How much has Obama learned about the new politics? (Alternate reality alert)

Our political system is not accustomed to the kind of battle that is going on now. President Obama has been slow to adjust to it. The voters are understandably mystified and frustrated by it. In the meantime, the economy sits on the edge between stagnation and something worse.

The president’s speech to Congress and the Republican presidential debate last week should have taught us that we are no longer in the world of civics textbooks in which our political parties split their differences and arrive at imperfect but reasonably satisfactory solutions.

Now, we face a fundamental divide over the most basic questions: Is government good or bad? Can public action make the private economy work better, or are all efforts to alter the market’s course — by Congress, the president, the Federal Reserve — doomed to failure?

When politicians and their supporters believe the other side is pursuing policies that would destroy all they cherish, compromise becomes not a desirable expedient but “almost treasonous,” to use the phrase tossed about by Gov. Rick Perry of Texas.

Under these circumstances, taking enormous risks with the country’s well-being, as House Republicans did in the debt-ceiling rumble, is no longer out of bounds. It’s a form of patriotism. When your adversaries’ ideas are so dastardly, it’s better to court chaos, win the fight, and pick up the pieces later.

And to make matters worse — and more confusing — the two sides are not equally distant from the political center. We are in an age of asymmetric polarization.

Precisely because they believe in both the government and the marketplace, Democrats are always more ready to compromise. Obama’s economic address last Thursday was seen as tough and firm because he finally called Republicans in Congress out. Progressives liked the new fortitude....

“Are there really millions of people who’d shake their heads in agreement to this tripe?”

When you’re driving tomorrow, count the Obama/Biden stickers. Count “Coexist,” save-the-whales, give peace a chance, unions gave you the weekend and my-kid-is-an-outstanding-student-at-xxx*. Every one of those people would nod in agreement. By my observation, (of course, I live in a capitol and there are two universities) people with bumper stickers are mostly going to shake their heads in agreement with that tripe. There are conservative bumper stickers, but I suspect conservatives are concerned about getting their car damaged and therefore don’t put their politics on their bumpers.

* I think conservatives would actually wait until their kid achieves something before putting a bumper sticker on their car. I’ve seen, “My son is a US Marine” and “My daughter serves in the Air Force.”

There is at least one more thread today which quotes Democrat strategists about the need to "compromise." In that one, it is Steve McMahon. My post on that thread appears below. If you read it there, please just skip it here.

Strategists like McMahon [and here, Dionne] are all over the place these days, urging "compromise" by conservatives, as they see the failed policies of the "redistributionists" being rejected by citizens and the candidates they elected in 2010.

The efforts seem to be part of a larger strategy to silence those who disagree with the so-called "progressives'" agenda, as they try to make "compromise" a virtue. Is this part of a Soros-funded effort to neutralize opposition for the 2012 election? Watch AP "reports," columists, and even letters to the editor in local newspapers which suddenly tout the great need for "compromise."

Had the men and women of 1776 "compromised," we would have no Declaration of Independence and no freedom from British rule.

Citizens might remember that, unaccompanied by a strong determination to adhere to the Founders' ideas of liberty, then we risk damaging, rather than helping, the Republic. On questions essential to liberty, we may "compromise" away the liberty of our posterity and help to snuff out the light of liberty in the world.

In other words, if we keep doing the same things we've done already in the Congress and Senate, then we can expect the same results we've been getting--compromises that throw away the liberty of future generations.

On the other hand, if our nominees and representatives can articulate and explain the Founders' ideas as protections for liberty for all citizens, they will have planted the seeds of liberty in the hearts and minds of potential voters. Those seeds will bear fruit for the future, because once the ideas of liberty are understood, individuals may no longer voluntarily submit themselves to slavery to government. If, like the Founders, candidates and elected officials understood the ideas essential to liberty, they would sacrifice their "lives, liberty and sacred honor" rather than "compromise" on issues of limiting government, spending, taxation, etc.

Short-term gain, numbers wise, may lead to long-time loss.

Zacharias Montgomery: "If I have learned anything from the reading of history, it is that the man who, in violation of great principles, toils for temporary fame, purchases for himself either total oblivion or eternal infamy, while he who temporarily goes down battling for right principles always deserves, and generally secures, the gratitude of succeeding ages, and will carry with him the sustaining solace of a clean conscience, more precious than all the offices and honors in the gift of man."

Thomas Jefferson:

"[With the decline of society] begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia [war of all against all], which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:40

In his First Inaugural, Jefferson clearly outlined the "principles" that would guide his Administration, and added:

"These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

For too long, our public discourse has been based on "issues" and short-term political goals, with not enough emphasis placed on how this or that question on an issue relates to a principle essential to our very liberty as a nation. We must return to the "road" described by Jefferson as he took office if liberty is to survive the compromises and assaults by both major Parties over the past 100 years.

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