Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Christian Small Compromises - Rubber Tube (part 4 of 4)

A compromise is an adjustment of valid conflicting claims by mutual parties, who have some value of each other.  This means that both parties must  agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a base for their deal.

It is only in regard to concrete items (a detail, a single item, not a universal quality), that one may compromise.  For instance, you may bargain with a someone over the price you want to receive for your car, and agree on a sum somewhere between your asking price and his offer. The mutually accepted basic principle, in such case, is the principle of trade, namely: that the buyer must pay the seller for his product.

But if you wanted to be paid and the alleged buyer wanted to obtain your car for nothing, no compromise, agreement or discussion would be possible, only the total surrender of one or the other.  There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the thief a single teaspoon of your silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender - the recognition of his right to your property.  Even more: the partial victory of an unjust claim, encourages the claimant to try further; the partial defeat of a just claim, discourages and paralyzes the victim.

There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, or of rational conviction.  Contrary to the belief of its advocates, compromise [on basic principles] does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to be all things to all men, end up by not being anything to anyone, just ask any politician.

On issues of basic principles, regarding morality, matters of knowledge, truth, and  rational conviction there are always two sides: one side is right and the other is wrong, however the middle is always evil.  The individual who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of his choice.  But it’s the man in the middle, the deceitful one who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, 'who is willing to sit out the course of any conflict, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty,  the one who dispenses justice by condemning both the thief and the victim to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway.  

In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win.  In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.'  In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube . . .' Ayn Rand
“What are the consequences of small compromises? “   You become the small transmitting rubber tube. 

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream 

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