesn't roll the dice, I argued, when the downside risk of being wrong is outrageously high.

Perhaps a failure to raise the debt ceiling will, indeed, have no real effect on the fundamentals of our economy.

Whatever those realities may be, I would argue that a wrong guess about them will have a profound and negative effect on our national and international credit rating . . . with what, in the opinion of a significant number of equally bright and equally well-meaning economists, will be disastrous effect.

Those who may not be sure, but are never in doubt, love to cite the ancient epigram, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

Playing the hedgehog, whether religious, political, social or intellectual, is not only prickly, but disproportionately dangerous.

Though sometime one gets lucky, as a general rule, I prefer foxes, and their eternally optimistic view that it is better to know many things and do one's best to choose among them than to know only one thing and have no real choices at all.