Impasse

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?

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