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Compromise Elsewhere

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VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

In life, you often find yourself in a situation where you and another person are at odds over some decision that needs to be made. It might be at work or at home or at some event where multiple people are responsible for putting something together and there are multiple ideas about how that should be done.

When these sorts of things happen, sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don’t. Often what ends up happening is that the parties involved weigh all the options and come up with a solution that while maybe not 100% what you wanted, everyone is able to at least get to a place where mostly everyone is mostly satisfied.

It’s not always like that. For example, my wife wanted a dog. I did not. So, we discussed the issue. She explained why she wanted a dog, and I offered a series of excellent counterpoints to her argument. Ultimately, we compromised… and we got a dog. That was 10 years ago and I’m still pretty salty about it, especially since I’m the one who is usually home when there’s a dog-related mess to clean up or someone needs a ride to the vet. So, I get saddled with this extra responsi-

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bility.

You see, not every compromise is fair or even. Take the current political climate. There are infinite opinions on how to move forward… but there are two clear sides and neither is willing to give an inch in the name of compromise.

We’ve seen it over the past few years on everything from COVID-19 to inflation to immigration to abortion to, well, probably ordering lunch.

We saw recently with the whole joke that was the vote on a new Speaker of the House that even within the two clear divisions, there are even more divisions and so instead of working toward a better Amercia, the House Republicans played a game “What Do I Get Out Of It?”with each other and some of them actually had the nerve to pat themselves on the back and call it a compromise. Sure, boys…

There’s a deli meat company called Boar’s Head that uses the slogan “compromise elsewhere.” It’s a great slogan, especially compared to our Congress where it’s apparently “compromise nowhere.” The idea is that for some things… in their case it’s the quality of their meats… you don’t settle for basic, run-of-the-mill. Sure, it’s not always the easy way but if you want to see real quality you make the effort. That should be our motto.

And by “our” I mean “We the People” of this nation who have just sat back and sent these fools to Washington year after year and watched as they have floundered and flopped and made a bunch of noise and pretended like they were serving and representing us in any kind of way.

It’s us, the voters, who should “compromise elsewhere” — not in our leadership. We vote based on that little (D) or (R) next to the name and it’s the same old, same old. One thing is for sure, we are going to have to come together and agree on a direction or it will be like this for the rest of out lives…

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