Our American way of life is often described as Capitalism and Capitalism is often described as deal making. I need something and you have it so we sit down and hammer out a deal. It is the way things get done and it is called negotiation.
But, let’s say you sit down at the negotiations table and make your first offer something that you know I can’t meet or that is completely unacceptable to me – then what? The negotiations break down and we walk away with you saying I wouldn’t negotiate and I would be saying you made unrealistic demands. We point our fingers at each other assessing the blame for the failed negotiations and making excuses for our inability to come to an agreement.
Sound familiar?
The failure in my hypothetical negotiations was clearly the result of an offer I couldn’t accept when we should have been considering an offer I couldn’t refuse. When such an offer is knowingly put forward in a negotiation, it is called bargaining in bad faith. We usually hear about such conduct when a labor negotiation breaks down, but such conduct is not confined to that situation.
The Representatives and Senators who were elected by the TEA Party represent a minority of our citizens, but they have been able to convince the rest of the Republicans to stand with them in their demands to wipe out the Affordable Health Care Act as part of the current budget negotiations. When that didn’t work, they “compromised” and offered to accept a one-year delay in the implementation of the personal mandate. Both of these positions were known to be unacceptable before they were offered so we must recognize them as offers not made in good faith.
This is no way to conduct the affairs of our Government. Rigid ideology has no place in a Democracy because it does not provide a “good faith” recognition of all the citizens.
The Sausage Grinder is Broken – will you help to fix it?
Comment here or send an email: abrokensausagegrinder@comcast.net
More via Facebook: A Broken Sausage Grinder
More via Twitter: Hank Thomas
Watch on YouTube: A Broken Sausage Grinder
This is the perfect web site for everyone who wants to understand this topic.
You know so much its almost hard to argue with you (not
that I actually would want to…HaHa). You certainly put a brand new spin
on a subject that’s been discussed for decades. Excellent stuff, just wonderful!
Thanks for taking the time to send me a comment. As I was writing my book, A Broken Sausage Grinder; Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?, I captured the underlying question this way — “Everybody proclaims disgust with the political system, yet the system continues to get more disgusting. Is the hard-nosed partisanship in politics today the result of a flaw in the design of our system of government? Did our forefathers overlook something important when they were writing the Constitution?”
Just the fact that you are searching for a better understanding of this important American topic gives me hope for our future. Thank you for participating in this American conversation. Argue on!
Have a great day,
Hank