The Problem With Compromising

When you look at the history of Conservatism, we come across the word "compromise" quite often. And it is nearly always presented as a good thing, but compromising has a number of problems that need to be pointed out.

When most people think about compromising they think of both sides in a dispute giving up something. Both sides, not just one, but both sides and they hope to achieve a big win by both sides taking a small loss. Compromising is based upon the idea that each side is made up of reasonable people. This point is very important and it colours how we see this idea. Sadly we often get compromises which are nothing of the sort, but which are instead "compromises".

Liberals are like Communists, they are not reasonable people, they are ideological people. Their beliefs are more important than peace, or honour, or civilization. Victory is what they want, not comprises. In fact they never compromise, not really.

Here are three types of "compromises" that we need to watch out for and to reject.

Consultations
This is a favourite with Governments, another term for it is consultations. You know how it goes "We are in consultations with the local community". Have you ever been to one of these "consultations"? They are always decided before hand and it's obvious. Whoever is chairing the meeting lets people talk as long as they like, particularly if what they are saying is supportive or even mildly sceptical. Make sure the time is chewed up, "Ohhh I'm sorry but your critical comment cannot be addressed as we are short of time". "Thank you all for coming, we have heard your comments and will take them into consideration". And that will be the last you ever hear of it, because it wasn't really there to hear your voice, instead it was there to give the fig leaf of respectability to their actions.

Intellectual or False Compromise
Another form of compromise is to proclaim a joint victory. "After protracted negotiations it is clear that both sides have important contributions to make". The announcement is the most important part of the compromise. Nothing will happen, nothing will change and nothing will be achieved. So why negotiate? Because it seems like things will happen, it seems like change will occur and it seems as if something will be achieved. Appearance is everything and everything is hollow.

Slow Victory, Slow Defeat
The third form of compromise is to bring out a comprehensive agreement between the two parties. It seems like a really difference has been made. However one side will not honour the agreement with anything but words, however the other side will be expected to honour every word. It is victory achieved slowly for one side and defeat occurring slowly for the other.

Conclusion
Unless both sides are really prepared to compromise then negotiations are pointless. It is entirely typical of Liberalism to call for compromise and for negotiations, but to do nothing but talk. They are not interested in compromise, what they are interested in is gaining advantage and negotiations do that. Real negotiations do not take place in the open, they are always secret. If they are known then you are now under pressure to reach an agreement. Even a bad one. It is better not to negotiate then to reach that point.

So does that mean that we should never compromise, no there are times when compromising is healthy. Healthy compromising involves both sides giving things up, and when backsliding occurs that the issues are addressed and not ignored. Once things are agreed upon and those things agreed to are ignored then the agreement is dead. It should be openly rejected and it should be after publicly trying to repair the agreement. But once it is dead it should not be allowed to be a zombie agreement, it must not be allowed to be something that is dead pretending to be alive.

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