All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take. GandhiI've wanted for some time to post something on principle and compromise. This was originally an In Real Time post, and probably should stay there, but its content is worthy of a Chalk Talk. Why is it that in every other aspect of life "compromise" is a bad thing? If you compromise your health, your ill. If you compromise your integrity, you're an ethical cur. If you compromise your marriage vows, you're a despicable reprobate. But, oddly, if one compromises his or her principles inside the halls of Congress or in the Oval Office, they are applauded for exhibiting moderation, practicality, and a desire for "get things done" for the public. What gives?
In this CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, Ron Paul brings out the vital lessons to be learned about this primary season: Real change and reform for freedom is effected from the upward pressure of the grassroots. "The grassroots knows that government fails." (Do the party establishments know this?)
Cooper asks the poignant question that's on everyone's mind: Would it have been better to get a moderate, Democrat-Lite (my words, not his) like Castle on the ticket, and "is there room" for moderates like Castle in the GOP. (As if constitutional conservatives actually set the agenda inside the RNC.)
Paul uses the question to get to the heart of the issue. He also gives an excellent response to Cooper's (unsurprising) assertion @3:45 that "there are those who say..." we have to "get things done" in Washington and brings up the reflexively sacrosanct need to compromise. (Compromise with whom and on what, by the way? Those specifics are rarely attached with the question. Paul zeroes in and clarifies the issue.)
Finally! A politician who knows and articulates the difference between compromise and coalitions, and where principle stands with both. If you stand for liberty and anti-liberty policies bends to your position, that's a good compromise. If the anti-liberty policy makers set the agenda and you simply soften the degree to which they further restrict freedom and vote along with them, that's really not a good thing. Have them compromise with us!:
"Always compromise with people in your goals which is to me perfecting liberty, increasing individual liberty, and the free market place. When you compromise moving in that direction and working with coalitions, that quite a bit of difference." [Emphasis added.]
Yes, quite a bit!
The center of politics in Washington has for decades been the redistributive welfare state from which most legislation and policy emanates out into our lives. The public discontent results from this arrangement--crushing deficits and erosion of liberties--and has become intense enough that it is making an impact on the primary elections of one of the political parties that has had a hand in this process.
Whether that hand was passive in compromising principles or active in initiating new levels of federal spending and increasing the size of government (prescription D entitlement, a wasteful education bill that nationalizes education standards, and soaring deficit spending during the Republican Congress and presidency of Bush II are some examples that come to mind), the only viable choice for reforming government has become obvious: from the ground up. We've seen where party establishment leadership has taken us, and we don't care for it.
No one can seriously contend that all our fiscal and political woes began after the inauguration of President Obama. He and his Democrat majorities in Congress have greatly accelerated matters, for sure, but the table was set for him before he ever walked down Pennsylvania Avenue.
This sorry scenario is the end result of decades of "compromise" and "getting things done" in Washington. The time has come to make the "things done" in Washington friendly to freedom, to reorient the almighty center of politics around liberty and that whole, what's it called?, Constitution thing that limits the power of government.
That truly would be a revolution, one worth having the other side compromise on.
