Prelutsky is an illustration of what is wrong with American politics.

Prelutsky says “There are major differences between liberals and conservatives, and that’s why I never know what people such as Barack Obama are talking about when they speak of bringing us all together”. Prelutshy confuses goals with means, or perhaps even worse, he has abandoned goals and replaced them with means. Liberals and Conservatives generally agree on what they want America to be like: prosperous and free.

Liberals and Conservatives have slightly different views of prosperity: Liberals seem to like a narrow distribution of individual prosperity around the average while Conservatives seem to prefer a wider distribution. But both agree that overall prosperity (economic wellbeing) is important.

Liberals and Conservatives have more differences when it comes how to achieve prosperity, but neither has the absolute answer for achieving it. Liberals (or the people that Prelutsky thinks of as Liberals) generally believe that government should take responsibility for everything that private enterprise has failed to achieve on its own while Conservatives (or the people that Prelutsky thinks of as Conservatives) generally believe that private enterprise should do everything (with few exceptions, mainly in the law and order arena). But no Liberal actually wants to buy toothpaste from a government monopoly (although they might favor government regulating what private enterprise can put into their toothpaste) and no Conservative actually thinks that private enterprise has the right to put poison in their commercial toothpaste and kill off their customers without interference from the government (police, courts, or whatever).

Liberals and Conservatives have slightly different views of freedom: Conservatives seem to see freedoms as active freedom (the freedom to do) while Liberals see the passive freedoms (freedom from) as an equally important class of freedoms. But both agree that active freedom is important.

Liberals and Conservatives have more differences when it comes how to achieve freedom, but neither has the absolute answer for achieving it. Liberals (or the people that Prelutsky thinks of as Liberals) generally believe that government is necessary to protect passive freedoms because without an impartial arbiter of conflicts between some people’s active freedoms and others’ passive freedoms, passive freedoms for the weak will be overcome by active freedoms of the strong. Conservatives (or the people that Prelutsky thinks of as Conservatives) generally believe that any action to protect passive freedom is a denial of their right to active freedom, and that either rights conflicts can not possibly occur or that the marketplace of a free people (rather than the government the free people select) is the best impartial arbiter of conflicting freedoms

Why Prelutsky thinks that people whose goals overlap cannot work together to achieve those goals in the overlap is beyond me.

Prelutsky says “if I support the surge in Iraq and you insist on bringing the troops home by next Thursday, what’s our compromise? Bringing our troops only partway home? Say as far as the Canary Islands?”. If Prelutsky really supports the surge, then he expects at some time some of the troops to be withdrawn. So here are one compromise other than sending our Iraqi forces to the Canary Islands next Thursday: Agree that one year from Thursday (or by some other date) we evaluate our progress towards winning in Iraq based on criteria we can define now, and if we have no evidence then that we are closer to winning than we are now (based on that criteria), bring the troops home, otherwise establish a new date and criteria to measure the next benchmark toward victory. This is the standard for any project in business and government. Before you start, evaluate what the value of the gain might be in completing the project and the cost to do so. As you proceed (at predetermined points in the project called benchmarks), measure progress toward achieving the project goal and re-estimate the cost of achieving the goal. If the estimated cost of achievement exceeds the benefit of completion, drop the effort. Otherwise continue on to the next benchmark. The only difficulty with this model is that people begin to associate the project to something bigger than it is, and the projects continuation becomes a symbol of some political goal bigger than the original purpose of the project.

Unfortunately for us, we went into Iraq with a very poor understanding of what the goals of our intervention was (that’s why they changed as the war went on), what kind of effort was required , and how much that would cost and how long it would take. Many Conservatives and Liberals adopted the war as a symbol, and base their war strategy not on the realities of the war as a project (tool to achieve objectives) but as a symbolic statement of their political label. For those of us who see war as a tool, compromise is clearly a viable option. For those irrational Conservatives and Liberals for whom the war has become a symbol of their politics rather than a war, compromise is somewhat less appealing.

Prelutsky says “If you’re in favor of same-sex marriages and I happen to think the whole idea is a very silly joke, where’s our common ground? Doing away with opposite-sex marriages?” Perhaps choosing not to participate in same-sex marriage but letting other people choose to do so. How do two guys or two gals getting hitched interfere with any rights of a same-sex marriage opponent? It can interfere only with their right to avoid moral indignation, not exactly the kind of right our Founding Fathers fought to preserve.

