Here is my new revelation: we’re doing this wrong. What we are doing is expecting a rational compromise to come out of political warfare. We are expecting the compromise to occur on the global level — lots of righties, lots of lefties and hopefully something gets done somewhere in the middle.
That’s wrong. What we need to do is be prepared to compromise ourselves, internally, in terms of how we elect our leaders. This is exemplified easiest as “single issue politics”. There is not a more irrational strategy than single issue politics. We must accommodate multi-issue politics in our decisions and we have to be immune to the constant pressure by single-issue institutions to do otherwise.
There are conservative values I agree with. Many conservatives share some of my liberals values. This is not binary. We need to elect sensible, thinking people who really want to solve problems. That is more important than electing people who punch the same answer as you on the scorecard.
For example: Hey, Righties, could you live with someone who raised taxes on you if they delivered a robust economy? Hey, Lefties, could you live with fewer social programs if they delivered you situation where fewer people needed it? Can we worry a little more about the strategies and less about the tactics?
Some of the goals are a good standard of living, a robust economy, peaceful relationships with the world, minimal government interference in our lives and a just and equitable society. Can we agree on that? If so, can we be ready to compromise on the tactics and methods to achieve these things?
The compromise doesn’t happen “out there”. It happens in you and in me and it happens when we look at the big picture. We need better leaders. We have the power to select better leaders. We have to stop electing ideologues and start electing problem solvers. You’re the only one who can do that.
lolife 
Awesome post. I agree completely:
“Some of the goals are a good standard of living, a robust economy, peaceful relationships with the world, minimal government interference in our lives and a just and equitable society.”
Compromise may be somewhat necessary, but it’s always hard. Ultimately, compromise is a loss of freedom–by definition. One of the greatest strengths of the libertarian philosophy is that it minimizes the amount of compromise needed. “First, behave however you’d like in your personal life, so long as you don’t violate the rights of others, and second, you have exclusive, unalienable rights to your person, property, and labor.” As Ron Paul is fond of saying, “Freedom brings people together.” Precisely because you don’t have to compromise–you can happily accept people the way the are (or not) and they can do the same.
Socialism, on the other hand, maximizes the amount of compromise needed. The more you centralize, the more that different people with different situations, perspectives, goals, and methods have to try to agree.
In the US, we’ve wound up with the worst kind of compromise. The Leftie says, I don’t like your pork bill. The Rightie says, I don’t like /your/ pork bill. Then they compromise by voting for each other’s bills and we get out of control spending.
And of course, the ultimate problem is that they have found a way to get the funding for such nonsense without ever having to go ask the taxpayer for the money directly–they simply print the money, thereby inflating the money supply, and they get the money indirectly by stealing the value of your currency.
So, the elite political / corporate class want funding for empire building and war profiteering…
Which of course would guarantee a quick retirement for career politicians if they had to actually ask for it…
So instead they exercise their exclusive, self-granted privilege of counterfeiting money…
They get the funding they want…
The money you have can now be exchanged for a lesser amount of valuable goods…
Your real wealth has diminished.
Note:
The government contractors who got the money first, while the market was still calibrated to the previous money supply, benefit immensely–the new money is as good as the old stuff. They’ve already converted the counterfeit money into goods of real value.
By the time the money reaches the poor and the middle class, the market has re-calibrated itself to the new money supply and the same goods now require more dollars.
So…
1) They wanted money to spend (for things you don’t approve of).
2) They didn’t have to ask you.
3) They got the money out of you anyway.
4) It got transferred to the government contractors, large corporations, large banks, and political class.
So…
With counterfeit money, the only compromise is the poor and middle class surrendering their wealth to the rich.
With real money, value is protected and the poor and middle class have real opportunities to see their quality of life improve as the money supply holds fast and the amount of valuable goods in the market increases through innovation and industriousness.
You can’t talk about real compromise until we have honest money.
End the Fed.
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You just defined Politics. Or rather what Politics is supposed to be and supposed to do. Finding the best for the common good while compromising party and or personal goals. Give and take, rather than take and take.
The “polarizing” of a position is dangerous ground. I believe the media ‘mouths’ on the ultra right and the ultra left do a great deal of damage.
We can only go forward. The Reagan years are over. The Clinton years are over. Thank God the Bush years are nearly over.
If I were the boss, I would toss out at least 50% of all politicians and replace them with “John Q Public”. We lack the wisdom of the common man in both parties.
Great post.
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