What Is Compromise?

Too often in today's political realm we hear of politicians supposedly being "willing" to compromise but unable to accomplish anything. Inevitably the implication here is that it is the other side's fault, that if only the opposition would show the same level of willingness to work toward a solution than the solution wouldnt be all that difficult to come by.

And this implication in and of itself shows why I believe that true compromise is a long forgotten commodity. Not just in politics, but across society.

True compromise isnt about backing down on something you want, it is about backing down on something that you need, something that you hold dear, something that it required of you in order for you to stay true to your principles. This type of compromise is nowhere to be found today.

Why do we need to back off on our principles to forge solutions to difficult issues? Because these issues inevitably involve a conflict between those principles.

Walking by Bascom Hill this morning, I was reminded of one of those conflicts, the conflict between a pro-life stance (without exception) and a steadfast determination to shrink government according to the ideals of fiscal conservatism (on another note, I think the 3000 flags, one for each daily abortion, was designed to have shock value but honestly I dont think 3000 per day is all that many. Anyway....).

How can you believe that we need to cut down on welfare programs, cut down on government spending, and at the same time argue that we should ban a procedure that prevents one of the most common causes of welfare reliance, namely unwanted and untimely birthing.

See the problem today is that our "willingness" to compromise seems to always come with a plethora of caveats.

"Yeah, we need to cut spending, but not military spending. Oh, and we arent going to consider allowing funding to go to Planned Parenthood to prevent unwanted pregnancy, let alone abortions"

"Yeah, we need to reduce the deficit, but we wont even consider reducing medicare spending. And we cannot continue to give corporations tax breaks designed to increase the tax base"

These are the types of concrete stances being made in the name of "compromise" today. Hence our inability to get things done.

Truly compromising is about compromising your principles to achieve greater goals, to preserve greater needs. Its about Democrats recognizing the value of tax breaks and the wastes of medicare. And it is about Republicans seeing the wastes in military spending, to allow for potential cost cutting measures that may be morally distasteful, and to recognize the need to cut down on unproductive tax loopholes.

This is what compromise is all about. Right now, this isnt happening.

Not even close.

Right now, we have two camps entrenched against one another, claiming to offer a hand of compromise but at the same time unwilling to step out of the foxhole and enter the no man's land of true compromise.

As they say, the first step to recovery is recognizing the problem at hand. Until we all realize that our elected officials are not coming even close to truly attempting compromise, we will never get ourselves out of the political stalemate that is threatening the viability of our nation going forward.