Compromise

Since yesterday's article about the "enthusiasm gap" related to the issue of compromise, I thought I'd share some of my views on compromise.

One should strive to do good, to accomplish good things. Sometimes that will be easy. Everyone will agree what is good, and how to do it, and everyone pulls together in the same direction in the same way to accomplish the same goal.

Sometimes, though, there is disagreement on what is good and what is not. Even more often, there is disagreement on how to accomplish a shared goal that is mutually agreed to be good.

Often, the assistance or cooperation of someone else, someone who might not be in complete agreement about either the goal or the means, is required to move toward the desired goal. In order to secure that cooperation, it is not only necessary, but appropriate to make certain kinds of compromises.

For example, a husband and wife may agree that they need a new vehicle, a car. One wants a large vehicle that carries many passengers and goods. The other wants a vehicle that gets the very best gas mileage possible and is easy on the environment. So, one wants a big SUV, the other wants a Smart Car. However, one objects that the SUV gets terrible gas mileage. The other objects that the Smart Car isn't large enough and it's not very safe.

So, they compromise and buy a smaller hybrid SUV. Neither gets exactly what they want, but both get something of what they want, and they are both better off than if they had refused to compromise and been stuck with their old car that neither of them liked or wanted.

Some compromises, however, should not be made under any circumstances. Those are the compromises that require the compromiser to become complicit in evil in order to get something they want.

Imagine this scenario: A bank robber takes 40 hostages in a bank. He threatens to kill all the hostages if he doesn't get what he wants. There is no way he will ever be given what he wants.

The hostage negotiator shows up and tries to talk the robber into releasing all of the hostages, but, despite his very best efforts, he cannot convince the robber to release all of the hostages. The best he can do is to convince the robber to give up 20 of the 40 hostages. He is pretty sure if he takes the deal, the other 20 will be killed, but he's also pretty sure if he doesn't take the deal, all 40 will die. In that case, it is entirely appropriate to take the deal. It wasn't the full goal of the negotiator, but at least it saved 20 lives, when without the compromise, all 40 would have been lost.

However, that is very different from this scenario: Same situation, except the best deal the robber will give is "I'll release 20 of the hostages, if you, Mr. Negotiator, will shoot the other 20. Otherwise, I'm gonna shoot all 40."

The hostage negotiator cannot, under any circumstances, take that deal, because it requires him to be complicit in evil. While there is no quantitative difference (20 live and 20 die in both cases), there is a qualitative difference that absolutely prevents the possibility of compromise in the latter case. It is never morally appropriate to agree to do evil to accomplish a perceived good.

That's one of the main reasons why I listed the things I listed in my article yesterday which are "compromises" made by President Obama which he should not have made and should not be making. I believe that many of those things required no compromise at all. He could have done them or stopped doing them, as the case may be, without any cooperation from anyone else at all. He's the president. He could simply decide that they would be done or not be done and it would be so.

However, in many of those cases, he would have to pay a political price and, in some cases, perhaps more important prices of various kinds, to have done or not done particular things on that list. So, I believe, he compromised. For example, he couldn't close Guantanamo without paying a heavy political price, so he kept it open, but drastically lowered the number of prisoners being held there.

The problem is, he's the one holding them there. He didn't agree to take 20 hostages because he couldn't get all 40, knowing that the robber would kill the other 20. He agreed to take 20 hostages and to himself shoot the other hostages.

This is why there is a lack of enthusiasm among liberal or Democratic voters. We are forced to choose between a party that shoots 40 people because it's expedient and a party that shoots only 20 people because it's expedient. We're just haggling over price.

Generally speaking, compromise is absolutely essential to a functioning democracy and a positive good. However, that kind of compromise, the kind that requires the compromiser to become complicit in evil to gain the compromise, will, eventually and certainly, destroy a democratic government.

It simply cannot happen. It cannot be allowed to happen. It is always wrong.