Weirdly, many people esteem compromise, but I believe that's because of a misunderstanding. Compromise is not a virtue; compromise is a tool in negotiation. What's most important in a negotiation is the outcome - did you get a satisfactory result?

Let's look at negotiation. What is it? It's an effort to reach agreement.

If I approach you and offer to buy your house for $1, you have a few options:

  1. You can take the deal I propose.
  2. You can counter my offer with your own proposal.
  3. You can walk away from my offer because you're not interested in selling your house and, if you were, certainly not for $1.
With those three options, compromise only applies if we begin to haggle on price and begin to negotiate in pursuit of the sale of your home. And what might that compromise be - that you meet me halfway between $1 and the actual value of your house? How is that good for you?

This is why compromise is not a virtue. This is why "meeting someone halfway" is not a virtue. Neither is even necessary. Sometimes, it's right to just walk away.

Strong-armed salespeople (aka bullies) will do all they can to push you into a negotiation.

"I don't want to sell my house," you say.
"Well, certainly there is some number you would take for it. What's that number?"

Once you enter negotiation, all observers now begin to expect that a transaction is inevitable. And then they will push you to compromise.

"Come on... we haven't worked this hard just to walk away now. I'm sure we can come to some agreement. Let's look at our current positions and see what's possible - after all, we've agreed that you want to sell the house if the price is right."

That all started with you not wanting to sell your house at all, then being coaxed into negotiation, and then being talked down with every round of the negotiation until a compromise is reached on a house you never wanted to sell in the first place.

When it's over, how can you feel good about selling the home you didn't want to sell?

This is why pushing political compromise as somehow virtuous is dumb. Really dumb. I can compromise over what we're having for dinner; I can't compromise over whether a young girl should have her breasts removed because she or someone close to her convinced her that she is a boy. That's non-negotiable and the answer is a hard no.

What's more, all the players at the political table spend money that isn't theirs. They negotiate with your money at no cost to them and then tell you that a deal had to be reached and the result was a "good compromise." And because government always invites itself into the forced compromise, the added bureaucracy inflates the cost of everything involved and you lose even more money after the deal is signed into law.

The terms "compromise" and "bipartisanship" are dead to me. They should be dead to you. Personally, I want political victory, and the only victory I seek is less government, less regulation, less spending, and less taxation.

But it's funny - when I propose that offer, very few in government want to negotiate that deal with me. Why won't they meet me halfway? I'll compromise with a 25% reduction in all government. Sadly, still very few takers. So, I guess I'll just have to work hard to replace them and elect those who will negotiate with me on shrinking government.