The word compromise has some surprisingly negative connotations. If something is "compromised," as in, say, a security system, this does not mean that everyone wins. Not even close. In politics, compromise can be equally bad.
Compromise was what allowed slavery to continue for so many decades after the beginning of America. Men came to the Constitutional Convention in 1789 with the intention of abolishing slavery right from the start. But they compromised. The infamous Three-Fifths Compromise appeased slave states by allowing slaves to be partially counted in the state's population, which in turn determined congressional representation. The Missouri Compromise in 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 were intended to postpone an impending civil war -- they did, for a while, but in the meantime slavery was allowed to continue.
Historically, compromise has often not been the right way to go. But right now, in the midst of crippling gridlock, it's got the be the way out, right?
Well, maybe. But think about this: members of congress do not represent the entire country. They represent a small slice of it and their constituents, thanks to gerrymandering, probably all have fairly similar views. And what do their constituents expect of them? To compromise with the other party? Most likely not. If we like our representative and agree with them we want them to stand firm on their beliefs and not compromise.
So that's the dilemma, as always. We want our representatives to vote how we would vote, and our representatives will do this because they want to be reelected by us.
I guess my point is that compromise is not by definition the right thing to do and it's asking a lot of our representatives to frequently compromise on issues when, by doing so, they will often be doing the opposite of what their constituents want. And that's really not what they're there to do.
I would agree, to an extent. I think, however, that there are two different issues at play here: compromise on a relative and absolute scale (the same could be said of most things).
ReplyDeleteOn the relative scale, politicians 'compromise' often so that both parties can get what they want, to an extent. However, in doing so, it could be argued that neither actually fulfills the wishes of their constituents. Then, on the absolute scale, isn't true compromise what we need more of? The polarized nature of American politics is now such that each group blames the other for the ills of the world, and for the current state of our nation, which is dire to be sure.
Alas, I'm not so sure that less compromise and more ideological shift isn't what's actually needed here. Either way, good post.
Bryce