The Problem With Compromise
Watching "The Five" on Fox News I have become convinced that it is pointless to argue with liberals. The reason for that conclusion finally penetrated my brain as I watched Juan Williams comment on the role of government. From his perspective the primary task of government is to "take care of people". My view of government's task is that its duty is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of The United States and thereby maintain the delicate balance between civil order, international relationships, and maximal individual rights, freedom, and liberty.
These two positions have come to be mutually exclusive. When every action of government must be evaluated by how it "helps" people then discussions of liberty are automatically ruled out. All recipients of government help automatically give up some of their liberty to receive that "help". The "helping" mission is obvious in our tax code. Taxes should be funding the government operations of defense, border control, common infrastructure, and safety. Our tax code is no longer about funding these government operations as much as it is about some kind of social engineering. Taxes are used to eliminate poverty, eliminate all forms of discrimination, create jobs, heal the sick, shelter the homeless, save the planet, and provide for retirement. In fact, the actual primary activities of government are sacrificed to support the social agendas.
The Constitutional perspective operates on the fact that life is filled with risks. Taking and managing those risks as individuals is what freedom is all about. When a person with little financial resources says that "I can have a better life if I open a new business and make a profit". That person is saying that he will risk having no insurance, eating poorly, and living in poverty while he build his future. Such people have made the USA what it is today. This was the country where you were free to bet on yourself. You might fail but you were free to try and to try again. If things did not work out then the risk takers used their own survival skills or if necessary turned to friends, family, and community for help to survive the period between a failed risk and the start of a new endeavor. That new endeavor might be a new job in a new community or starting another business. Whatever the direction taken, the choice of direction was the individual's choice to make.
Liberals do not believe that anyone should take those risks. In their view it is not individual effort and responsibility that meets people's needs, it is the government. The collective wealth of the country meets the needs of all the citizens. With this as their basic premise liberals cannot even think about individual risk taking inherent in a free society. Allowing people to risk not having health insurance is cruel, stingy, and not compassionate according to reasoning based on the liberal premise of government's job to care for all.
The Constitutional versus liberal ideals of government have become mutually exclusive. There can be no compromise when neither side accepts responsibility for the concepts that define their world view. Compromise is trade-off. My opinion, based solely on my interaction with thousands of people over my lifetime, is that liberals do not understand their own basic premise and therefore cannot even imagine an alternative perspective. Conservatives are often described as religious fanatics when in fact the strictest fundamentalist religion is Liberalism. Challenges to liberal ideas are not just other ideas, they are heresy. Once defined as heresy no argument is possible.
When liberals acknowledge that theirs is not the "only true way to heaven on Earth" it will be possible to find solutions that require some sacrifice of liberty to provide necessary help for the less successful in our society. But the compromise can only occur when both sides recognize and fairly and openly debate the trade-offs between utopia and freedom.
