But don't Question the Patriotism

About how awesome it might have been to stay a colony is we had compromised. [Link]

Matthew Yglesias at the Atlantic writes, “I think the United States is a pretty awesome country but it very plausibly would have been even awesomer had English and American political leaders in the late 18th century been farsighted enough to find compromises that would have held the empire together.” I think this is an interesting comment. It’s hard to tell in just what way things would have been “awesomer,” but I would guess he means it would have been nice to have avoided bloodshed by coming up with “compromises.”

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When Yglesias ridicules the idea “that the citizens of Iraq or Russia or China or wherever will drop their own patriotisms and come to see things our way,” what he is ridiculing is the idea that people can come to believe in the premises upon which our nation relies—the premises of equality and liberty—premises which, of course, should never be bargained away in an abject search for peace at any price. He is ridiculing the idea that Americanism is anything more than ethnic happenstance. He is therefore ridiculing the idea of government by the understanding, principled consent of the governed.

Compromise can only happen when both sides want to take part.
Star Trek: The Next Generation said that there is always common ground, if you can find it. Unfortunately, Star Trek is fiction. Sometimes compromise is not possible. This is why we split with England and why Israel and the Palestinians will not have peace. It is hard to compromise when one side wants you dead.