From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   Ayn Rand said that “each issue has a right side and a wrong side, but the   
   middle is always evil.” She was wrong.   
      
   There are two kinds of conflicts that play out at the political level: The   
   conflicts of values and the conflicts of interests. While a case can be made   
   that it is evil to compromise on values, seeking a middle ground between   
   conflicting interests is true    
   good. I do not just mean any middle ground, as the middle can be found in all   
   sorts of undesirable places. I mean what I call a positive middle path. A path   
   that sees what's right in each side and combines them while doing away with   
   what's wrong in each.   
      
   In conflicts between business and labor, between men and women, between public   
   power and private power, neither side is good and neither side is bad. Both   
   are capable of both.   
      
   Business can create opportunity and prosperity; it can also poison the air and   
   the water, treat its employees like garbage, and destroy priceless natural   
   treasures that it cannot conceivably recreate. Labor can provide the brains   
   and the brawns to make    
   possible business prosperity; it can also demand ridiculous things from its   
   bosses, advocate for murderous totalitarian orders, and destroy ambition and   
   academic intelligence in its youth.   
      
   Men can mean anything from Thomas Jefferson to Osama Bin Laden. Women can mean   
   anything from Mother Theresa and Marie Curie to Catherine McKinnon and Phyllis   
   Schaffly.   
      
   Public power can mean anything from John Kennedy to Joseph Stalin. Private   
   power can mean anything from the Freemasons, Medicins Sans Frontieres and the   
   Oracle Corporation to Russian mafia, John Birch Society, Westboro Baptists,   
   corrupt networks in law    
   and medicine, and the Texas Oil.   
      
   Neither side is good, and neither side is bad. Both are capable of both.   
      
   In matters involving powers that are capable of both rightful and wrongful   
   behavior, the solution is not to take either side. Doing that supports one   
   side in wrongdoing while oppressing the other side even in its capacity to   
   produce beneficial results.    
   Instead the rational way to deal with such entities is to see where they can   
   do right; see where they can do wrong; and empower the first while confronting   
   the second.   
      
   The model of checks and balances has been successfully used to create the most   
   benign governments in the history of humanity. Whereas probably the most   
   useful idea to have come out of post-Aristotelian Western philosophy was the   
   concept of synthesis.    
   This model has been echoed in the business community by Steven Covey, who   
   advocated “win-win scenarios” in which both sides to the deal negotiated   
   solutions that worked for both.   
      
   Both the concept of checks and balances and the concept of synthesis have   
   created superpowers. Both however have shown to be capable of wrong outcomes.   
   Checks and balances, by itself, leads to gridlock; and synthesis, by itself,   
   leads to totalitarianism.    
   I posit a methodology that builds on both in a way that makes the best of   
   both. I combine the two to create a model that combines the two.   
      
   A model of synthesis within the framework of check-and-balance.    
      
   At the bottom level, each side affirms its rightful prerogatives and in so   
   doing also checks the other in its capacity for wrongdoing. And at the top   
   level, the two work together to achieve outcomes that neither can accomplish   
   by itself.   
      
   There are rightful checks and balances on the government's capacity for   
   tyranny and corruption; there should be similar checks and balances on private   
   power. There should be checks in society on both men's capacity for incest and   
   brutality and women's    
   capacity for deception and viciousness. And business should be checked when it   
   destroys what it cannot recreate, poisons the water or treats workers like   
   garbage – in the same way as labor should be checked when it makes   
   ridiculous demands, sabotages    
   the minds of its children, or advocates for a slaughter of the propertied   
   class.   
      
   Whereas all of the above should be supported and respected when they are doing   
   the right thing.   
      
   And at the top level, each pair of interests should synthesize with each other   
   to produce win-win scenarios.   
      
   That would mean business and labor negotiating solutions in which they are   
   working constructively and fairly together. That would mean men and women   
   creating beautiful, loving relationships and a wholesome family life. That   
   would mean government and the    
   private sector working together to create prosperity for the country and its   
   citizens, combining government science, infrastructure and law enforcement   
   with business opportunity, with the first providing the second the knowledge,   
   the infrastructure and    
   the law enforcement it needs to create prosperity – and the second   
   adequately funding the first to make such things possible.   
      
   Ideal and pragmatism do not have to be things hostile to one another. There   
   are practical ways to make possible idealistic outcomes. In conflicts between   
   interests that are each capable of both rightful and wrongful behavior, the   
   practical way to deal    
   with them is the model of synthesis within the framework of check-and-balance.   
   The second allows the interests to stop each other in their capacity for   
   wrongdoing. The first allows them to work together to achieve beneficial   
   results.   
      
   This idea has applications in economics, government and society. I believe   
   that this is an idea whose time has come.   
      
   More at https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatbiography   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)