Policies vs Principles

Tea Party Threatens Democracy

Failure to distinguish between policy and principle is a grievous error. Principles are the result of an internal dialectic which may or may not involve fact-based logical reasoning. Public policy, if it is to succeed, must be based on facts and reason informed by the principles of policy makers.

Principle need not be compromised, but public policy itself must represent compromise lest some groups be disenfranchised or worse yet the process fail due to intransigence and stalemate. Being asked to compromise one's principles is an affront not to be tolerated; consequently, in a diverse representative democracy, it cannot serve as a requirement in the policy making process.

Rigidly ideological groups that eradicate the line between policy and principle, such as the Religious Right and Tea Party, and the politicians who pander to them constitute a graver danger to our democracy than budget deficits and recession.

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