Politics is often a simple choice between right and wrong, and in those cases liberals are always right and the Right is always wrong: A result of the fact that liberals actually make an effort to be right, while conservatives simply define wherever they happen to be as right. But there are some issues that are defined by the lack of clear ethics, and in those cases the argument degenerates into one based on fear of ambiguity: In other words, a binary dilemma occurs where a reasoned approach to the facts does not support one. These political irritants form the basis of wedge issues that have unnecessarily divided American society for decades, and I think they can be resolved once and for all.
First, I need to state that on most matters, liberals are simply right and there is no societal advantage to compromising with conservatives on them: Civil rights (including gay rights) and environmental policy are the plainest examples - i.e., there are clear moral and rational imperatives in those cases, and the right-wing position is just dead wrong every way you look at it. Furthermore, the fact that we are 100% right on those issues means that our long-term success on them is assured: The Right was fighting against an inevitability when it tried to stop racial integration, and it's doing the same thing trying to stop gay rights and climate change policy.
But there are three perennial wedge issues that don't need to exist at all: Issues arising from the failure of activists on both sides to understand the full complexity of their own agendas. Because of this, those agendas are driven by intense mutual suspicion of each other's motives and fear that compromise will create a "slippery slope" tilted in the other direction. While there will always be outliers, the following issues do not need to plague our mainstream politics forever: Guns, abortion, and immigration.
Now, I am not saying that we can ever reconcile everyone on these questions - there will always be dogmatic outliers - but the majority of people are people of good will who are simply approaching the question from a different set of cultural assumptions. If you bring them together, you can eventually forge a consensus every bit as enduring and seemingly unlikely as the United States itself.
- Guns
Whether the NRA will admit it or not, the basis for consensus on guns already exists: Gun control advocates overwhelmingly support the 2nd Amendment, and most people who are leery of gun control still have no desire to see people running around their communities with bazookas and gatling guns. In other words, there is already general - if thus far inarticulate - recognition that the question is not as simple as a false dilemma between private armament and a state monopoly on weaponry.
There are indeed scary people who would love to see private attack helicopters flying the skies, tanks roving the streets, and corporate militias patrolling their communities with truck-mounted .50 caliber machine guns, but most 2nd Amendment activists are fully content with individuals having the right to own semiautomatic rifles and handguns. The former group are paranoid, xenophobic loons who hold this position because they're suicidally terrified of government and the outside world, and need not be considered since they are irreconcilable to democratic solutions.
And then there are a minority of people who wish to repeal the 2nd Amendment altogether, and see that everything more powerful than a BB gun (and possibly even those too) should be out of private hands in order to drastically reduce the murder rate - which it probably would. But these people's thinking, though humanistic, only addresses a limited slice of the reasoning behind the 2nd Amendment - defense of one citizen against another. Most gun control advocates, however, are content to interpret "well-regulated militia" to mean that guns are kept out of the hands of criminals and maniacs; that the power of weaponry is limited; and that it's tracked reliably enough to keep both dealers and owners accountable.
The Founders felt that the latent potential for armed revolution and independent local action was necessary in the event of tyranny or foreign invasion, and their reasoning - though qualified by the changes of time - remains sound in principle. However, their secondary reasoning - defense of the individual and their families - has been largely discredited in statistical terms. General possession of firearms is an ineffective strategy for preventing violent crime, and may exacerbate the problem.
Someone who has a fetish for or against guns is not going to reach consensus on the question, they're just going to push as hard as they can to protect or attack their Magic Liberty Wands / Satanic Death Toys. But people who actually have some kind of ethical process behind their position can reach a solid and enduring partnership that addresses the reality of what guns can and cannot do for society. Rather than representing mere compromise, such a partnership could, I think, mutually advance both issues together.
Each mainstream side of the divide must acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the other, and acknowledge realities that are inconvenient for them: We must admit that one size does not fit all, and that people in rural areas probably do need guns to protect themselves due to the broad geographic dispersal of law enforcement. We must recognize that these people are not exposed to the conditions of bloody urban warfare caused by unchecked proliferation of firearms in densely-populated areas, and therefore understand where their perspective comes from. And we must realize that gun control measures do nothing to address their concerns about the civil defense and political contingencies that played such a strong role in shaping the 2nd Amendment.
Pro-gun activists must be willing to acknowledge that firearms are not a panacea, that their abundance does more harm than good under some conditions, and that people who live in cities have as much right to not be dodging bullets all day as rural citizens have to protect themselves from low-probability encounters with violent crime. They must acknowledge that some environments have greater overall liberty with fewer and less-powerful guns on the streets, and that America is not going to sacrifice them for the cultural sensibilities and exaggerated fears of the rural contingent. Moreover, these regions are the economic engines of the country, so if gun advocates ever hope to make real progress on their issue, they better find a way to do so that takes the needs of these regions into account.
