QandO

This is an interesting argument. You can even make the claim that by being pragmatic you are serving your principles as best you can.

Take the prescription drug Medicare benefit. A purely principled Republican would say, "Government has no business doing this, and it's going to be too expensive. So I'll vote no on it." To me, that's the proper stand intellectually. But then you look at the fact that some 70% of the people want a prescription drug Medicare benefit, and you know that if you're in Congress and you vote against it you'll be replaced. So, even if you manage to kill the bill THIS time around, your replacement will help it to pass...and maybe it will be worse than the one you're voting on now.

I admit, it's a somewhat cheap argument to make. But sometimes, standing for your principles means letting something not-quite-as-bad-as-it-could be happen now, rather than letting something horrendous happen in the future.

Posted by: Steverino at January 24, 2004 09:56 AM

"...but I want an oompa-loompa now daddy!
and if that pol wont give it too me, I'll vote for the one that will!"

Posted by: Veruca Salt at January 24, 2004 11:00 AM

The problem with "... letting something not-quite-as-bad-as-it-could be happen now, rather than letting something horrendous happen in the future" is you have no control over the future. If one could guarantee your premise without change, then, yes, pragmatism in that respect would make some sense.

But on the other side, not fighting on priniciple and passing a "lite" version of something your opposition wants to "innoculate" yourself politically is a short-term and self-defeating exercise. Once the political pendulum swings, and it will, the precident is set. It exists. Now all the opposition does is build on to the structure your pragmatism put in place. No real fight and no going back.

For instance, do you have any doubt in the world that if and when the Democrats gain power that the Medicare perscription drug plan will be radically changed and become even more costly? I certainly don't. And there'll be very little of a fight since the "benefit" already exists. It can be done incrementally as they've done on other such "benefits" passed. All they have to do is attach the changes to bills the Republicans badly want.

OTOH ... since universal health care has NOT been passed, I see more than a a passing chance it won't be. And without the structure already in place, the Democrats have nothing to tinker with.

That's the up side of standing on principle. The question, of course, is should you stand and die on your principles or do what it takes to win elections.

Both parties seem to have chosen the latter. And that's why people on both sides are grumbling and feeling more and more disconnected from their parties.

Posted by: McQ at January 24, 2004 11:07 AM

It all comes down to a risk analysis. It may pay to stand on principle sometimes, if that stand gives you a reasonable chance at success - now or later.

Sometimes, though, "standing on principle" is just another way to commit suicide. (reference: the Libertarian Party)

Posted by: Jon Henke at January 24, 2004 12:22 PM

McQ, I don't disagree with you, but I am not so certain that the prescription drug plan will be overhauled and made even worse when/if the Dems regain control. Even if the Dems were to take both sides of Congress and the White House, there's such a thing as voter inertia. Opposition to overhauling the drug plan can go along the lines of, "We already have that plan, and now the Dems want to make it even more expensive than it already is! Do you want even MORE of your money taken away for it?" (The clever voter will note that the hands of Republicans are just as blood-stained as Democrats' hands, but we'll set that aside for now.)

It's true, you can't control the future. The best you can do is hope that what you're doing today will keep a worse future from coming. Unlike you, I do see a National Health Plan coming...the clamor for it is higher now than it was in 1993/94. It was good that the plan was blocked then, but I think it will come eventually.

Ideally, a pol wishing to stand on principle will go back to the people he represents and convince them of the merits of his position. But what if they won't be convinced? It's Hobson's Choice.

Posted by: Steverino at January 24, 2004 09:04 PM

Steverino: In reference to your point about Medicare I’d make a bet you can’t find a single federal program which has been put into place that has stayed the same or gotten smaller and/or cheaper. There are too many ways to slip expansion past the voter radar screen, and the politicians know them all.

We’ll have to see on the National Health Plan, but to your last point, we’ve drifted away from being a representative republic and run aground on the shores of a special-interest democracy. There was a reason Madison was so afraid of democracy for the whole (we’ve always had a democracy among the representatives) in that he was absolutely sure that we’d be destroyed by “factions” or what we now call ‘special interests’. He couldn’t have been more right (see Federalist 10). We are where we are today for two reasons ... one, politicians want to be elected and hold power more than they want to be men of principle and two, the people no longer care enough about principle to be concerned when it is pushed aside, since in most cases the pushing aside of principle ends up rewarding THEM. Its a co-dependent relationship from hell.

Posted by: McQ at January 25, 2004 07:29 PM