Left Lanes and Right Lanes

by Charles Osborne

I shall try here to divide two broad historical virtues in political history, each founded on philosophical (ethical) grounds, which do (and always have) pulled most of us in two directions as societies or nations. (We are also conflicted in the same way as individuals.) The reason the opposing movements never go away is that we like both of them, but we must very often choose between them. One of these virtues is justice, and the other is grace. Some people might not like one or the other, or both—but normal people, regardless of the culture, class, religion, occupation, race, age or gender, see virtue in both justice and grace. If readers do not praise both virtues, they will be disappointed here, for there is nothing I can do for them.

所有的文明社会都在正义的车轮上运转，在给予人们应得的东西这一点上，它们是相当相似的。这是柏拉图在《理想国》中最先提出的问题之一，它在当时已经很古老了，但我在这里就不赘述了。我的观点并不是所有的社会都认为同样的行为是正义的，而是所有的社会都有解决这种冲突的程序和过程(规则和条例-法律)，换句话说，他们寻求正义。他们的共同点是，努力确保我得到了我应得的东西，其他人也一样，这是好事，也是坏事，根据正当程序。

Kant’s “retributive justice” said that a just court system punishes if and only if guilty, and punishes in proportion to the gravity of the crime. But we also apply this in the economy of societies. I don’t have to pay everybody on payday—just those who worked for me (or otherwise met my contract with them). People ought to get what is coming to them, for good and for bad, and that is the nature of the virtue we call justice, when it comes to law and order, criminal and economic—and pretty much socially (we turn from wicked people and embrace good ones if we want to do what is just).

Justice is a primordial virtue, a balancing of unchanging and eternal wheels, that if we get what we deserve, nobody should complain—and cannot fairly complain. It is in the order of all things—the Greeks called it the Logos, the Hindus called it Karma—but I am not saying it is indeed a reality of all things, only that at least it is a good thing to seek and pursue.

But wait—a virtue just as basic is called grace. Called a virtue of kings because they have the power to practice it, we all find ourselves in life in a position to forget a debt owed to us, forgive a wrong done to us, or pity those who suffer—though they have not earned this gift. We choose to help beyond what they deserve, not because they were good, but because we are good. And that is grace. Grace is not fair—it goes above and beyond the call of justice. Some people do not have a just or gracious spirit; others may abide justice and no more (no grace). In Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge was perhaps just enough (in a few ways, at least), but of course without a breath of grace. In the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, the wicked banker, Mr. Potter (poster boy for many politicians) loved neither justice nor grace—stealing at any opportunity and showing no mercy or grace to others.

The socio-political thoughtscape which has come into view in recent times is one in which we are supposed to choose one virtue or the other, and we are under great pressure sometimes to select between only the most rabid and radical extremes. It is my contention that this is a false dichotomy. On the extremist side of justice is the fascist right, where survival of the strongest at any price is the only virtue, and on the extremist side of grace is the Bolshevik left, where everybody gets equal shares, whether they earned it or not. Only recently, starting after WW2, have societies and nations begun to work out a balance between the two good things (either of which is very wicked where people go mad over it) that begins to resemble olden times.

The idea that one extreme or the other is a law of God, or Nature, is even now easily found in America, and in other places it may be worse. (My being ignorant of the political philosophies of Native American tribal culture or Arab nomads, or others outside the traditional history of Western Civilization, makes me leave it to others to examine the universality of these two virtues.) We have all heard the gospel of people getting justice (like Sodom and Gomorrah), and the gospel of people getting grace (like The Prodigal Son), and may very well hear more of either than we care to hear, but we do not hear enough talk about how the conflicting virtues must be balanced (well, not so much since Plato’s Republic). When does a parent stop protecting the child from destruction by holding back the hand of justice with grace? It is a mistake to disinherit a child for the first mistake, but also a mistake to keep covering for him or her—forever. And that is the issue of left and right in politics, in a nutshell (perhaps where it belongs…)

别搞错了——世界是有矛盾的。展现正义和展现优雅都是需要的，当它们似乎不一致时，选择需要智慧——世界的知识和经验，以及善良的精神。说人们应该得到奖赏和惩罚是正确的(耶稣说过，“工人应该得到他的报酬，”等等)，但说每个人都应该得到一些放松、休息、怜悯和宽恕也是正确的。一个工作中的老板可能会因为不公平、不公正而毁掉一个企业——同时也因为从不宽恕任何人或懈怠。面对现实吧，它们是对立的。

一个民主共和国确实有这样的美德，不是做出正确的决定，而是通过对话而不是流血(当对话有效时)来考虑选项和选择。在某些情况下，我们严惩犯罪，而在另一些情况下，我们则表现出仁慈。错误的是认为恩典本身是不公正的(或认为正义本身是不仁慈的)。在某些情况下，我们可以表现得宽厚一些，尤其是当我们认为这样做最终会带来好处的时候。我们的财富和权力可能会在一定程度上限制我们的风度——我们能有多少风度呢?我们无法让每个人都变得富有，但我们可以为每个人提供体面的生活，即使他们不能自己挣钱。所以问题是，我们应该给予这么多恩惠吗?欧洲国家在优雅的方向上比美国走得更远，而且他们也负担得起。我们也负担得起，但实际上所有的恩惠都得来自那些非常富有的人——他们几乎拥有所有的钱(90%或更多)。亚伯拉罕·林肯(Abraham Lincoln)对奴隶制的定义是:你辛苦、流汗、做面包——而我要吃掉它。 But of course that started a war and he was a radical.

