Which just goes to show that even the “adult in the room” can say some doltish things.
Now, I like to think of myself as a reasonable, get-along sort of guy, and I’m often able to find room to compromise between what I want and what others want. Not always gracefully, I confess, but compromise is at the root of living in a society.
This metaphor starts to break down over scale and principle, though. Yes, ultimately all conflicts come down to an inability of one side or the other or both to compromise. The American Revolution came about because the North American colonists and the British Parliament were unable to compromise on issues like taxation and representation. [1] The War of 1812 came about because US and British unresolved conflicts from 1789, and pressures between the US and the UK because of France, and issues with impressment of American sailors by British naval ships failed to be compromised about.
Were these tragic failures of compromise?
Scooting forward a century and change, certainly efforts were made to compromise with Hitler — these were labeled appeasement, which is often the same thing. France and England didn’t have to declare war over Poland. Germany — and Japan — might have occupied a number of countries without it turning into the massive global conflict, all due to lack of compromise by both the Axis and the Allies.
Let’s roll back to the Civil War, though. It’s critical to note the root cause for that conflict — slavery — and that the US (and, more importantly, the slave population) suffered from compromise on this issue from the very beginning: the debate over the Declaration of Independence and the insistence by southern states that an anti-slavery clause be dropped from it. The US Constitution included the notorious 3/5 compromise (slaves, which could not vote, counted as 3/5 of a person for purpose of state representation in Congress and the Electoral College, thus ensuring that southern states had an outsized influence in US governance for many decades). The Missouri Compromise over the spread of slavery into new states was another example of such compromise.
Was compromise over slavery worth it? Was, ultimately, the unwillingness of Northerners, for whatever reason, to compromise in allowing slavery to spread further really something to we wish hadn’t happened? Or that the Union should have bid the South a hale farewell and left the secession at that (further compromising by turning over federal military installations like Ft Sumter)? Was Kelly suggesting that perhaps the Southern leaders ought to have compromised on their “peculiar institution” and its continuation?
At what point does compromise become appeasement? Or surrender? What principles ought not to be compromised, or can be compromised only so far until they cease to exist? When we’re talking something like chattel slavery, ninety years of compromise a good and praiseworthy thing?
For that matter, when’s the last time that Kelly’s boss ever publicly compromised on anything?
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[1] Yes, I will be simplifying history here. Bear with me.
John Kelly Pins Civil War on a ‘Lack of Ability to Compromise’
The reaction was swift and unforgiving after Mr. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, resurrected the debate over the legacy of the Confederacy.
This is the most tone dead indifferent bunch of dung lice u could ever have in the whitehouse 👅👅👅👅👅👅🐷🐷🐷
Kelly has certainly done a remarkable job of destroying his reputation in the past few weeks.
+Kee Hinckley morphing into "John Kelly Ann Conway"
I'd say that trying to be charitable to Kelly, leads to the idea he's involving a secretly-lecturing-Trump ingredient in all his public declarations. This makes him to some degree vulnerable to capture by Trump's reality distortion field.
Has anyone asked Kelly what compromise he would have made?
+Travis Bird An excellent question.