I have recently decided that I need to smoke less. I know this doesn't sound political, and instead seems like one of my off topic posts, but bear with me and you will see it isn't.

You see, I know that I am not going to completely quit smoking. Given all the pressure from health Nazis to quit, I just can't bring myself to stop. Being in the wrong on this question is just too much a part of who I am right now, so I know trying to quit won't work¹. I also know I am not good at toughing out extreme discomfort if I don't have to. I have enough pain with my physical ailments, so adding nicotine withdrawal to that would be too much, so cutting down radically would probably fail, as I would just cheat shamelessly.

So I decided to see how much I smoke, then cut down five cigarettes a day every two weeks, until I reach a reasonable number. And it worked to take me from over two packs a day to one pack a day, then down to 15 a day. But then I had some very bad pain and ended up breaking my limit as I smoked too much while dealing with pain.

Rather than stubbornly forcing myself back on to the old schedule, which would doubtless lead to failure or cheating, I basically reset myself to a reasonable number (20 a day) and started over. And, so far it has gone well. I am back to sticking to my limits, and I am sure when it cuts down again, I will have no problems, as I have set limits that I can keep.

So, what does this have to do with politics?

Well, the principle here is what is important. I have an ideal, that is smoking 5 or 10 cigarettes a day, or maybe stopping entirely at some point, but I also have some real obstacles. I know that I cannot reach that goal in one step, but need to accept some compromises, and make some gradual steps, accepting less than perfect solutions along the way to the ideal goal.

And that principle is the political point, because it is a principle that has been lost on many, on both sides of the aisle. As most of my readers lean right, let me win you over by bashing the left, before I point out the uncomfortable facts about our side.

On the left, the best example of this has to be the reaction to our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. We don't hear it so often any longer, but during the Bush years the most common objection to these actions, other than "blood for oil" and allegations of torture and genocide, was the question why we aren't also liberating Darfur, North Korea, Iran and others. The idea being that if it is our job to liberate those suffering in other nations,t hen we must do them all at once.

And that is the problem with this logic. Now, I don't think it is our obligation to free all the oppressed of the world, but I also have no problem doing so if it also advances our national interest, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, even if I did think it was our duty, that does not mean we must free everyone all at once. In fact, doing so would be counterproductive, as we lack the resources to do so, and would end up freeing no one. As with my smoking, if we are to free the oppressed, we have to do it one step at a time, and not in a single blow.

Then again, this is a problem common to the left, as I described in "Utopianism and Disaster". Often when I propose a free market solution they reject it out of hand as it does not result in perfection. Even when I argue that the  government solution produces worse results, the response is that at least the government solution tries to resolve all the issues, while the free market solution accepts imperfections. But that is the benefit. Yes, the free market allows for less than ideal solutions, but most often it also allows for ever increasing wealth, and that often allows for the eventual solution of most problems. For example, moving to privately held, free market farming did not immediately end starvation, but the introduction of better techniques, industrialization and other improvements driven by the free market incentives gradually ended starvation in much of the world, even with less land in use.

Which brings me to the right wing. Unfortunately, besides adopting many of the immature tactics and thought processes of the "angry left" as I described in "The Angry Right and Conservatives" and "Calm Down a Little", the right has also adopted some of the utopian, "all or nothing" thinking as well².

Not that it is new. There have always been some on the right who were single issue voters, mostly on the issue of abortion. But what is new is the way this idea has spread beyond a handful of single issue voters and taken over large chunks of the right. We saw it during the last primary when conservatives were arguing that they would not vote for anyone who did not match 100% a checklist of positions.

Now, I have debated this position in many, many posts ("Single Issue Voting", "Principled Voting or Suicide", "Winning By Losing? Not A Chance!", "Learning Too Much From History","At last", "A Problem With Certain Conservatives", "To Correct Myself"), so I won't go into great detail, but let me point out the basic inconsistencies here. In my case, I want to reduce my smoking. I could say "I won't smoke more than 5 cigarettes starting tomorrow", but know such a position would result in failure. So, to reach that end result, I chose to take small steps in the right direction.

