Friday, November 21, 2008

Pragmatism v. Idealism

There has been a lot of talk lately about how great it will be for the next four years to have a pragmatist in the White House. Obama, the media loves to note, is a pragmatist, willing to cross the aisles to negotiate and be flexible enough to represent all the people. Why on earth would we want that?

If Obama is what I fear he is, a purely pragmatic, solution-obsessed politician, then an Obama administration has no principles. He will see an issue, discuss the possible uni-partisan answers, and come to an agreement which partly satisfies everyone. There is an extent to which that process is effective, but it only goes so far. Sometimes pragmatism is bad. Negotiating on issues of principle is impossible if one seemingly defers to pragmatism over principle. Obama does not appear to have any core issues with which he will not part, except a string of murky notions of hope and fairness. Where does he put his foot down? Even if I dislike the issue, I hope he can put aside practical solutions and be a man of principle. Indeed, it seems that we are going to go from an unflinching ideologue to an unflinching pragmatist.

The Lincoln comparisons with Obama have begun already, because Lincoln appointed a group of politicians with whom he was not particularly enamored to serve as his Cabinet. I find no fault in appointing those from differing political perspectives to positions on one's staff. Obviously, GroupThink is to be avoided in politics, but Obama has a strange fascination with Lincoln. Having dissenting opinions around one helps to knock out bad ideas and facilitates the molding of good ones. Every good leader knows that. As Matthew Pinsker notes, though, it did not work out too well for Lincoln.

Finally, there is the Union-stomping elephant in the room. Lincoln's Presidency has become a myth, much like Franklin Roosevelt's reign. Lincoln ruined the very nature of a voluntary union of states under a common law by forcing the Confederacy back into the United States. Putting the issue of slavery aside (and keeping it legal in states which did not secede), Lincoln declared a war to save the Union, but the 'Civil War' led to Lincoln maiming the Constitution. He suspended habeus corpus, founded a state, imprisoned and killed civilians, did not support equal rights for blacks (at least not before deporting them), and so on. The excellent Tom DiLorenzo explains here.

Obama is like Lincoln in a few good ways, like his oratory and aims for unity. Let's hope he's not going to ignore the Constitution and strip states of even more of their rights.

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