Two, Three, Four, … N Wrongs Don’t Make You Right

Everyone is familiar with the adage that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. But as with everything in life, the lessons that are learned from such wisdom is not guaranteed to be passed along to the recipients with assured fidelity. Let’s take a moment to examine our major political parties. As organizations, or as individual units within the larger structure, the Democratic and Republican parties exhibit a confused and deviant deduction from such sage advice, and from their own policies and actions.

The sage councilor would expect one to comprehend that after an initial act which can be objectively and subjectively recognized as being wrong, that following that act with a second action that is known to be wrong in its own context does not result in situations or conditions in the world that are somehow realigned to an correct or righteous state. Unlike the negative in math, the product of the two wrongs is not a positive outcome. The two parties however arrive at a different political calculus, but one which is as irrational and unreasonable as any false logic that you will find among elementary school students.

Whether their failure to learn from others wisdom or from their own experience with their inept results, our politicians persist with their blind adherence to political and ideological principles. That their philosophies are irrelevant and extraneous to the issues or problems that they are addressing is not relevant to them. Somehow they have arrived at a maladaptive interpretation that success must depend on the number of ‘wrong’ actions required. If they simply continue to apply their ideological methods to the problem then eventually they will be effective in correcting all the previous errors and thus achieve the original solution they desired.

Consider President Obama, a Democrat for those who don’t know, he voted against raising the debt-limit when in Congress but now as President emphasizes that it would be irresponsible to vote against it. He concluded that it was wrong to make a political vote on an issue that was critically important for the country. Now he has made two acts (decisions) here. But if they are both wrong, then how would we expect to achieve the desired goal. Consider his first act, was voting against raising the debt-limit wrong? It’s what many Republicans, particularly of the Tea Party persuasion, think should be done now. Is advocating increasing the limit wrong? There will be dire economic consequences if the US defaults, and that won’t be good for America but it will be a godsend for our enemies. The answer is yes, they were both wrong.

Now consider the Republicans, they have been just as complicit in the disastrous economic policies we have been following for decades. Before Obama’s first two years, America had plenty of Republican decisions, including decisions on the debt-limit. How many times have Republicans advocated capping the limit? Each year for ten years Congress and two Presidents have approved raising it. Were they wrong? Was it a mistake for the Republicans to conduct two wars and expand other military efforts, to cut taxes on the wealthy, and introduce other unfunded programs without any budgetary means of accounting for their payment? Is it wrong now for the Republicans to want additional cuts in the budget as their condition for supporting raising the debit-limit? Yes, here again they are wrong.

You may wonder how it is possible for both the Republicans and the Democrats to be wrong. And the answer is simple: neither understands what they are doing, neither has a sound approach or vision for guiding the country forward, and neither has learned that just doing another wrong-headed knee-jerk will result in what is right for the nation.

It was wrong for Obama to vote against raising the limit, but because he should have insisted that Congress commit to both raising the revenues to both cover that increased expense but to also reduce the existing debt, and to reduce government spending through informed and meaningful modifications to delivering the goals and objectives of government programs at more cost effective levels. He is also wrong to advocate raising the limit now because not doing so would hurt the economy. He should be insisting that the country do the same necessary things to address the real problem.

The Republicans were and are wrong for ignoring the consequences of spending when it suits your ideology but not being responsible for those obvious and predictable consequences. They are also just as wrong in asking for governmental cuts in order to get their support. If they had a viable plan for leading America, they wouldn’t need to hold the country hostage in a game of brinks-moron-ship. If you cannot present an intelligent approach that will make sense to the public then at least they should be able to find a couple of folks who could craft one for them. But they have not done this. So yes they are wrong, and want to persist in being wrong again.

America needs leadership that can put forth a path to promoting the general welfare. I think it will be just another Nth wrong to expect it from either Democrats or Republicans.