Compromise is a bad thing.

It may be expedient. It could be necessary. And it might even be sensible.

But there’s nothing good about it.

Compromise nearly always results in a muddled response that exacerbates whatever problem it was supposed to solve. For example, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed Maine to become a state. But it also preserved the institution of slavery for an additional 40-odd years.

A more recent case study: the system instituted under the administration of former Gov. John Baldacci to fund and administer the state’s jails. It leaves both county officials – who used to run the jails – and state bureaucrats – who would like to – without the ability to make important decisions. And even if one side had that authority, it wouldn’t have the money to implement its agenda. Nobody can do anything.

Which makes it the perfect compromise.

In spite of a long history of compromises that have wasted time, money and effort – Dirigo Health, the Clean Election Act, the current state budget, casting Johnny Depp as Tonto – there continue to be loud public outcries for finding that mythical middle ground. Leading this charge is a group called No Labels.

“The full weight of the movement is in support of bipartisan problem-solving,” said No Labels field director Kevin Walling at the organization’s Maine kickoff back in 2011. The fact that there’s more evidence of the existence of Bigfoot than of bipartisanship didn’t deter Walling or his fellow No-Labelers, such as independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler. Cutler even started a political action committee called OneMaine that promised to support candidates based not on their positions on issues, but on their willingness to compromise.

That’s right, it doesn’t matter to Cutler if politicians are pro-choice or pro-life, so long as they’ll agree to vote for legislation they don’t actually agree with. Candidates can favor gun control or gun-owners’ rights, and still earn Cutler’s support if they’ll only water down their positions into mush. Expand Medicaid in Maine, as Democrats demand, or restrict and even reduce the size of the program, as Republican Gov. Paul LePage insists? Both are fine with No Labels, so long as the demanding and insisting aren’t for real.

As Cutler put it in a 2011 interview with Maine magazine, “[W]e need a common vision of Maine for our future.”

No Labels has convinced 87 members of Congress to sign on to its program of ending “poisonous rhetoric and partisan posturing” while promoting “common sense solutions to our national challenges.”

How did that work out? According to a Boston Globe article in early December, “No Labels has been unable to advance, in any meaningful way, a single item from its relatively modest list of goals. Critics dismiss it as window dressing, with some congressional staffers comparing it to a high school civics project.”

For the record, No Labels national agenda consists primarily of having breakfasts for senators and representatives, where the discussion focuses on how much alike we all really are (“Over easy, you idiot!” “Scrambled, you fool!”).

Nevertheless, No Labels has accomplished one remarkable feat in Maine by uniting disparate political elements. In 2011, both left-wing columnist Mike Tipping and right-wing writer M.D. Harmon condemned its let’s-all-have-a-group-hug-and-sing-Kumbaya agenda.

Here’s Tipping on the essential flaw in No Labels’ thinking: “Policy choices don’t lie along a single continuum of liberal to conservative. Each issue area offers a constellation of competing interests, ideologies and policy choices. There is no middle.”

For perhaps the only time in history, Harmon agreed. “[T]hose who merely cheer on ‘compromise’ end up saying the heart of politics is process, and that actual content is incidental or immaterial,” he wrote, “and that is so clearly a nonsensical statement that no serious person can accept it for an instant.”

I hardly qualify as a serious person (I kind of liked Depp as Tonto), but I do worry about the current infatuation among some factions of the populace (primarily the faction known as clunkheads) with finding common ground. Will we decide to ban abortions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but allow them on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays? Can we make everyone happy by implementing background checks for all gun sales during the summer months and the Christmas shopping season, but skipping them the rest of the year? How about a state budget funded by higher taxes of those whose last names begin with A through L, while folks with surnames beginning with M through Z get tax cuts?

I like labels. I like partisans. I like elected officials who stick to their principles (although, come to think of it, I can’t name any).

What I don’t like is holding up compromise as a solution, when what it really amounts to is avoiding one.

People who agree with me may email me at aldiamon@herniahill.net on even numbered days, while those who disagree can use the odd ones.