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Originally Posted by dc_dux
My first political boss was Sen. Jennings Randolph of WV. A tough old southerner and man of principle who know when to compromise. I worked on his staff in his last two years in office and learned more about politics and being an effective legislator than ace will ever know.
He was the the leading force behind the constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18. He fought for it through 10 sessions of Congress, horse trading each time until he finally had the votes.
As I pointed out earlier, Reagan compromised (caved?) on raising taxes.
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I am guessing that you don't see the conflict in your position and the two points above. Your first point illustrates than fighting for convictions is a marathon not a sprint. If you feel strongly enough you never give up, you do what it takes. Your second point illustrates that the appearance of compromise is not really compromise. You open the suggestion that Reagan may have caved, it is clear to me that he did not and that he achieved his objectives.
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And yes, despite ace's blindspot to the truth, the framers of the Constitution, those from the north, compromised core beliefs on slavery in order to form the union. There would have been no union w/o that compromise.
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You don't know what the result would have been if those against slavery stood firm, all anyone can do is speculate. We do know that the cost of that compromise was enormous. The issue for those against slavery is that they thought the institution of slavery would die on its own forces and that they did not have strong enough convictions against the institution of slavery. The trend of the death of slavery was in place, that is until the explosion of the cotton industry and the invention of the cotton gin. That turned the course on the declining trend. With the explosion of the cotton industry the value of slaves went up 4 to 5 fold in a short period of time. The US stood as the only modern nation sanctioning the institution of slavery at the time of the Civil War. Given hindsight there is no doubt the slavery compromise was the wrong thing to do.
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Extreme ideologues (on either end) are great for political debate, but rarely achieve their political objectives....without compromise.
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I am curious. If I help you get something you want and you help me get something I want, I assume you think that is good and even perhaps a form of compromise. But what if the thing I want is not in your best interest and will harm you, do you help me, does that make you an extremist if you don't? What if you are in a group of 1% that will be harmed and 99% won't be, does that make you an extremist? Where would you draw the line and fight for what is in your interests?
Also, I am curious - you seem to suggest that being an extremist is a bad thing, is that your view? I am very much an extremist on somethings, and I don't see it as a problem or an insult. I like living in a world where there are extremists, I think it adds color or texture to life. Do you really want a bland world of nothing but middle of the road conformists on every issue? Is there any aspect in your life where you see yourself as an extremist? Even if you give me a flip response, consider it food for thought.
---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:25 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
I'm not talking about the British, ace, I'm talking about the building of America. You know, after the British.
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Like taking land from native Americans? Mexican/American war? Or how about the resolution of conflict between the free range folks and settlers? Suffrage? Prohibition? DC v. AC in the electric grid? VHS v. Beta? Every key point in American history where there was conflict, it resolved with a winner and a loser. One force prevails