Policies are never implemented in a vacuum. Their successful realization is as much an artifact of the political and social environment as much as the policies' intrinsic value. One needs to look no further than Russia's excessively rapid (and ultimately underachieving) economic liberalization after the fall of the Soviet Union, California's failed electricity deregulation, or myriad other examples of good policies failing as a result of public inertia and/or structural failure.
This is by no means an indictment of the policies, or even an indictment of the public itself. Habit and convenience are powerful obstacles to overcome in any element of society. Recognizing this, it is the position of the Prometheus Institute to support incremental reform when at all possible.
Such a position has adscititious benefits, such as rendering a policy more palatable to a larger segment of the populace. The widespread support civil unions inspire, while gay marriage still provokes majority opposition, is an instructive example. However, the principal impetus behind our position is to maximize the beneficial effects of our proposals without incurring the deadweight losses that arise from excessively rapid implementation.
This is not to say, however, that the Institute retreats from ideology. Far from it. We recognize that truth and justice are not dependent upon convenience. Resultantly, the organization counts itself as highly consistent in its ideology - a general result (confirmed by public opinion polling) of education and knowledge.
We are aware that this admission opens us up to the type of criticism levied by, for lack of a better example, Bill O'Reilly, who often decries medical marijuana reform as backdoor legalization. Far from rebutting the argument itself, we highlight its irrelevance.
Of course most of the proponents of medical marijuana - PI included - support eventual legalization. As do most tax cut proponents support a flat tax, deregulation proponents support privatization, and gun control proponents support outright proscription.
Is this surprising? The ideological movements are those that achieve reform. Granted there are those who believe the highest marginal tax rates are best set at 35% instead of 40%, but neither are they instrumental in their advancement or involved with their creation. Civil unions may be popular, but they were proposed by those who support gay marriage, a minority position.
More than this, the great leaders were those who were the most ideological. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a shamelessly demagogic example, was not inspired by, for example, removing "Whites Only" placards on drinking fountains. He was inspired to pursue the legal equality of the races - an ideological position that would have been deemed impossible by pragmatists years earlier - and achieved it.
However, in most cases, raw ideology neither sells nor is digested well when it is codified into law.
Thus, we find that public policy is a useful field, if only to transform the invaluable ideological innovations into palatable legislative options.
It would also be easy, yet pointless, to argue that pragmatism lacking ideology is significantly inferior to ideology lacking pragmatism.
Never mind the discussion. We offer both, indispensable as they are paired.
