As the Congressional constipation seizes up even further, it has given me time to think about compromises, more specifically when one should and when one must not compromise. When two sides have a particular goal in mind, but differ in the method to arrive at it, compromise is possible. Each side may believe their information is superior, but with the uncertainties involved, they realize that they can't be dogmatic about it.
Then there is compromising with a dumbass, what I will refer to from here on as "dumpromising". This is where reasonable people are faced with dogmatic arguments from fact free dumbasses. This is where compromise can't work, even though, as we will see below the break, the "extreme moderates" think it can.
I was spurred to write this diary by this gem of a YouTube post that I came across:
It seems to imply that rational solutions are found in the middle, neither dogmatic conservative nor dogmatic liberal.
I might agree with this statement if the Civil War had ended with a compromise to enslave only the very blackest of people, and then only in the Deep South, not in the last 4 states to join the Confederacy.
I might agree with the statement if our wise forebears had found the solution to the problem of child labor to be to only have children from the lower classes work, and they couldn't work past 8pm on school nights.
I might agree with the statement if I felt safe standing on the double yellow line in the middle of the highway. After all, the momentum of the 18-wheelers going in one direction is compromised by the momentum of the 18-wheelers going in the other direction. What could possibly go wrong?
No, I'm going to have to call bullshit on the professor of moderation and be dogmatic in saying that facts can't be compromised. People that believe the Earth is 6000 years old, people that deny science that is backed up by facts, it is dumpromising to try and reach a compromise agreement with them. They are confused back-seat drivers who need to be given a book of Sudokus to keep them entertained while someone who knows where he is going does the driving.
"The right answer lies in the middle" only works when the answers being proffered come from people who have studied the problem using scientific methods. In fact, a consensus of their opinions and estimates is usually better than any one taken individually. But people who have used religious dogma, pseudoscience, reading entrails, prayer, divine revelation, hunches and guesses, their own personal prejudices, the throwing of dice, or Papal infallibility to come to their answer, their answer is useless. It's white noise that needs to be filtered out.
There are such things as a superior beliefs -- they are called "facts". And what makes a belief inferior? It called being "wrong".