I believe that the current political setup in America stifles voices of moderation. I couldn’t iterate why I believe such a thing as good as Orson Scott Card could, so present his argument for this: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-08-03-1.html
" If you want to carry out reforms by carefully controlled steps, always watching to see the results of each change before going further in the same direction, is there any party you can join?
How do you rally excited voters to causes like those?
Who would donate millions of dollars to promoting moderation? "
"But we have no name for people like me, who think the extremists of both sides are short-sighted, ignorant, reckless, and dangerous, and want to go back to the old commitment to building consensus for change over time, through democratic process, and to undo the “reforms” that have clearly not worked, while retaining the reforms that show real promise.
Where’s the talk show for moderates? What party do we join? What label do we place upon ourselves?
If you want moderate gun control and moderate limitations upon abortion and moderate restrictions on pornography and moderate government regulation of business and moderate affirmative action and moderate tax reform, then what exactly are you?"
“Physics isn’t a religion. If it were, we’d have a much easier time raising money.”
–Leon Lederman
I feel your pain. I have occasionally labelled myself a moderate too, but I try to avoid being labelled at all. The danger is, you might be seen as a “waffler” (thank you benthames), or as in TVAA’s example, someone who determines the best solution as the mean of the two extremes. Not a good rule, as a rule.
I hardly ever vote a party line, although I’ve registered under either Democrat or Republican on occasion - just to be eligible to vote in a particular primary.
Ultimately, people will see you through the filter of their own affiliation anyway. Conservatives think I’m radical, Liberals think I’m heartless, etc. Not having an agenda is just as suspect as an opposing agenda. Maybe more so.
If you can come up with a label that doesn’t imply “the happy medium”, but can still embody some kind of consensus ideology agenda amongst self identifying moderates, I’d be interested.
The problem with “centrist” or “moderate” as terms is that they presume that the “Left” and the “Right” are somehow two extremes on a continuum that embraces all possible political thought. This is, of course, false. The “Left” and the “Right” greatly encourage this sort of “thinking”, because it forces people to play into their hands. What I see is that the “Left” and the “Right” are fundamentally indistinguishable. They are totalitarian idiot-logs (ideologues). Anything that doesn’t fit their political cult must be re-cast to fit or cast into the Realm of the Demons (aka “the other side”). They routinely and reflexively demonize anyone who fails to worship their particular shibboleths. They believe that they possess the unique keys to history and the unique and exclusive means whereby to produce a Paradise on Earth. Any information that contradicts their dogmas is dismissed as “propaganda”. The one thing that keeps them propped up is the tired old lie that they represent the only “pure” political philosophies and everything else is merely “indecisive”, “waffling”, or some “mixture” of the two.
In essence, if one examines their methods, one sees that they are not the two ends of the only possible “political spectrum”. Instead, they are merely two faces of the same coin, sharing the same fundamental core with each other. But we don’t need spend that political wooden nickel.
Other political mindsets can exist than “Left”, “Right” and “not Left or Right”. I mean, after all, isn’t this just another re-use of “Christendom” vs. “Infidels”, with both the “Left” and the “Right” casting themselves as Christendom?
I propose that the term “Sane”, “Reasonable”, or “Civilized” be used to describe people who reject the “Left” vs. “Right” false dilemma.
It seems that our culture has become more focused on what is gratifing, interesting and entertaining. This has carried over into how we govern ourselves. Now rationality, principle, and truth have lost the relavancy they deserve. Not because they have failed us, but because these things do not hold the collective attention like that time a Porn King, a Midget, and a German walked into a bar… oops I meant entered a gubernatorial campaign
The problem is that a lot of “moderates” are either lumped in as “weak Republican/Democrat” by their own party… that is, if someone isn’t conservative enough, his “fellow” conservatives will trash him just as much as they’d trash an enemy (witness Rush Limbaugh’s comments about Arnold Schwarzenegger). It’s like the only thing they can’t stand more than someone who disagrees with them is someone who only SEEMS to agree with them, as if these “moderates” are slowly chipping away at the particular ideal… an extension of the slippery slope concept.
Either that, or they’re labeled as “libertarians”, even if they’re really not. And the label “libertarian” gets a lot of undeserving flak, in my opinion… couple that with the fact that the Lib party is a tad disorganized, and you get an out-and-out demonization. Similar tendencies for the Reform or Green parties.
In essence, Republicans and Democrats are the two Top Dogs, and they have a tendency to belittle and demonize “anyone that isn’t us”… Democrats fight against Pubbies, Libbies, Greenies, Reffies, etc. Pubbies fight against Demmies, Libbies, Greenies, etc. etc.
Part of this is due to a culture with a pathetically short attention span… if something can’t be summed up in a ten second sound bite, the Ignorant Masses don’t wanna hear it. As such, a system more complicated than “Black & White” is dismissed by Joe Q. Public as too much of a distraction from his Survivor Pt. 14 and Britney Spears’ breasts.
I think y’all are missing the boat. Right and Left aren’t ideologies themselves. There are many more than 2 ideologies. Right and Left merely provide a way to catagorize them, along a fundamental division of opinion as I describe in the Anne Frank thread. Orson Scott Card’s offering is no different than what is posted here: generalizations about something that doesn’t exist. Try again.
Thank you for reiterating the point of the article, ** 2sense[\b]. Right and Left are not two Ideologies. They are, however, the two viable political distinctions left and share the following traits: Neither are the voice of reason and they each champion a list of causes that do not overlap. This leaves us with a political system that is becoming less effective at serving the people at large and more effective at becoming subject to the whims of irrational or emotionally loaded schools of thought.
I don’t see why you think I have repeated the article. To be more clear, Card doesn’t know what he is talking about. He doesn’t recognize that left and right represent a fundamental difference of opinion. Some of us trust the virtue of the everyman and others take a more Hobbesian view of humanity. Changing the labels would change nothing. This isn’t Ender’s game where you can decide for yourself which side is down. Here on Earth you can call up down and down up but the labels won’t stop a grandmother’s hip from breaking when she hits the ground.
The rest of his rant is more of the same. He calls this “A land where marriage has become a joke, where the family is blamed for everything and supported by few” That is just plain ridiculous. Everyone, particularly everyone who wishes to be politically viable, is profamily. The pol foolish enough to be antifamily wouldn’t get elected. Card, and you, may disagree that the policies being promoted today would indeed help families but that doesn’t make the ideologies in question antifamily. It is just disagreement. I strongly disagree with conservative ideologies and have stated on this board that when conservatives gain power people die as a result of their policies. That doesn’t mean that conservative ideologies are prodeath ( except in the area of capital punishment ). They aren’t trying to kill people ( again with some exceptions ) I just see that as the predicable outcome when they are in charge. We disagree.
Whether or not an ideology is a voice of reason is a subjective question. We each choose the personal philosophy that is most reasonable for us. I am quite happy with mine, thank you very much, and it is decidedly leftwing. One of my beliefs is in the value of dissensus. Dissent brings selfexamination and possibly reform. Unanimity is stagnation, death, and worse, the Bush White House! So I’m not worried about the polarization of American politics. I see it as a forseeable result of the rising disparity in wealth. The same thing happened during the last Gilded Age.
Well, Arnold is giving the old Dem/Pub labels a run for their money. I was wondering the other day, when it was shown his poll numbers were a bit below Bustamante’s, what the numbers would look like if Arnold ran as a Dem. I think you’d find many Dems who would suddenly want to vote for him and many Pubs who would not.
Just remember, though:
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”