Executive Expectations

George Will should contribute to this blog.

Meanwhile, at the Battle of "Contributing Factors"

I previously asked questions about whether or not we can define the current political divide in the United States as a cold civil war. In the mean time, ongoing debate here on Contributing Factor has helped answer, at least in part, some of my questions.

The posts and comments have presented this answer in the form of an idea that we seem to repeat frequently: “Then we are at an impasse,” or “Then we disagree.” As I understand such a comment, once we utter it, we create a barrier through which we can achieve no compromise.

From my understanding, compromise is the fundamental objective of diplomacy. When sides cannot compromise, then diplomacy has failed. If the issues at stake require action by one side or another if they do not achieve compromise, then in my view, the sides have reached some state of conflict beyond that which required diplomacy to begin with.

In a cold civil war, the battlefield is politics and the goal is the ownership of the means by which one side can enforce their ideals on another. This state of affairs differs from normal politics in that the ideals in question are ones the other side is fundamentally, even morally, opposed to and must continue to resist even after those ideals become law and are enforced.

If this definition holds true, then I believe that we find ourselves in the midst of a cold civil war in the United States. Even among the posters and commenters on this site, the lines seem to be clearly drawn beyond which no negotiation can take place. This is not an indictment of either side, but rather an acknowledgement that further changes in views by either side threatens to compromise their fundamentals.

Of course, the definition I present here may still be flawed, but it is my operating hypothesis. What remains for me to define is how such a war is fought and, more importantly, how it is ended.

A Modest Proposal

Denny has previously made the claim that our democracy works precisely because its flexible nature allows it to withstand temporary threats to its basic principles. He has pointed to our debates here as evidence that the democracy is working because it indicates that there is sufficient transparency to allow the mechanism of our government to work through its problems.

I would argue that a similar trend is in action here at AHOCF. We have, from time to time, strayed from the path of reasoned debate into the more contentious and less civil discourse, only to recover time and again. Cooler heads do prevail and our path is once again set aright. Huzzah indeed.

In recognition and support of this resilience, I'd like to offer up a modest proposal.

Denny and I have concluded a truce of sorts -- to be humorous about it -- over at his Worldview blog. More accurately and more seriously, I think we've come to an understanding. We each took time to calmly clarify our positions about a disagreement we were having about who characterized what statements inaccurately. While we may not have reached a perfect harmony, I think both of us are satisfied with the results. We have concluded that further discussion -- I stress that term, discussion -- of the legality of warrantless surveillance is, um, warranted. It is upon this question -- is warrantless surveillance legal -- that our disagreement seems to rest.

So to my proposal. As a writing teacher, I have often used an approach with my students to attempt to get them to see other sides of an issue they have chosen to write about. We often talk about counter-arguments, but this term seems to denote a "thing" they have to create rather than a natural set of ideas that exist that they must discover. To overcome this misunderstanding as well as to encourage reason over emotion, I'll often ask them to argue the opposite of what they currently believe about an issue. This forces them to take seriously other points of view and, just as importantly, to understand them.

I would like to think we don't need this lesson and that it would merely be an interesting exercise, but our history calls that hope into question. Nevertheless, I think it would be an interesting exercise and might well benefit our discussion.

I think we can reliably, at this point, propose two theses: 1) Warrantless surveillance is legal, and 2) Warrantless surrveillance is illegal. Before we begin to argue, in the best sense of that word, those points, we might want to work together to further clarify or focus those theses. For example, would it be helpful to define warrantless surveillance of whom is legal/illegal? We want our theses to actually represent the core of the current argument, after all.

So, is anyone interested in trying this approach? If so, shall we begin by clarifying those basic theses so we actually spend our time trying to argue precisely what we want to argue? And as we choose up teams, who wants to be shirts and who wants to be skins?