No compromise, no retreat, no progress
Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.
- Mark B. Cohen
Some on the extreme left are disappointed with the performance of Presdent Barak Obama since his election and inaguration. He hasn’t pushed the radical changes they want.
It was once a reality that after elections, when in office to serve ALL the people, politicians had to compromise, and the most rabid (who are also the most vocal) would cry “betrayal!!!”.
Now, from one party at least, there is no more compromise, and apparrently no commitment to serve ALL the peoeple and not just “the base”.
If one party tries to compromise, makes changes, and the other refuses to budge, are they both serving ALL the people?
Politics was once the art of the possible, now it seems to be the art of forcing failure upon the opposition. Instead of acheiving what is possible that is positive, now the focus is upon denying success to anyone who doesn’t conform to the agenda of the vociferous radicals.
We now have verbally expressed hopes that the President fails, we have cheers when Presidental appeals are apparently rejected, and we have cries of outrage when the President is awarded, arguably prematurely, the Nobel Peace Prize.
Does any of this serve the United States?
My answer is no.
President Obama is not “leading” by making uncompromising statements, but instead outraging the most vocal of his supporters, those I ran into during the caucuses in Texas who annoyed me so much. He is trying to achieve the possible with an opposition whose rallying cry is “no compromise, no retreat, no progress, make him FAIL!”.
Who is serving our country better?
It is not that the right has no valid positions, because they do, just as the left has positions that are invalid. Compromise is the art of finding something that works by taking what is good from both sides.
Yet one side now refuses to cooperate at all, seeming to believe that only their supporters should be served, not the nation as a whole.
How do we change this? How do we make it better?
I fear we are on the road to ruin. Compromise is necessary in every part of life.
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Cross-posted to Random Fate and The Moderate Voice .
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8 Responses to “No compromise, no retreat, no progress”
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You nailed it Jack. The Republicans ought to be ashamed… but they won't.
Although Grant doesn't name names, I'm assuming he regards the GOP as the uncooperative party and the Democrats as the party willing to compromise. Recent history shows that the party out of power is generally going to be obstructive, and the party in power will cooperate only to the extent they need to get anything done. In the case of today's Democrats, cooperation has been necessary to find consensus within their own party, not necessarily with the GOP.
The problem then is not so much one party is bad and the other good, it's partisanship and modern politics in general.
If the author were honest, he would simply insist that the GOP be banned and removed from Washington, to remove even a fake obstacle to “progress,” radicalism that only a fringe want, and which offends and repels the mainstream. (We did not vote for what the lib Dems have increasingly done now that they have power, which is the essence of their failure currently with health care “reform” due to their overreach even beginning to fracture themselves as a group.)
Part of it is modern politics (modern, as in since 1980 — the Left and Dems resented losing the White House and public rubber-stamp reactions to what they would do, and has been antagonistic ever since) and part of it is due to the “mechanics” and related nature of our system, which includes the Duopoly of our two major political parties. (Indeed, so deep is this, that many, probably most, proposals for reform naturally have presumed the continuation of the two-party system as well as plurality voting for elections.)
One of my older books (circa 1973) on constitutional reform expressly wished to define a kind of party government that would “enshrine” (as I put it) our two-party system, and create a Government (the last election's winner) and officially establish an Opposition (the last election's losing party). This would be done by, among other things (the most noteworthy, especially with the rise of Gingrich as Speaker of the House after the 1994 elections) augmenting the role of Speaker of the House as the principal seat of the Opposition in the federal government. (Logically, too, this person would appear and give rebuttal speeches, or take the initiative separately with speeches or addresses to the nation, to counter those of the President.)
A more recent work related to this (which at this time the reader should consider the role that the current Republicans would play as “Opposition” members to a strong Democratic presence in Washington) can be found here:
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/colloquium/cons…
As for me, I enjoy reading constitutional reform and “system mechanical” reform proposals and works of all kinds, but in this case I look at things more broadly, and again note that I'd prefer to see the two major parties partitioned and new, more numerous parties created from them, and other parties made practically feasible, and a change made to proportional representation for multi-seat offices or bodies of government, and approval voting for single-person offices.
Plus, it's the only way the far lefties can legitimately win and secure legitimate representation and proportion of the power they are entitled to have.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvot…
Readers' note: The author of the book I have, by Charles Hardin (“Presdential Power and Accountability: Toward a New Constitution”), has other material available people can read, if they are so interested.
(Imagine some GOP leader, somewhere — maybe Limbaugh? — selected below to counter Obama.)
“… The beginning of the answer lies in the relationship between the President and the people. The major premise of our theory of representation has been: the people must rule. But the people cannot rule and the President has become their substitute. Accordingly, he personifies their political authority. When he speaks from atop his pyramid of 40 million votes, with the bulk of the populace reportedly behind him, he is awe inspiring. His infallibility especially impresses those closest to him whose approval, if not their adulation, convinces him that he is larger than life. And yet all this authority may dissolve if the public turns against him. The people's choice becomes the people's curse. We have seen it happen five times in this century. President Nixon's plunge by mid-1973 from his exalted pinnacle at his January inauguration was unprecedentedly swift; but witness the debacles of Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. The forced retention of a President whose prestige has been shattered is always dangerous and can be disastrous for the country.
A measure of control over the President can be provided by subjecting him to the criticism of an organized, focused opposition with leadership centered in one person who will be continuously visible and vocal as the alternative to the President. As the presidency is unified, so should the opposition be unified. As the President speaks with a single voice, so should he be answered by a single voice instead of by a clamor of discordant and little known voices in a legislative body whose genius has been the dispersion of power. If a focused opposition can be achieved, the perception by the public of the opposition (and especially of its leader) will change-and this will change the crucial relationship between the public and its government. …
The first reform then must strike at the relationships not only between President and Congress but also between both and the public. The President and Congress should be elected for simultaneous four-year terms. In addition, the defeated candidate for the presidency should have a seat in the House of Representatives, priority in committees and on the floor, and a staff, offices, and other perquisites suitable to his position as the leader of the opposition.
The same imperatives that practically dictate concentrated executive leadership in modern industrial nations call as well for a unified opposition. If we can create conditions that will encourage the rise of a single leader of the opposition, we can count on the compulsions of the times-greatly assisted by the alert members of the press-to confirm his claims to the reins of alternative authority. Moreover, the press will certify his title to the public at large so that his legitimacy becomes 'graven on the hearts of the citizens' as part of the 'real constitution of the state.'”
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/17100/1/a…
True.
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