I haven’t paid close attention to the Democratic convention, and doubt I will to the Republican one. One of the main reasons is that they don’t matter. The nominee is a foregone conclusion, so all you have is a bunch of speeches in which politicians lay out a wonderful vision of why their guy should be elected. The problem is that the speeches are pretty much devoid of meaning. A long laundry list of ideas, visions and claims but no idea of the hierarchy of values of the candidate. I’m not claiming that these politicians are lying — they aren’t — but the problem is when push comes to shove, which ideas, visions, and yes, values are more important?
You take a backseat to no one in defending America, and you take a back seat to no one in multi-national cooperation and alliance building. You see a clear danger to the security of America, so you take action. You begin to build that multinational alliance, but discover that the UN is willing to issue only threats, but not take action. What do you do? You discover that your allies agree that there is a problem, but think negotiation will resolve the issue without force. Do you negotiate, or use force? How long do you do negotiate before you use force? Just how do you balance the interests and desires of America against those of allies? Both are important, but how do you resolve the inevitable conflicts.
You can think of your own examples without trying too hard.
And it isn’t just about politicians. I’m sure if you polled people, 98 out of a 100 would agree that honesty is important: you shouldn’t lie. All 98 of those people have told a lie sometime in their life. They all had a good reason, good enough to do something they think would otherwise be wrong. No there would be a bunch of different reasons good enough, all the way from “if I told the truth I would be embarrassed” to “if I told the truth somebody would die”. If you’re trying to judge somebody’s honesty, the question isn’t whether they value honesty, but at what point do they start lying.
So if you want to hear a pleasing stream of platitudes, some delivered quite engagingly, tune into the convention. If you want an idea how people will balance competing values, look at their actions.