Prelutsky says “If I believe in capital punishment and you don’t, what constitutes a midway point between our positions? Only executing convicted killers whose last names start with the letters between A and M?” Perhaps reducing the number of offenses to which capital punishment can apply by half, eliminating the less outrageous crimes and leaving only treason directly resulting in loss of multiple lives and repeated mass murders subject to the death penalty. It doesn’t satisfy people like me who favor the death penalty for ridding society of the expense of dealing with habitual criminals nor those who think that any taking of life is a sin. But I’ve got to admit that getting rid of the worst offenders is better than getting rid of none and many (but not all) opponents of capital punishment would see the lessening of the number of executions as a positive first step toward their long term goal. Of course, there will always be those selfish people who yell out their window “It’s my xxx, and I want it now”. Probably they also yell “Kill those who believe in capital punishment”

Prelutsky says “One of the most unpleasant things about liberals is the way they tend to place the politicians they endorse on pedestals. Frankly, I have never understood this phenomenon. How is it that so many people turn into besotted teenagers once they decide to vote for someone?” Does he really think Conservatives are not guilty of the same fault?

If Prelutsky really thinks politicians are any different from other human beings who work in the private sector, he’s woefully naïve. Most corporate employees are as far removed from the needs and expectations of their shareholders as politicians are from the people whose interests they are elected (or appointed) to represent. In fact, at the very highest levels of government (especially chief executives and legislators), politicians have more direct confrontation from their employers (the people who elect them) than to corporate CEO’s and board members, who get to pick who runs against them. I’ve done consulting for: federal government including the US Dept of Energy, Consumer Product Safety Administration, and the Corps of Engineers; local government including a county school system, the State of Maryland, Capital Parks and Planning Commission); large businesses including GE, Control Data, Baltimore Gas and Electric; and smaller businesses including Georges (an appliance chain, as I recall) and an IHOP franchise owner. And in my experience (mainly with middle management and lower) government provides as efficient and conscientious service as does private enterprise (but that isn’t saying much) with the federal government and large industry somewhat better than small business and state and local government.

Liberals do not “dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity”; they only recognize the existence of additional roles such as protection of individuals’ rights from the actions of others as well as the existence of immorality (in addition to moral integrity). Free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity is nice, but does Prelutsky suggest that voluntary cooperation (vigilante justice?) is a more reasonable defense against the free choice of a moral integrity lacking bank robber than our government based system of law and order?

Liberals, like Conservatives, believe that “individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic” are important human attributes but Liberals also believe that blindly ignoring that people (especially the immoral ones) may interpret “personal appeal” and “talent” in such prejudicial terms that they may actively deny some individuals their just rewards. Liberals also believe that to allow inequality of opportunity (based on these false prejudices) to fester would be just as bad an error imposing “economic and social equality on the population”, an imposition that, by the way, no Liberal suggests (but some other leftist philosophies do) 

Liberals do not want to “create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation’s citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state”, nor would the policies they back create such an environment. Conservatives may think that any regulation is over-regulation and any taxation is over-taxation, but Liberals believe there is a point between 0% and 100% regulation and between 0% and 100% taxation (closer to 0% than 100%) that is fair and does much more good than harm. Liberals also don’t want to reduce anyone “to wards of the state” but recognize that due to no fault of their own, some people are unable to care for themselves or find care from family or friends and should be wards of the state. Liberals also realize that helping such people does have it’s risks in character corruption, but that having no wards of the state and having everyone a ward of the state are not the only two options, and that having deserving wards of the state is a feasible alternative to the two extremes.

Prelutsky apparently thinks that the “liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization”, but that is a gross overstatement. Does he think that Conservative agenda preys on feelings of superiority in the population to reinforce a system where victimization of the weak by the strong is considered an entitlement?

Prelutsky apparently believes that “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious”. Should we conclude that Prelutsky denies the existence of real villains and their real victims, and thinks that anyone who should dare try to stop the real villains from running (and ruining) the lives of their real victims demonstrates a neurosis? And Liberals do not want to run anyone’s life, they just want to stop people from running (without their consent) other people’s lives.

Prelutsky clearly won’t admit that what he calls Conservatives and what he calls Liberals together don’t amount to much of a portion of the real American society. The majority of American’s see reality as being somewhere between where Prelutsky’s Conservatives and Liberals are, but that majority is hard pressed to escape the limited choices imposed by the Prelutsky’s of the world to be either with him at one extreme of the political spectra or against him at the other end. Reject the “pure” philosophy of all the extremists! Reject their false characterization of anyone who doesn’t 100% agree with them! And defend the middle ground from the knee-jerk extremists! Keep the Prelutsky’s of the world at the margin where they belong!