Compromise

We've recently survived two weeks of political conventions.  Perhaps more than any other time in my memory, the murky difference between truth and fiction has been blurred.  Statistics may be - and have been - skewed to mean whatever the publisher wants them to.  So, more and more, I've been contemplating what place compromise has in our system of governance.

We must compromise with others to get along in the world.  But that doesn't mean compromising who we are, who we've been, who we hope to be.  Obfuscating past stances belies basic principle.  I think of Mitt Romney's approach as the governor of Massachusetts to universal health care, which he now seems to deny.  And yet Massachusetts folks appear to be quite content with this paradigm - a structure strikingly similar to "Obama-care."  I think of the funds both parties want to deduct from Medicare - in very different ways - and Ryan's denial that his plan makes the same deductions as does the Democratic approach - with different outcomes. These compromises impinge on principles like honesty and clarity.

In contrast, compromise in terms of issues may be defined as moving a step to one side or the other of a topic to accommodate other points of view.  We need to be very clear about this.  Recognizing that our fellow citizens may have valid perspectives that differ from our own is important to our political system – and to our lives together as human beings. If our candidates are being held hostage by those whose votes they want, if those who govern our country have no room to change and grow, we cannot progress as a culture.  I fear for our country if we - and our governing bodies - cannot or will not differentiate between principle and issue.