October 25, 2007
by Clay Barham

The lofty ideal for most people is being a centrist, moderating the issues and achieving the lofty ideal of compromise, the best of the worst and the worst of the best, or mediocrity. Many object to life in a kind of two-dimensional world, as if we have only two sides or choices for everything. We have light and darkness, male and female, up and down, and yes and no.

Why should our world be like a coin with only two sides and no place on which to compromise?  Is there a compromise between night and day, such as dusk and sunrise?  How can we compromise yes and no with maybe? Can we compromise liberty and tyranny?  Should we only see it as the mercury rising or falling on the temperature scale, somewhat hot, maybe a little cold, picking degrees that apply?

I have always defended the idea that individual freedom proves best for a political community; that the legitimate self-interests of the individual are superior to the interests of the group, as if these are two sides of a political coin.  Yet, it is not proper because the group, or community, has no interests.  No group or community has a brain with which to think, and no heart with which to feel.  How, then, can community have any interests? 

The only way it can is to express the interests of a single individual who rules community.  Interests are something felt and pursued which implies a single human being. The boat does not choose to get underway and sail.  The captain decides that, not the crew. The automobile does not drive itself.  It takes a man or woman behind the wheel, not a bunch in the back seat. 

Individual self-interest exists on both sides of the coin.  One side is not community, as often implied, but the interests of a ruler.  The other side is the interests of the free individual.  One side of the coin is tyranny, and the other side is freedom. One side says an individual may be free to pursue his or her own interests and the other where an individual is free to bully, telling others how to behave. Where can we find a compromise between these two sides?  One side can only surrender to the other.

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Many believe we are more three dimensional than that.  They desire compromise and alternatives, shades of this or that, in order to prove their superiority.  The compromise between right and wrong must be acceptable to a majority, even if it wrongs a minority.  The compromise between male and female must be homosexuals, gays, cross dressers and transgender. They came into this world male or female. Compromise has to be a choice of the individual, not the Creator who already made the choice. What exists between natural and unnatural?  If there are only two sides to how we are made, must people be uncomfortable in those choices? 

Is there a third dimension, a compromise between life and death, good and evil, right and wrong, up and down, freedom or tyranny?  Is the political compromise a prison, a denial of freedom where an individual may not live to his or her capacity, but still be alive?  Is that an acceptable compromise?  Would the American political conservative occupy one side of a coin, and the modern liberal the other?  Each takes a position on both, one being individual freedom is best and the other benevolent tyranny.  Is life that black and white?

When we speak of laws, one side accepts laws to regulate the behavior of individuals, and the other of laws to regulate community behavior.  Where can we find a compromise?  The compromise, if it exists, is the absence of all law.  That does not make sense.  Differences in human personality, intellectual and physical attributes, automatically implies a legal system where might makes right. Even the weather imposes law and shapes behavior. Availability of food, home, hearth, and association implies a form of law.  Left to these moderations, life can be miserable for most people.  America proved a better choice, the New World over the Old World.

There are only two sides, two dimensions.  One accepts basic laws as free individuals, and the other, brute force by imposed tyranny.  Moderation and compromises in life are more of a risk, always ending up on the wrong side, than the certainty of the two dimensions.

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Clay Barham [send him email] has been a candidate for the California legislature and a stand-in talk show host for ABC.  He was educated in physical and behavioral sciences, with a Ph.D. in sociology.  He is the author of five books, with his latest being Foundations of Modern American Conservatism and Liberalism: The Roots of Freedom and Tyranny.  Visit his website at http://www.claysamerica.com.