Impasse
“There will be no arrangement.”
“Well, if there can be no
arrangement, then we are at an impasse.”
In
this country, at present, we have an utterly non-functional Federal
government, deadlocked states and a culture that is so divided by
discord and distrust that every endeavor which requires a measure of
cooperation in order to work has ground to a halt. While the discord
is deep and the two sides (I shall be referring to 'liberals' and
'conservatives' though there are many names for them) are reluctant
to seek any compromise, it is the distrust
that is making any effort to work together into an impossibility.
The
examples of the impasses that confront us today are legion, but I
shall briefly examine three: Guns, Race and Government.
Guns
The debate rages anew over guns, but as
Jon Stewart correctly points out, 'nothing will happen.' At least
nothing about restricting guns will happen and I presume that is all
he cares about. Gun control advocates had made tremendous gains in
the last century, only to see most of those gains rolled back. Why?
Because the gun control message was a lie. First was the lie that
'guns make everyone less safe' and this lie is still being pushed by
some. The second is that 'they only want to get rid of the very worst
guns' and, again, some still push that lie by promoting things like
magazine limits (never mind that initial reports indicate the latest
shooter reloaded 5 times
while cowardly murdering innocent people in cold blood—what's to
have stopped him reloading 20 times?), but mostly the gun control
people have given up on this lie too.
The
truth is that the people who the gun control advocates needed to
trick into giving up their firearms have become all too well aware of
these lies. It is clear that violent crime takes place where there
are victims, and that 'gun free zones' (be the homes, cities or
churches) are really 'victim zones'. It is unsurprising that people
don't really like the idea of being a victim (well, some do, but that
is a different conversation). And the truth is that gun control
advocates don't just want to get rid of 'the worst guns' (whatever
those are), they want to get rid of all
guns (apart from government and private security..... and criminals).
And people are wise to the idea that gun control advocates will lock
down whatever gains they get this time around and then come back for
more...and more...and more.
People
have seen what happens in the places that severely limit civilian
access to guns, those are places of oppression—either by criminals
or by governments. They can see for themselves what happened in
Britain after guns were removed (crime has gone up) and they can see
what happened in Canada when 'certain' guns were banned, but not
others (the RCMP arbitrarily added more firearms to the list of
banned guns and started taking those guns too). Everyone can see that
the real goal of gun control is to have everyone (who obeys the law)
completely disarmed
and so the effort to expand gun control is not trusted. The solution
for this would be for the gun control people to show some good faith
and actually not have tried to incrementally ban all firearms (a
little too late for that) or for them to abandon their appeal to
emotion (why else would the want to ban millions of semi-automatic
rifles?) and focus of the guns and the people who do the most
harm—both of which are found in urban areas. But since they will
not actually do that and continue (suspiciously, IMO) to try and take
firearms from the hands of law abiding people, and since those
people those people have largely gotten wise to this and have no
trust for the gun control advocates, we are at an impasse.
Race
It seems that everyone is saying that
we need to have a conversation 'about race' in America. And when a
lot of Americans balk at having such a conversation, the accusation
is that those people just don't want to talk about it. I don't
think that is true, but I can only really speak for myself, so here
goes. Before I can be a part
of a conversation about anything, I need to know what I am doing
there, what is the purpose of the conversation, what is my purpose in
being there. As someone who happens to have what would be called
white colored skin, I have not seen anyplace where whatever I might
have to say is invited. But the problem with this particular
situation goes much deeper than that.
Unless
I am mistaken, just because of how I look, there is an unspoken
accusation that I am a racist. I can deal with that on it's own, but
when I am asked to 'be part of a conversation' then I need to ask,
“Do you think I am racist?”. Because if you do,
then what is the point of asking me to be part of the conversation?
(Other than to have me be abused, which I will decline) So the
problem that a lot of people have is, is that they need to know how
they can prove that they are not
racists. Is it enough --if a person hasn't said or done anything
racist, if that person doesn't hang out with racists and doesn't
defend racists points of view-- is that enough to satisfy of those
who seem to be questioning whether he or she is a racists? Nicholas
Kristof makes a living promoting (at least in part) this notion of
racism without racists, which is utter nonsense. Dylan Roof was a
racist. People who share his view are racists. How would Mr. Kristof,
himself, prove that he
is not a racist in this climate?
The
way out is obvious. People who want to have a conversation about race
need to grant to everyone that the label of 'racist' will not
be applied to unless that person has expressed a view (such as Roof
clearly did) or done something to someone else based solely on the
other person's race. But as Booker T Washington said over a century
ago, there are a lot of people invested in keeping the this tension
and animosity alive. A lot of people who make money off of it. And
those people will aggressively sabotage any efforts to create a
climate where people who have not said or done anything overt are
called 'racists'. And without it being clear that the label of
'racist' will not being inappropriately applied, there won't be a
'conversation' because (unsurprisingly) no one wants to accept an
invitation to be abused. And without being able to trust that one
side won't abuse the other, we are at an impasse.
Government
Some people want government to spent
more money, some what it to spend less. Although, since we don't
actually pass budgets (at least at the Federal level) anymore, this
point might be moot. These two sides have struggled and will go on
struggling, but what is it really about, why can't the two sides
agree or even compromise?
On the one side are the people who want
government to spend less, but that is not quite right. They don't
just want the government to spend
less, they want the government to do
less. They want the government to do those few things that it must do
and just leave the rest. Either leave the rest to the states (who, in
turn, would leave some of the rest to the counties) or
leave the rest to the people
to do –or not do-- as they see fit (either individually, through
private charities or through businesses).
These
people have the notion that just because some
people have an idea that they would like to see done, that doesn't
automatically make it the responsibility of government to take up
their goals and aspirations and use its power to fulfill them. So, it
isn't just that these people want only to see the government spend
less, it is that they have an idea of what should be done (and thus
funded) and currently government happens to be far above that level.
On the other side are the people who
want government to spend more, but how much more? Aye, there's the
rub. They never really say. While the people who want government to
spend less could indicate where they think funding should stay at,
the people who want government to fund more never can say
where they would like to see it stop. Would they just want another 10
percent and then that would be it? 50 percent more? 90 percent? Who
knows, they have never indicated where their final position would be
or what such a government would look like.
Aside from the suspicion that such a
situation engenders, there is another more basic problem of with
trust. And that is found in recent history. A look back will show
that when the people who wanted government to spend more made
agreements that after they got the debt limit increases they
wanted they would cut spending,
they went back on their word and didn't cut spending. So when such
people grandstand and say that 'for every dollar the debt limit is
increased, we will cut ten dollars in spending' and that deal is
rejected, they should not be surprised (and I don't believe they
actually are), for they cannot be trusted to keep their word. So when
this history of bad faith is coupled with the ideological problem of
no limit, there is a real problem of not being able to agree. Now,
the solution is obvious, just as people who want the government to
spend less can articulate what they would like to see as a final
picture (even if they know they will never get there, at least they
can say where they are going), people who want government to spend
more need to articulate what their ultimate goal would look like.
They need to be able to articulate where they want to go with
government and government spending (do they even know?). And
likewise, if they are promising to 'cut spending' in order to get a
debt limit increase, let them make the cuts first. But they won't –
do either of those two things. And without that, there can be no
trust and so, again, we are at an impasse.
In the end, there are only two ways to
resolve any impasse, either the two sides will need to earnestly seek
a sliver of common ground and a modicum of trust so that they can
work together or one side
will have to be more clever and trick the other. I wonder which it
will be?
for more essays and for short stories,
check out http://www.MHHickey.com
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swords, and nerd hobbies, check out http://www.Booksandswords.com