What kind of policies might such a partnership ultimately produce? Since the disagreement largely stems from a false dilemma and mutual incomprehension, I see no reason that policies couldn't be made that advance both sets of priorities: Approaches that rationally enhance safety from violent crime while securing liberty against contingencies. For instance, gun advocates are often mistrustful of federal and even state governments, so it seems reasonable that they would find gun control more palatable - and possibly even helpful to their own agenda - the more localized it is.
Let us suppose - and this is just one hypothetical solution - that everyone has the right to possess one short-range bolt-action rifle at a time, within the confines of their property and transported in a secured, unloaded fashion. Let's further suppose that, due to the scarcity of law enforcement in rural communities, everyone is allowed to openly carry these weapons around in areas beneath a certain population density, and may opt instead for a handgun (also openly carried). Before guns are sold, purchasers are given literature about the relevant laws and boundaries, and prominent signs inform them of those boundaries. However, at no point would a private citizen under normal conditions be able to possess more than one firearm - though they may still own and practice with more than one. That would address the personal security element of the equation.
As for securing liberty against contingencies, as I hint above, people may own and practice with any number of powerful firearms, but they would not be able to possess them: These additional firearms - either supernumerary or more powerful than the limits of possession - would be secured and regulated by local authority. If someone just absolutely had to have a fully-automatic AK-47, then (following background checks) the supplier would directly transport it to the local police department where it would be stored in the police weapons locker, being every bit as safe from theft as the existing law enforcement arsenal. The person who owns it could then train with it on site in police shooting ranges, and a number of security measures (use your imagination) would ensure that it never leaves the premises unauthorized and could not be used in a rampage there.
Under emergency conditions, local government could authorize the release of stored weapons to their owners, though the owners would in return have to accept the command of local police officials (i.e., a well-regulated militia) to ensure that mob violence did not ensue. Such a thing being necessary would be a low-probability, but it would address the concerns of gun advocates with respect to extreme contingencies: It would be extraordinarily impractical for weapons concentrated on the local level to be "confiscated" (the typical fear of the gun enthusiast) by the federal government, so it would create orderliness and community safety without sacrificing the higher-level security purposes of firearms.
People would be armed enough to protect themselves against mundane threats, and firepower beyond that would be available to the citizenry through orderly government processes on the local level if regular police, state National Guard, and the federal military was overwhelmed, suborned, or unavailable for whatever reason. Incidents like Waco, as rare as they already are, would become even rarer because an entire incorporated municipality with a minimum total population - or in unincorporated areas, the entire county - would need to participate. And yet if shit were to happen; if a dictator with balls a lot bigger than George W. Bush's were to come to power, people would have options. Meanwhile, a shitload of guns would be off the streets. Everybody wins. Everybody, that is, except for the NRA and the Republican Party - the only beneficiaries of using guns as a wedge issue.
This is not the only possible solution where everybody wins, it's just a demonstration of the principle of Positive-Sum Politics - on some issues, the answer is to find a way where everybody goes away satisfied. The idea that the only way to move forward on anything is one-dimensional compromises where everyone is equally dissatisfied has been a pernicious influence on democracy, and needs to be reexamined.
- Abortion
Life is a continuum, as is consciousness: There is no line at which not-life becomes life, nor any where unconsciousness becomes awareness. At what point does a bunch of threads become a rug? It's clearly a rug before you finish it, but it clearly isn't a rug in the initial stages - it's just a bunch of woven threads. This is why abortion can be problematic: There is no switch that changes potential sentience into actuality, it's just a continuing set of punctuated equilibrium processes occurring in parallel.
Our side is not insensitive to this fact, but it was sent into a panic when laws were passed banning late-term abortion - the fear of the "slippery slope" came into play, much as it does among gun advocates whenever some new regulation (no matter how modest) is passed. Although the majority of people with an opinion are not dogmatic about it, each side is driven by core ideologies unrelated to the direct issue - i.e., religious misogyny vs. feminism. The actual ethical question under consideration - the value of prenatal human life at distinct stages in development - gets lost in the tension between these two constituencies.
First, let me dispense with everyone who claims there are ethical objections to embryonic stem cell research: There are none. The sole basis of objections to ESC is religious dogma supported only by a minority of people who oppose abortion, so anyone who opposes ESC would not contribute anything to consensus on the latter issue. We can also dispense with the screaming morons who protest outside of abortion clinics and harangue patients - they are ideologically fixated, either venerating fetuses as objects of divine purity or hating women as dirty and impure (thus the "whore!" taunts), and so are not interested in rationally resolving an ethical matter.
