LIBERALS ARE BAD, RESPECTABLE CONSERVATIVES ARE BAD, BUT THEIR COMPROMISES ARE WORSE | 2002-08-24
President Bush needed a billion dollar appropriation. So he asked Congress for it.
Bush had to veto the spending bill that came back to him. It amounted to FIVE billion dollars.
This vetoed spending package included huge programs added to please liberals, especially AIDS expenditures. It also included more money for Homeland Security and the military to please conservatives.
It was a compromise.
Ah, that magic word! It conjures up the idea that reasonable men with wide ideological differences are finally coming together for the public good. This five billion dollar boondoggle shows that in the real world, a compromise between liberals and conservatives produces the worst of both worlds.
'Twas ever thus.
People who use that word "compromise" as a magic incantation get lost in the idea that it represents a position between two extremes. They completely ignore the fact that the two extremes represented are BOTH bad. As a result, compromise is the worst of both worlds.
A perfect example of this kind of moderation is moderate Republicanism. The Republican Party establishment represents big business and a big military. Liberals represent the idea that all the money in the country should be turned over to college professors and other "intellectuals." These "intellectuals" will then divvy out all the money and impose whatever rules they think society should obey.
So when they compromise, these two groups come up with a half cut for each side. Conservatives get lots of money for their military contractors and Democrats get the new regulations and the higher expenditures their social experts demand.
Take a look in your mind at what "compromise" looks like in a real Congress. Do you really believe one side represents a bunch of evil ideologues and the other stands for truth? They are all there to get what their sponsors want.
A "compromise" is the middle of the road because it gives away everything each group of lobbyists want.
This split between Republican power-brokers and liberal power-brokers is what we call moderate Republicanism.