Blitz Week 1-3: The Makings of a Compromise

The more I read about the Fiscal Cliff and the reality TV worthy performances being delivered by members of the Administration and Congress in their various efforts to resolve the issue, the more convinced I am that it would greatly benefit from being remade as a black-and-white Charlie Chaplin short. Apart from the fact that it may end disastrously for the country, it is a comic farce of Capitol Hill proportions. And fortunately for us, the whole affair is riddled with logical fallacies. 

Today's false logic comes courtesy of The New York Times' editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal, from an editorial published Dec. 18th, 2012. Coming off the heels of what the author calls "a more-than-generous budget deal" proffered by the President, the editorialist relates that Speaker Boehner rejected the deal "arguing, absurdly, that the president’s plan was unbalanced". The editorialist goes on to say, "their intransigence is astonishing because the deal that Mr. Obama has put on the table should make it easy for them to say yes. The president has met Republicans halfway on tax increases...[and] he also met them more than halfway on spending cuts." 

Did you catch it? The red flag is the word "halfway." This logical fallacy goes by many names--the argument to moderation, the false compromise, the gray fallacy, and the golden mean fallacy. It comes from the false thinking that when two parties disagree, the correct course of action is to be found halfway between their positions. Drawing from the discussion of stare decisis, the overarching aim of a debate must never be forgotten: it is not simply to find the quickest solution or even a solution that both sides can agree on, but to find the correct solution. Unless you are trying to strike a compromise between a bowler who always ends up in the left gutter and a bowler who always ends up in the right gutter, the correct solution is not to be found by merely striking the mean.

Car shopping typically begins with the buyer and seller making initial offers and then making counter-offers until an agreement is reached. If I offer $10,000 and the dealer counters with $17,500, the dealer would much rather that I settle for meeting him "halfway" than for sticking closer to my bid. Of course, both the seller and I know that we will make counter-offers so we pad our initial bid to favor the outcome we desire--he raising the amount from what he would really take and I lowering it--further obfuscating the "correct price" that is supposedly found lurking between us.

The purpose of Congress is not merely to find new legislation that "make[s] it easy for them to say yes", but to find new legislation (if it is deemed necessary) that makes the most sense for the country. The correct course of action is made so because of its substance, not because of its location.

Addendum: Yes, the second reference is a Wikipedia article. No, Wikipedia is not a scholarly source. And yes, it would be illogical to presume that the reputation of a source determines the quality of the goods that come from it; undoubtedly Antonio Stradivari must have also made some fiddles fit for firewood in his lifetime and it is most certain that not everything Made in China will break after three uses.