However, I believe there to be a substantial proportion of Americans who simply find the concept disturbing, and are therefore swayed by politicians who pander to anti-abortion sentiments as a wedge issue. Unfortunately, our side made a choice early in the debate that has made our position tenuous and difficult to maintain - we've relied almost exclusively on Roe v. Wade without seeking to enhance it with statutory protections. Now, I favor abortion rights, and I agree that they are a direct consequence of a woman's control of her own body, but Roe v. Wade is still politically nebulous: The argument for abortion being a constitutional right is intellectual rather than self-evident.
To play devil's advocate, and briefly entertain some of the other side's faulty reasoning, suppose you came upon a lost child in a wilderness: You yourself are not lost or in dire straits - you are physically capable of providing for this child temporarily until help can arrive. But because you are in control of your own body, and do not want to be inconvenienced, you go on your way without helping and the child dies. This would be an immoral and probably criminally negligent thing to do, even though you have no explicit legal connection to this child. This is what anti-abortion people think when they hear "It's my body," because they see fetuses as children.
If you agreed with their premise, you couldn't use women's rights as a justification for abortion, because in their view there are two sets of rights involved whereas in ours there is only one - the same reason it doesn't change anything to argue about cases of rape or incest: They think there's a child involved, and that the child cannot be blamed for the circumstances of its "creation." As a result, feminism-based arguments are as much a nonstarter with them as religion-based arguments are a nonstarter with us - you have to simply abandon the ideological or identity-based thinking and work the issue directly. People whose motivation for opposing abortion is dogmatic or misogynistic can't be dealt with, but they can be exposed and discredited by finding solutions that only they would oppose while the rest of their community feels progress is being made.
Even many of those with moderate religious motivations can be persuaded. For instance, in discussing sex education and contraception, you could show them that such programs reduce the number of abortions. Numbers and logic aren't as powerful in convincing religious people as they are in the reality-based world, but most people are not comfortable being (or at least, being exposed as) hypocrites and can be morally cornered: If they express reservations about "promoting premarital sex," you can ask which they find more disturbing - pleasure not sanctioned by their religion, or abortion? People who aren't nutjobs but hold anti-abortion views can be convinced to support rigorous sex ed and condom distribution programs.
Meanwhile, our side should not to be too concerned about symbolic changes - such as banning late-term abortion - and stop acting in fear of a "slippery slope" that really doesn't exist. A doctor will still terminate a pregnancy if the mother is in danger, and she's had plenty of time to choose by the time it got that far along. While the feminist community may have felt that it lost political ground to religious misogynists as a result of such laws, the rights of women were not compromised in any real way: Late-term abortions were already so rare as to be virtually apocryphal.
So, bring as many sane abortion opponents together as you can - I'm pretty sure they exist in large enough numbers to make a difference - and ask them to draft a realistic proposal for setting the boundary for legal abortion once and for all in consultation with mainstream doctors. Then gather a separate meeting of pro-choice people committed to finally putting the matter to rest and study the statistics about gestational ages of typical US abortions, such as shown in this 2004 chart from CDC:
You'll notice that the vast majority of US abortions in 2004 occurred in the 1st trimester, with a sharp decline in the first half of the 2nd trimester. Now, if we imagine broader support for and commitment to sex education and contraception, these numbers may fall somewhat in absolute terms and the peak of the curve would move to the left due to earlier recognition of pregnancy and greater awareness of options. The pro-choice community could then decide where the line would most effectively serve society's needs, and come up with its own proposal that is significantly later than that point in order to leave room for compromise.
Then you bring the two communities and two proposals together, with fully-informed doctors moderating the discussion to stomp on any misinformation that oozes into the process. Whenever things bog down, you remind the anti-abortion side that they have the opportunity to substantially reduce the number of abortions, and the pro-choice side that they have the opportunity to strongly enshrine abortion rights by forming a lasting consensus - possibly even passing a Constitutional Amendment, if the consensus is large enough. Various ancillary matters could be traded around in exchange for gestational time: E.g., an earlier limit, but women can insist on inducing labor as soon as viable; public health insurance will cover abortion, etc. etc.
The point is, you would discover whether the issue really is as intractable as it's been made out, or if it's simply been exaggerated and exploited - particularly by the Republican Party - to keep Americans squabbling forever over marginal issues while systemic problems go unaddressed. If a consensus were achieved, and supporters felt confident enough to go for a Constitutional Amendment, they could sell it just as easily to both parties. To the anti-abortion states, the pitch would be simple: We're going to curtail abortion nationwide! Yay for us! To the pro-choice states, the pitch would be just as simple: We're explicitly enshrining abortion rights into the Constitution where those twisted fundies can never hope to touch them, and getting a bunch of bonuses (such as radical increases in availability) with it! Yay for us! And meanwhile the dirty scum who've profited from making this issue fester for so long unresolved would slink back under their rocks - back to their undisclosed locations - to find something else to divide us.
