The Brownsville Herald ran a very good commentary this morning on Mayor Pat Ahumada’s latest proposal to kindly take over the Economic Development Council, the Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau pointing out a number of faults in the idea: that this kind of lumping together under one hand makes the agencies more corruptible (carefully noting that the present administration is not corrupt); that the Mayor already has seats on all three entities; that the major problem is the Mayor’s seeming inability to communicate his vision and convince others of its viability.

The one thing seeming to be missing is the idea of compromise. I realize that compromise has a bad reputation these days, and people start wagging fingers and crying out “Slippery sloap! Slippery slope!” if compromises are mentioned. The advertisers certainly use “No compromise!” as a selling point in improving lives and increasing the value of sales. And who wasn’t pleased to see Tom Petty bring his great song “Won’t Back Down” to the Super Bowl half time show?

But we seem to have lost the point that the art of compromise is at the heart of democratic living. In compromise, one concedes that no one is going to get all that he or she wants. But that’s never been the point of democratic action. The point is to find ideas and actions that we can all live with. Some one group or person getting all they want is specifically anit-democratic.

Yes, the Herald’s piece has the heart of the idea in its assertion that we need to begin “building bridges of communication.” But the point of the communication must be finding compromise, that with which we can all live.