Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
Compromise may not be a desirable end in and of itself. But it's a good indicator that anyone that is unwilling to compromise is someone you wouldn't want ruling over you. A shibboleth, if you like.
What if the party or politician you choose to represent you decides, say, that they would be willing to negotiate the privatization of most public services to foreign low-bid contractors according to the "practical" reasoning that this can be traded in exchange for raising maximum penalties on regulatory violators by 5%? That's certainly one way of getting results, after all.

Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
Oh, that's easy!

The old example of there being two ice cream sellers on a beach. Long story short they end up very close to each other in in the middle - as long as you are nearer more of the target audience than the other lot more will like you / hate you less than the other lot. And on average you'll win. So those that stick to principles will get nowhere unless this happens to be closer to more of the target audience.

I don't think real life corresponds well to this example. The beach goers have many different preferences, more or less malleable, and may exist in three-dimensional space around the beach plane.

Regardless, as I said, yeah?

a last resort in the exhaustion of other options
And what if sometimes defending principles is likelier to get you results than accepting just about anything in the name of "pragmatism".

Fight as hard as possible, only then settle?