在什么时候它就不再是恩典，而变成了不公?这个问题的答案也不是在某个地方的石头上，而是通过政治进程决定的，无论好坏。可以说，收获国家90%财富的人应该承担90%的成本。(在我年轻的时候，美国以此为基础征收所得税，平衡预算——我们后来被称为“富裕社会”。如果有什么不同的话，那就是当时的企业家精神更加旺盛。)当足够多的人感到足够饿的时候，他们就会再次拿出断头台，所有涂了粉的假发又开始掉进篮子里。但如果我们想要的是现实的平衡，我们就不必等那么久。

The balance between justice and grace in our time lies in the hands of political leadership—and the will of the people. (That too is a paradox—the people need to be led, but the leaders follow the people’s will, and in any case the people choose the leaders.) People already by nature do favor justice and grace, and it is for leadership to illuminate the path. The people voted for FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, and Obama—and the same people voted for Ike, Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1 & 2. Is it even possible for us, politically, to think that both sides might be right, not as the extremes they advocate, but as balances and compromises?

Break the false dichotomy, and stop saying that any social program is Bolshevik, or any fair and just process is Fascist. Normal people throughout history have been between these two forms of madness—and wickedness. How do we draw the right line between the extremes? By the political process. A republic balances hasty passions of the moment and extreme interests, against calmer, longer term (and more reasoned) feelings and interests. It may seem ridiculous to put our faith in republican democracy today. There are reasons to doubt—such as the enhanced powers of manipulation in the media. The revolutionary spirit in America today is sound asleep—in dogmatic slumbers. The idea that we can make any radical changes no longer arises. We don’t feel like kicking in any rotted doors. Does anybody think we can pass the necessary Constitutional Amendments to fix our system for today’s realities? (Jefferson told the Congress he would sign any bill they passed, which helped the people—even if it required changing the Constitution. The same revolutionary spirit still lived in Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, but their fire is now but an ember here and there. We can’t even give equal legal rights to women.)

The first new amendments to the Constitution should be those which get people to vote. A nation that accepts rule by fewer than half the voters makes rule by minorities into a constitutional mandate.

我们可以考虑5个宪政政党，以确保更多的人民参与，确保更多的人民代表，也确保妥协:左翼、温和左翼、右翼、温和右翼和独立党团。这将给每个人一个投票的理由，它将使每一张选票都有意义——因为联盟将是必要的。

我们可以考虑采用更先进的投票程序。税收是全国性的，也是电脑化的，投票也可以是全国性的——国民身份证(或者社会保障卡，更安全一些)可以是全国性的投票卡，可以在任何邮局或联邦大楼进行在线投票。

我们也可以考虑我们最初的原则，即企业不能把股东的钱给自己的政治事业或政治家。还可以考虑对政治献金的其他规定——例如，任何人的献金都必须通过一个独立的政府机构，并被记录下来供公众观看。

How about making the Congress much bigger, so that Representatives represent smaller neighborhoods—where huge spending is not required to be elected, and one could campaign on foot or in person at schools or door to door? America is big enough now for a House of 800 or 1000.

And senators should represent more or less equal areas, no longer perhaps defined by state lines? They could be elected by regions such as New England, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, South Central, Mid-Western, etc. (5 per area, with comparable populations adjusted by the census).

城市在国会中的代表比例仍然很低(因为州立法机构不公正地划分选区)，少数族裔也是如此——我们可以考虑加州模式(一个两党委员会将代表分配到各个地区)。现在农民只占我们人口的2%不到，但他们仍然控制着很多立法(而且他们现在大多是大公司)。

Don’t prohibit guns, but sell them (and ammo) only at state stores—say, at the Sheriff’s office, so felons are discouraged—and make penalties severe and non-negotiable for weapons not legally bought. (Some states do this with liquor, and it does control purchases to minors.)

You may or may not like these, or some of them, but why are all of them out of the question? Why will they never be adopted, or other popular measures made possible? Because the people are not revolutionary any more—so nobody listens to them. That is why they do not vote, and that is why the democratic republic is deep in dogmatic do-do.

The moral duty of society is to balance the will of the people as a power, with the effectiveness of representation or leadership as a power, and here, both forces have lost much of their power, and continue to lose more. Instead, we butt heads between now-fictitious (and mad)
“-主义”(法西斯主义和布尔什维克主义)，让人民的事情去吧。这自然会吸引最糟糕的人加入政府，并让少数民族从中选择。