- Immigration
There are a lot of racist assholes who resent seeing America's demographics changing, and would prefer that minorities remain minorities. These are the Minutemen types; the Arpaio fans; the people who feel themselves to be on some sort of crusade to secure their "sacred" land from being "invaded" by brown hordes. Most of these people know virtually nothing about America's past or its present, but they think they know something about it because they paint American flag motifs on their trucks and watch History Channel programs about B-52 bombers.
Unfortunately, there are also a lot of selfish people who think that illegal immigration is acceptable because they personally benefit from it, and don't care what the consequences are for others or for this country. In particular, these are the employers of illegal immigrants, who - true to form - do anything and everything to maximize profits, including paying a pittance to desperate people who have no legal recourse if they're mistreated. They're also some from the immigrant community itself - specifically the arrogant, vocal minority who have the unmitigated gall to portray criminal infringement of our sovereignty as an entitlement.
However, as with the above issues, the obnoxious extremes are largely irrelevant - most people on either side of the issue are reasonable enough, and I think we can form a consensus solution that benefits everyone other than hatemongers and purveyors of identity politics. We just have to appreciate where people are coming from and address it, not just tell one side or the other "tough shit" - that's not how a healthy democracy works when both sides of an issue have legitimate grievances.
First, we should try to understand the root of most resistance to immigration from Latin America - language. Anyone would feel a degree of cultural dislocation and friction being surrounded by people who don't speak their language, but it can become a matter of resentment if it occurs in one's own country as a result of illegal immigration. Salt is rubbed into the wound when economic forces cause a shift in public and private services to reflect the demographic change: Signs in Spanish, public employees required to know basic Spanish, having to Press 1 for English, etc. etc. From some people's perspective, it's as if someone broke into their house, replaced half the pictures on the walls, moved the furniture around, changed their stereo settings, and then acts indignant when he's told to leave.
Now, in this case, there is a legitimate grievance: Just because there are criminals in the United States willing to hire illegal immigrants in order to avoid the minimum wage does not mean anyone who pleases is invited to come here at their leisure - they arrive of their own volition against the express wishes of the sovereign nation whose border they're illegally crossing. So when businesses and public services in the United States adapt to them, causing cultural friction and dislocation among American citizens and legal immigrants, that is ridiculous.
However, it is equally ridiculous to deport a college student because his mother carried him over the border illegally when he was 2. So where is the balance on this issue? How do we stop rewarding predatory businesses for spitting in the face of the American worker without unduly harming families that have already built a life here? How do we stop rewarding people who flout our laws at the expense of those who respect them, without causing the kind of papiers bitte horror show unfolding in Arizona?
The solution is a lot simpler than you may think, and a lot cheaper than we're doing right now: Shut down the market for illegal labor. Don't arrest or deport a single person - just lock up any business owner who knowingly hires illegal immigrants, throw away the key, and seize their assets. Use the sale of those assets to pay for English classes and bilingual education for those who choose to stay and pursue a process of regularization - with an eventual possibility of citizenship - and bus tickets for those who choose to leave.
We could tear down the border fences, because we wouldn't need them: There would be no reason to come here other than the right reason - to become American, and take part in what we as a people have to offer: Not to just partake of our economy. This economy exists to serve this country, not the other way around, and that's the way that immigration should work: Come here to be here and join with us, not just to make a better living. And with the savings, we could expand the services available to legal immigrants and people who would like to become them.
This proposal would have zero support from the business community, and zero support from racist pigs who want to ethnically cleanse their communities, but at worst it would have mixed opinion in the Latino community: On the one hand, the harassment and deportations would stop, and there would be opportunities for regularization and American-level pay. But on the other, the market for illegal labor would dry up, so except for people who actually want to be here and whom our real economy can support, a lot of the motivation for having come here would be moot.
Those who found themselves without work would still have made some money from their uninvited sojourn in the US of A, maybe sending it back to family, so it could hardly be called a loss for them, and meanwhile those who stayed - i.e., those whom the real, undistorted economy of this country could support, and who saw something about this country more attractive than its money - might have some real opportunities.
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I think this is exactly the right time to settle these issues once and for all, because we have the perfect President for bringing people together to finally resolve old squabbles that have divided us for so long. The only question is whether we as Americans are mature enough to make use of the opportunity, and sane enough to recognize that it's better solve problems than to cling to them as cherished heirlooms.