TO THE EDITOR:
Pundits seem to enjoy waxing eloquent on the state of political dialogue, decrying the fissures created by extremists and concluding we will shortly be bereft of a true political center. This may be true, but so what?
The beauty of freedom is the rough-and-tumble scuffles that occur when policies are proposed, then face the critique of opponents.
Policy differences need to have a complete, public airing. Thus, President Obama bemoaning the Tea Party movement as a “coarsening of our political dialogue” is absolutely absurd. Never mind that he simultaneously casts aspirations on the motives behind Republican opposition to his initiatives instead of addressing their serious, principled concerns about the proposals. In fact, a greater threat is posed by not having this dialogue happen, by simply ignoring opponents’ criticisms and attributing them to base motives, as Obama is attempting to do.
This also presupposes some inherent worth of centerism or consensus. There is no such worth. Barry Goldwater observed “that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” nor is “moderation in the pursuit of justice” a virtue. In the same vein, Margaret Thatcher remarked that consensus is “the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies,” meaning it is “something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.”
There is only inherent worth in truth, something we discover through probing the issue and exploring it from all sides, not by reaching some compromise.
To discern the truth, we need someone to stand up and disagree.
Anthony E. Dent
Junior
Economics