On the other hand, the pro-life movement argues that a moderately pro-life Republican should be rejected, as insufficiently sincere. In other words, they are able to choose between some restrictions on abortion, or a more liberal candidate who will put no restrictions at all, and choose the latter. That is akin to me saying "Well, I can't immediately stop smoking, so I should go smoke a carton a day until I can simply quit outright."

Some will object to the previous example saying "But abortion is murder!" In their minds, because it involves human life, then we cannot apply economic or practical considerations to it. But that is absurd, we apply economic and practical considerations to life every day. For example, we could make every car so heavily armored it could survive a 100MPH accident, but it would cost a fortune and reduce gas mileage to nothing. Since such risks are very small and cost few live,s we forgo such expenses in favor of spending the money on more likely risks or other needs³.

And even if you are unwilling to admit that human life allows for economic considerations, let us look at it this way. You have two choices, a moderate pro-life candidate or a pro-choice liberal. You believe that saving lives is the one goal which trumps all others. So, if you vote in the liberal, abortions will continue unabated, while with the somewhat pro-life candidate, you will have some restrictions preventing some abortions. If you value life above all others, shouldn't you vote int he moderate who will stop SOME abortions? By what logic can you justify allowing abortions to continue unrestricted until the moment you can completely ban them? Shouldn't you take every step to reduce them by some number, even if it means supporting people with whom you do not entirely agree?

And that is my problem with this perspective on the right and left, it creates a lot of acrimony, results in a lot of noisy, pseudo-principled stands, and ends up producing very few beneficial results for either side. I know I argued in "Inescapable Logic" that one cannot concede a point without allowing the logic to proceed to its final conclusion, but that does not apply here. One can say "My principle is X, but I recognize I will not get everything I want, so I will agree to this compromise."  That is not the same as agreeing to a principle which undermines your own beliefs.

And that is the sad truth at the heart of all this. While the right and left have become absolutists on methods, they remain resolute relativists on principles⁴. While they wont give an inch on how goals are to be reached, they forget all their principles when it comes to actually choosing goals. In short we have people who are infinitely flexible in beliefs, but rigid in practices.

That is a recipe for political failure and for  miserable outcomes.

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1. I mentioned this inability to quit under duress in "How Health Nazis Are Killing Me".

2.  Do not confuse this with what I described in "All Or Nothing Thinking", in that case I was discussing principles, not methods. This will be discussed later in the post itself.

3. This "you can't value life in terms of economics" or "on issues of life we must be all or nothing" arguments are akin to the ones I argued against in "Absolute Values".

4. The most relevant post on this topic is likely  "Smaller Government , Fair Weather Friends and Special Cases", though there are others, including "Don't Blame the Politicians", "Pragmatism Revistied, Again", "The Political Spectrum" and "Inconsistencies in Historical Perspectives".

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POSTSCRIPT

Some will argue I contradict myself when I say :

While the right and left have become absolutists on methods, they remain resolute relativists on principles. While they wont give an inch on how goals are to be reached, they forget all their principles when it comes to actually choosing goals. In short we have people who are infinitely flexible in beliefs, but rigid in practices.

They would argue that the McCain opponents or pro-lifers are standing by their principles. But they are not.

Look at the pro-lifers. They say they want to stop murder, but by allowing in the liberal rather than support moderate conservatives, they allow more abortions, and so contradict their beliefs. In that case, they place their resistance to any but the most ardent pro-life candidates above the actual saving of lives, in other words, the method matters more than the result.

Some McCain voters were arguing they actually acted from principles, saying they opposed McCain in hopes that a far left candidate would drive the voters right. I argued against this in "Learning Too Much From History", "An Alternate Take on McCain" and "At last", but at least they were principled. On the other hand, many others simply said they could not "hold their noses" were "tired of voting for the lesser of two evils" and so on. In other words, since they could not get everything they wanted, they would allow in a more liberal candidate. Again, the method matters more than the result.

And that is why I said what I did.