For some reason a lot of people think the best and smartest decision is smack dab in the middle of what republicans and democrats want

@SW-User just getting tired of hearing about compromise being the more mature solution and then all it does is make things worse or better things impossible. Tired of being the side that never benefits from these mature compromises

@NoahB When comprises cant be made blood is spilled. Often it is the lesser of two evils.

@NoahB hold on there. Which side always compromises?

@Frank52 I thought about this more and realized how obvious my comment was. These left side or right side zealots see everything as a zero sum game.

It is quite possible to negotiate a reasonable compromise with someone without abandoning principles.

But that’s impossible if your principals are based solely on “not what you want”

@JoeyFoxx I think it's the 'principles' that can be a sticking point. I compromise all the time. For the sake of peace, I eat the meal I wouldn't have chosen, or visit the theme park because others on the family are happy to go. If I was vegan, I wouldn't/couldn't eat some things. If I believed truly that the theme park was dangerous (despite evidence to the contrary), I couldn't compromise. Some aspects of politics are similar. [i]Realpolitik[/i], I believe, is the correct term for a form of politics which is practical and possible.

From what I observe of US politics and here in the UK around the subject of Brexit, eventually whole swathes of otherwise sensible people retreated into an intellectual cave from where they lobbed mindless arguments, allowing for no nuance or admission that those in either cave might be right about some things and wrong about others, or even worse, actually neither is right or wrong, only more comfortable with some things.

@Frank52 because we allowed it to happen.

There are way too many of us that are looking away...

Evil prevails when good people do nothing

@QuixoticSoul sounds like a true Scotsman argument...

@JoeyFoxx No, no, a Scotsman argument would be 2 of them fighting over ownership of a penny and thus inventing copper wire! 🙃

@QuixoticSoul LMAO bro I’m so mad at this image rn gkshksjsbsnsjn

@MistyCee

[quote]Not always, but I think there's a lot to be said for moderation and stability rather than massive destabilizing radical change in either direction.[/quote]

It is really rare for me to disagree with you, but some of that might have been said about the massive destabilisation around the abolition of slavery. As it happens, in practice it wasn't as radical as it was intended to have been and the effects are taking a lot longer to be worked out than I suspect was desired in the beginning.

@Frank52 Disagree with me all you like. I disagree with myself sometimes, even, when I think I was wrong about something.

Slavery's not a bad example, really. If you free millions of slaves, you not only deprive plantation owners of their property and livelihood, but you also take away the "jobs" of the slaves, leaving them roaming the countryside to forage for themselves and form shanty towns to terrorize people like Scarlett O'Hara.

Lots of people wanted to end slavery in North America, but plenty of people had valid concerns about how to do it and what the ramifications would be, even without talking about the folks who wanted to ship former slaves back to Africa.

In the end, abolition and Reconstruction turned out to be a very long process, and stuff like Jim Crow laws and lynchings were reactions to that change. We're still talking about reparations, for heavens sake.

I'm not saying going slow is [i]always [/i]better, but going [i]smart[/i], trying to foresee and deal with unintended consequences and even adjusting things along the way seems more often than not to be better than a knee jerk, immediate change without taking into account the consequences, transactional costs, and, of course, the reaction from those who oppose the change in question.

Most Americans, IMO, depend in large part on stability, keeping the lights on, and if given time, can adjust to all kinds of things, finding different jobs, learning to let their children play with children of different races, etc. But lots of those people are going to be really pissed off about riots, forced busing, etc, and while I think its terrible that it took so long for Brown v. Board of Education, mandating desegregation in 1865 would have been a much bigger mess (assuming there was a public school system of course).

@MistyCee [quote]going smart, trying to foresee and deal with unintended consequences and even adjusting things along the way seems more often than not to be better than a knee jerk, immediate change without taking into account the consequences, transactional costs, and, of course, the reaction from those who oppose the change in question.[/quote]

Exactly so. I think radical is fine, but absolutely agree that some planning and thought to the ramifications is essential if a stable solution is to be reached. Too many laws are made as knee jerk reactions and then, after more damage, have to be revisited, amended or withdrawn.