Thinking Through the Hostage Metaphor
A lot of people have used the metaphor of someone taking hostages to describe political standoffs such as the one that just took place over the debt ceiling or the one that just appears to have ended regarding the Federal Aviation Administration. One side (usually the Republicans) says that unless their desired policies are implemented, they won’t vote to do some basic thing that’s necessary to keep the government running. The other side (usually the Democrats) then has to figure out whether to agree to something that they don’t like or accept the consequences of the government (or part of it) shutting down. This tactic has been working fairly well for Republicans, so they’re fairly likely to keep using it. BooMan has a post over on his blog titled Get Used to Being a Hostage that outlines some of the upcoming situations. Not surprisingly, there’s a strong anti-Obama sentiment in the comments from progressives who feel that Obama’s willingness to negotiate with Republicans only encourages them to “take more hostages.”
I understand this position. I have found myself sharing it at various points since last November. But what I don’t think gets enough analysis from the “Don’t negotiate with hostage-takers” camp is, what happens to the hostage when you don’t negotiate? More likely than not, you wind up with a dead hostage. So every time there’s a hostage situation, you have to ask yourself if the price for keeping the hostage-taker from killing the hostage is a better outcome than a dead hostage. It doesn’t matter if the price is a worse outcome than not paying the price AND no harm to the hostage. That’s no longer an option once the hostage is taken. So you have to ask yourself is the dead hostage is really the best possible outcome. And remember, when there’s a dead hostage, there might be a lot of people applauding you for standing tough. But there are also going to be a lot of people mad at you for letting the hostage get killed.
Now, I will grant you that I am not an expert on hostage negotiations. But it seems to me like in a hostage situation, you often see the authorities take a two-pronged approach. Someone negotiates to try to keep the situation from getting out of hand, and in the hopes that the hostage-taker will change his mind and let the hostages go. Meanwhile, somebody else is getting into sniper position to try to take out the hostage-taker with minimum damage to the hostage, so that the hostage-taker no longer has the power to take hostages.
Now, if you take that part of the metaphor and reapply it back to the government, President Obama and Congressional Democrats are in the position of being the folks who negotiate to try stop the hostage from getting killed. So who’s the sniper? That would be the voters. Vote the Republicans out of power, the Republicans won’t be able to take any more hostages. One problem is, the voters won’t be able to take their shot for another 15 months. The other problem is, we can’t be sure that voters won’t decide they like the hostage drama after all. So I understand why some progressives don’t want to wait that long. I just hope they’re ready to deal with the consequences if negotiations stop.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.