Stoopid Stuff

That was Then...

So what is it with America's political leadership today? Doesn't it seem that there was a time, not that long ago, when people of dissimilar political and ideological worldviews could come together responsibly and hammer out compromises that actually advanced the nation's agenda and contributed positively to public policy? I've been trying for a year or so to figure out what has changed. Certainly our political positions have hardened, our ideologies have become more rigid, and in many cases more extreme, and the discourse has become toxic.

But why? Certainly those leaders of a bygone era held strong beliefs, and were no less committed to achieving their ideological goals than those of today. And yet, they could find a place, not necessarily in the center, but where the central goals were met without giving away more than was absolutely necessary.

Of course, the drift toward extreme positions is seriously problematic. It's hard to be willing to compromise with torturers, with people who start wars, hold people without due process, run offshore gulags and shred the fourth amendment. How exactly am I supposed to do that? "OK, you can invade and occupy Iraq, but you have to promise to try not to hurt anyone"? I'm not sure I see a way compromise can work. And I'm sure there are elements that feel the same way about compromising with somebody like me.

But I think I've figured out the difference, and it's both smaller and much bigger than I thought it would be. In earlier times, the goals were the same, it was only the methodology for achieving those goals that was argued about. In a sense, ideology defined method more than it did outcome. But today, ideology is the primary determinant of desired outcome, and that creates a kind of inflexibility that never existed before.

Take for example, terrorism. If everyone had the shared goal of ending terror attacks on Americans, then we would be more flexible in our methods for dealing with it. We would certainly recognize that fighting terrorists with military force only perpetuates the fighting - indeed, can NEVER end it. We might try using Law Enforcement and Intelligence assets to attempt to prevent attacks while we did all we could to improve our relationship with the source populations, acting as an honest broker and offering genuine partnership. But for much of our leadership, that's not the goal. The goal is to have wars, to have our troops deployed on the oil fields, to create a multi-polar world and to try to ensure that some are winners and some are losers. In that case, the end of terrorist acts against American interests is the farthest thing from the goal - indeed, without the EXCUSE of the terrorist threat, the outcome desired by these factions would be impossible to achieve.

For that matter, consider nuclear non-proliferation. If the goal was to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to any new nations, there would be a relatively straightforward set of methodologies employed consistently and fairly. And as became clear what was working and what wasn't, everyone would work together to deploy the most effective approaches. But clearly that is NOT the desired outcome, despite the rhetoric to the contrary. It seems that anyone in a political leadership position who talks about non-proliferation these days is actually speaking of a specific set of nations and organizations who's development of nuclear capabilities cannot be permitted. Israel, India and Pakistan develop nuclear weapons without much in the way of outside interference, while Libya, North Korea and Iran encounter the wrath of the non-proliferators who couldn't be bothered to complain in the case of the previous nations. And these choices are so arbitrary that we have the bizarre case of NPT signatories being placed under sanction for doing things that the NPT they signed specifically allow them to do, while others blatantly refuse to sign the NPT and develop weapons unfettered.

So it seems that when ideology dictates methodology, goals and outcomes can be agreed upon and specific methods can be hammered out in civil negotiations. It is only when ideology dictates outcomes that the leadership becomes intransigent, and the conversation turns bitter, angry and personal.

posted by mikey @ 2:16 PM