Good or Bad?

Compromise

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt. 

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We tend to look at compromise as a negative thing, weak, backing down on your principles. But it doesn’t have to be weakness.  When used properly, compromise can solve difficult situations  that are not easily solved.

For example, our Congress is the result of a very smart compromise. There was a valid concern on the part of less-populated states that every decision in  government, based on popular vote, would be won by the larger, more populated states. Put in today’s terms, that would mean that New York and California would be running the rest of the country, based on the number of representatives they could send to Congress.  There are those today who think that would be just peachy, but I can’t agree. I do not wish to be governed by either New York or California.  Seems to me they aren’t doing a terribly good job of governing themselves.

Anyway, our founding fathers came up with the idea of a bicameral congress.  The  Senate would be comprised of two Senators from each state, giving equal representation no matter what the population of each state was.  The House of Representatives, on the other hand, would be populated according to the number of people in each state.  Right now, that’s about 700,000 people represented by each popularly-elected Representative in the House.  Originally, Senators were elected by each state’s legislature.

It’s been a good compromise, for the most part.  Nothing is perfect.

Here’s another example of compromise:  The much-debated Electoral College.  It’s based on the same premise as Congress is.  The heavily- populated states would carry every single election if the count were by popular vote only. The big cities on each coast would rule the entire country.  I don’t know about you, but that seems like a very bad idea to me. It certainly would not represent all the people in the “fly-over” area between the East and West Coasts.

Here’s an interesting explanation of the College, how it works, and why the popular vote in each state IS important:

 

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html

All savvy politicians know that winning depends on getting 270 Electoral  College votes, and that’s why they put so much time and effort into winning the so-called “swing states.” If you’re pretty sure you’re not going to win the states with the biggest populations, then you have to go after all the ones in between in order to get that electoral college vote you need to win the day.

Compromise. Done right, it’s a great tool.  Just don’t compromise on your ethics, morals, faith, or any other principles that are based in the truth of the Word of God.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/compromise/

 

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