Matters of Principle

Psychologists say that human beings are hard-wired to recognize or create patterns in the world around them. Presented with six objects, we're asked to identify the one that doesn't belong - perhaps this measures our thinking ability. Presented with six statements from a political candidate, one of which is different, we - or the political punditocracy - will snap our attention to the anomaly. Is this a change of heart or a flip-flop?

Photo By Jan

Political fights are portrayed as differences in principle: for example, do you favor big government or small government? But political campaigns are also purely tactical operations: the idea is to gain enough votes to win, otherwise what you believe won't matter much. An ancient and perhaps universal tension in all political campaigns is between the need to employ tactics that will win, while remaining true to principles.

As voters, we join this kind of thinking. I've been blogging about Citizens United as the latest in degradation of our political system by corporations and the extremely wealthy. I've been pleased to see President Obama criticizing Citizens United and calling for campaign finance reform - even as he opted out of public financing in 2008. Now he has changed his mind and will accept Super PAC funding, and the millions have started to flow.

Will I yell "hypocrite!" and vote for Ralph Nader? No. I'll shake my head and say, I need to vote for this guy, even though he is violating his principles and mine by favoring - as is often the case - tactics over ideals.

The Republicans have their own version of this. They spout lofty civics class rhetoric about our precious democratic institutions. Because they know that some groups of people are too liberal to vote Republican, they energetically work on voter suppression to reduce those kinds people's participation in the democratic process. Around the US, Republicans work on restricting college student voting, same day registration, and get out the vote drives. They work against the system they claim to value, in the name of winning. I'm pretty sure that like me, my Republican friends will continue to vote for their favored candidates, choosing tactics over principles.

Photo By Jan

This class of hypocrisy is not limited to elections. The Afghans rioting and murdering foreigners because their religious book was burned include many from the Taliban - who destroyed the 6th Century Buddha statues at Bamiyan. And I wonder how many of the Americans suggesting that burning the Koran is no big deal have vigorously supported flag burning legislation. And so the circle of inconsistency and hypocrisy goes on.

I don't know anyone who is so pure as to not have moments of contradiction - and such a perfect person might not be all that much fun to be around. Hearing that as a boy HH The Dalai Lama used to shoot at birds with a BB gun and collect model warships is somehow reassuring, even endearing.

For most of us, the reason we have principles is to provide goals - end points - towards which we direct our lives, not exact templates that control every moment. In politics, we apply the same logic to politicians as we do to ourselves - we try to balance ideals with practicalities. The trick here is to think through our principles well enough to find the bright shining line that limns our voting behavior, the place past which we will not go.

As voters we need to express ourselves very clearly on bedrock principles. President Obama's tactical advisors work hard to identify the positions that will cause people to sit out the election. To the extent that progressive people indicate we'll vote for President Obama no matter what he does, we'll find our already small voices drowned in the hubbub of compromise and outright hypocrisy.