Azelma wrote:
You keep calling me a coward for having various viewpoints on various subjects that have the end result of me being regarded as politically moderate. This doesn't mean I don't have strong viewpoints on specific subjects. You claim I have no backbone or that I somehow have no principals because I seek compromise or am willing to entertain opposing viewpoints. It really makes no sense.
"Moderate" meaning "splitting the difference" is neither morally good nor factually correct. If your viewpoint is dead center then by definition your viewpoint is not strong.
What makes a viewpoint strong is that it is self-defined, rather than being defined purely in relative terms. If the best that can be said of your views is that they are moderate then your views are not strong but weak because they are defined only by other views.
After all, "moderate" by your definition is merely in the middle of what the general population believes - which is arbitrary. If the general population happened to be ideologically different and you again sat in the middle you wouldn't be any more likely to be correct.
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"Pusillanimous" isn't merely a synonym for "coward". There is the kind of cowardice that comes from self-interest, or an inability to control one's urges or instincts - people who flee necessary challenge, or who have difficulty living with the consequences of telling the truth, or whatnot.
Pusillanimity is a particular form of cowardice. It literally means "small-spirited". It's the kind of cowardice that leads people to fixate on small and petty goals because they don't have the strength of character to see the big picture. People who look for an easy way out of life's difficult questions
and moral or intellectual challenges because of what amounts to hedonism.
There's that scene in the
Red Badge of Courage where the kid runs from battle then tells himself he did the right thing and invents this dumb rationalization why. What makes the thought process pusillanimous and not merely cowardly is that he tries to take the easy way out: what satisfies his urges, he feels, must also be the correct and proper thing. He doesn't see the big picture - that being courageous means having to accept the negative consequences of that course of action.
There is no "win-win" when it comes to a question of courage. To insist there is, is the very essence of pusillanimity - intellectual hedonism.
Azelma wrote:
Don't both sides of the debt debate have the same end purpose? "Reduce the federal deficit and avoid defaulting"? The vision is where they differ...that is the path for how to get there. That is where the compromise must occur.
No...because the budget itself is the means to an end: putting into practice a political vision.
How strong do we want our military to be? What are the goals for our military? Do we want to be able to intervene in other countries' affairs? Do we want to maintain permanent presences in other countries? If so, for what reasons - political, economic, humanitarian? Do we want to have a fleet capable of taking out pirates? Of challenging other fleets on the open waters? Of supporting invasions? Bombarding loser countries with cruise missiles? Or do we believe that MAD makes all fleets obsolete?
Do we want Social Security to be a safety net? Or do we see it as mere bread-and-circuses so those who aren't at-risk can get on with their lives in gated communities? Or do we want the SSA to be a way back into mainstream society?
Do we want Medicare and Medicaid to be the insurers of last resort? Or do we want them as a sort of price ceiling for insurance by way of competition? Do we see them as instruments of social change (i.e., affirmative action) or should they benefit everyone equally? Should they benefit only the desperate and destitute or also the working poor? How about the middle class?
What's our long-term vision for the economy? Do we want a free-market utopia? Or do we want a more pragmatic vision of a mixed economy? How important, in relative terms, are the environment, social justice, equality of opportunity, equality of results, and the net economic product of our economy? Are we going to be "high-rollers" (the EU) or "low-ballers" (China) in the global economy? Or something in between (India)? Do we want to improve our economic situation by aiming low, cutting social services to the bone and running the currency so corporations will be able to exploit our citizens, guaranteeing a low per capita GDP, but relative stability? Or do we want to invest in social services and heavily regulate our economy to ensure a more stable and enriched society, guaranteeing a higher per capita GDP, but at the cost of a bloated state?
All those questions come down to two very simple value judgements embodied in the budget: How much we want to spend, and what we want our spending to buy.
The budget really doesn't address those questions. It has a lot of spending on various things, but that spending is largely by consensus and long-term status quo - and how much money we have in our wallets - and doesn't reflect any clearly defined goal.
