The Nature of Compromise
July 21, 2011
As I write this, our nation is supposedly approaching
“economic Armageddon” if the debt ceiling is not raised … or maybe
not, depending on whom you believe. I really don’t know if the
consequences will be as dire as predicted, but that’s not what I’m
writing about. I hear the pundits on the left, the right and the
middle all declaring with equal conviction that the Republicans are
about to “lose” on this issue because (rightly or wrongly) they
appear “unwilling to compromise” with the Democrats to raise the
debt ceiling in time to avert a possible default.
Compromise:
as recently as forty-something years ago I was being taught in
school that our system of government was “based on compromise.”
Maybe it was (I don’t think so) but that would have been premised on
the assumption that those with whom you were attempting to
compromise shared the same goals: a strong and free America. A
successful, sensible and productive compromise can only be reached
with another party when you both share similar or at least
compatible goals. The boat is sinking. You want to man the pumps
or bail out the water, but you could compromise with those who want
to look for and patch the leaks. How can you compromise with those
who want to drill holes in the bottom to “let the water run out?”
Those who want to drill
holes in the bottom of the boat to let the water run out are just
ignorant or foolish. They don’t want the boat to sink,
their intentions are good, but they have
a misguided and dangerous idea of how to rescue it.
Compromising with them is ignorant, foolish, misguided and
dangerous.
But here is a more accurate
metaphor. Our house is on fire and you want to extinguish the blaze. How do
you compromise with those who want the house to burn down so that
they can build something new when the ashes cool? That is the
unenviable position in which the Republicans (some of them, at
least) find themselves. They are being called upon to negotiate and
compromise with a man and his colleagues (many of them) who really
do not want to save the American economic system as it exists now,
or rather as it existed for most of our nation’s history. I am
firmly convinced that they want this economic system to
collapse. Spending us into national bankruptcy or defaulting on the
debt? Either will move them a long way toward accomplishing their
goal. What happens when a business goes bankrupt?
Reorganization. What happens in a major economic crisis?
Remember what Obama crony Rahm Emmanuel said about crisis? Rest
assured that they will not let this one go to waste.
Obama and most of the Democrats are
Marxist, and in either case they are ready to remake the American economic system
into their vision of a fair, socially just one in which
government has the power to pick all winners and losers. (Even more
than it does now!) How do you negotiate with someone under these
circumstances? For the Democrats, it is win/win, and with the
left-wing major news media standing by to carry their water, no
matter what happens the Republicans will be blamed.
So again, the house is on fire. What kind of compromise can
we forge? We’ll extinguish the garage, living room, kitchen and
office, but we’ll let the upstairs bedrooms, the den and the laundry
be consumed? It’s insanity! If we don’t put out the fire in
all of the rooms, the whole house is going to burn sooner or later.
Not too long ago, in a moment of unguarded
and uncharacteristic candor, Barack
Obama used the word “enemy” to refer to the Republicans. Frankly, I
consider those who want to destroy America’s prosperity and freedom
to be enemies and I am not surprised or offended when they consider
me and others who want to strengthen this nation in the same light.
Our enemies understand these principles of compromise, and they know
that we (apparently) do not. You can rest assured that they will
only “compromise” when they get more through that process than they
think they can take by raw (in this case, political) force. You
cannot compromise with someone whose goals are completely
incompatible with yours. You can only defeat them, or be defeated
by them. You can only win or lose.
The pundits wonder why the Tea Partiers are so
“intractable.” Republicans messed around for fifty years, trying to
be collegial, trying to seen by the main-stream media as
“responsible, “compromising” when they should have seen this coming
and fought like tigers to prevent it. Now it’s going to be very
hard to win, but the cost of losing is too frightening to
contemplate. One thing is for sure: we’re not going to get anywhere
compromising with those who are trying to burn down the
house!
