I'm Right, You're Wrong, Screw You

One of the most dispiriting things about living in the year 2023 is the increasing unwillingness of people, governments, political parties, and single-issue partisans to even consider compromising with those with whom they disagree.

In the Middle East, Hamas refuses to negotiate with Israel, causing widespread devastation and death on both sides of the Gaza border, dooming generations on both sides to lives of fear and misery.

American gun zealots refuse to compromise on any measures that might reduce gun violence, viewing the Constitutionally-authorized right to "keep and bear arms" as absolute and inviolable, regardless of the cost in human lives.

Religious fundamentalists refuse to compromise on their complete and total opposition to abortion, regardless of the fact the mother may die or the child be born with defects that would prevent a normal life.

In Congress, individual Senators and Representatives refuse to compromise on their pet issues, preventing meaningful legislation on immigration reform, medical care, education, gun safety, and any number of other issues, and leaving the nation without key military and government leaders at a time of great international peril.

There was a time when we viewed the ability and willingness to compromise as a cornerstone of good government ... Kentucky Representative Henry Clay was actually known as "The Great Compromiser," and his ability to craft compromises helped to quell regionalism and balance states' rights with national interests, helping to hold the nation together in the first half of the 19th century. 

Now, however, the very word compromise is often uttered dripping with scorn, because we have reached a point when many believe that someone who does not share their beliefs is not only wrong, but deliberately and manifestly evil. The state that produced a giant like Henry Clay now gives us legislative midgets  Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, and James Comer. We have lost the ability to work with others to find common ground in an era of I'm right, you're wrong, screw you.

The opposite problem was illustrated as far back as 1967 in the song "Shades of Gray," written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and performed by The Monkees: 

When the world and I were young

Just yesterday

Live was such a simple game

A child could play

It was easy then to tell right from wrong

Easy then to tell weak from strong

When a man should stand and fight

Or just go along

But today there is no day or night

Today there is no dark or light

Today there is no black or white

Only shades of gray

I remember when the answers seemed so clear

We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear

It was easy then to tell truth from lies

Selling out from compromise

Who to love and who to hate

The foolish from the wise

But today there is no day or night

Today there is no dark or light

Today there is no black or white

Only shades of gray

It was easy then to know what was fair

When to keep and when to share

How much to protect your heart

And how much to care

But today there is no day or night

Today there is no dark or light

Today there is no black or white

Only shades of gray

Only shades of gray

Today, no one paints the world in shades of gray, but in the very starkest black and white that brooks no compromise. I'm right, you're wrong, screw you.

Where is Henry Clay when we need him?

Have a good day, and consider compromise ... the nation needs it and you may discover that things work better with it.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo