On Compromise

The world wouldn’t be here without it. It is not a dirty word, except…except at election time.

There are two instances of compromise I want to mention here. One relates to Sen. McCain, the other to the Constitution. Both are relevant to the election.

When McCain was running against George Bush I sent him a letter. In the letter I decried the lack of communication in the Congress and, tongue in cheek, suggested it might serve a useful purpose if he looked at the idea of choosing Democrat Sen. Bob Kerrey as his running mate. Just looked! He lost that nomination, but he did look across the aisle in the way he served the last eight years. While I’m not happy with all the results, there is no doubt he moved a few major issues down the road with an acquiescent Congress. Were these compromises the best that could be had? Would it have been better to not try to move at all? Do we trust the man? His judgment?

The opposition is accusing him of abandoning the principles of the Republican Party. He admits to some error, but not to abandoning the Reagan principles. I won’t get into that. All I will say is this. Look carefully at both sides of this argument and these extremes: Abraham Lincoln and the extremist Muslims. One could compromise, the other can’t.

Now to the Constitution and another compromise. There is a problem with the unintended outcome of the 14th Amendment. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, anchor babies are a heavily used gateway for illegal immigrants. As I also mentioned, this could be fixed almost instantly without monkeying with the Constitution. The parents/family should be allowed no benefit, and the family should have to leave the country. The baby should be allowed its citizenship, and be free to return and claim it at age eighteen. This should be accomplished in this Congress, a year’s wait, for the new Congress, is too long.

This is a good temporary measure, a good compromise I believe, but it will not end the problem. The extremists are patient people. They will take the eighteen year wait if they have to, and keep moving toward a Muslim majority in United States as they have in Europe. Other groups of people, with no immediate reward to gain, will be deterred. We need a new Constitutional Convention sooner rather than later.