The Compromise of Sometime Soon, Please

     For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few days, each of the fifty United States and the District of Colombia held an election on Tuesday. The big winner was the President, who won re-election handily, sweeping every swing state but North Carolina to garner 332 electoral votes to Mr. Romney's 206. The victory came at the end of a long and brutal campaign, which itself came at the end of a long and brutal four political cycle, during which Democrats and Republicans alike threw mountains worth of mud at one another. From heckled allegations of deceit to what might be the harshest campaign ad I've ever seen, the past few years have given us the most acrimonious rhetoric of modern times.

     In our polarized liberal democracy, we have intense disagreements and big arguments.  When I watched the President's victory speech in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning, I heard echoes of John Stuart Mill (at about 10:46).





     The part of the speech that stuck out to me (as a political theory student, not as a political partisan) was this: "Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy. That won't change after tonight, and it shouldn't. These arguments we have are the mark of our liberty."

     President Obama, you 'tilitarian, you! "These arguments we have are the mark of our liberty" sounded, to me, to be straight out of Mill. From "Of the Liberty of Thought" : "If the [opposing] opinion is right, [the majority] are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error." The point here is twofold. First, when we argue about things, we are exercising one of our most basic freedoms. Second, we should argue respectfully because we have things to learn from the other side. To put it in more utilitarian terms, the pleasure that can be derived from constructive argument outweighs the pain of talking to someone with whom you disagree.

     Cooperation despite disagreement is a hallmark of American political history. A series of compromises, from the Constitutional Convention of 1787 straight through to the Buchanan administration, delayed the Civil War for eighty years.

Senator Stephen Douglas, co-father of the Compromise of 1850.
His face doesn't say, "Can't we all get along?"
His gaze burns the command to compromise into your very soul.
(Image retrieved from WikiMedia Commons, public domain.)

     So to rank-and-file political partisans from sea to shining sea: the people with whom you disagree are not the enemy, and like it or not, they probably aren't stupid. They probably care about the same things you do. To politicians from Portland to the Potomac: you didn't win a mandate. The other party also has some leverage. Their ideas carry weight. Your predecessors compromised on slavery for the good of the Union. You can compromise on tax policy and the debt for the good of the Union. Do you really want Zombie Stephen Douglas to come knocking on your Capitol office door? I know I wouldn't.