if you were a fisal conservative you would favor serious social security reform. and you would oppose big energy spending projects like you have proposed in the past. add another person to the list of people that has red figured out. without principles, the moderate shifts his beliefs via the shifting tides of public opinion and the perceptions of what is considered extreme at that moment. years ago the idea of a zillion dollar massive entitlement program like social security would have been very extreme, red would have opposed it. now it is already in place and we are used to it, so red can only favor minor "moderate" changes to policy. centeredness is certainly of dubious value. but you have one thing right, your views are "forced" upon you by extremists, not principles. in an effort to balance extremes, the moderates views change. principled views do not change because the concepts and reason behind them does not change.
also i realize i repeat the same things over and over and my truisms are obtuse. random note: one time a retarded guy on the subway challenged me to arm wrestle.
that never happened, i made it up. i tend to make up things from time to time. breaks up the motonony of life. if it had happened i would have lost because retards are strong like bear.
Good questions. No, I am not saying that. As I have pointed out before and martin cannot accept, a moderate is simply someone who avoids the extremes. The moderate point of view is one that values pragmatism and seeks balance. It does not have to be centrist and can take positions to the left and right of center. All natural systems seek equilibrium, but the balance point is not always in dead center. You confuse being moderate with being sensible. Most moderates are sensible, but so are most liberals and conservatives. Also, being a political moderate is not the same as being temperamentally moderate. A political moderate recognizes the shades of gray that seem to be invisible to the black and white world that the extremists live in. But temperamentally he could be quite outspoken or quite reticent about his moderate political position. I think this is nonsense from an extremist. Someone who uses public opinion as a determiner of position is a populist not a moderate. There are populists on the left, middle, and right. Some moderates are populists, but I am not. I advocate smart and pragmatic politics and the attainment of proper balance. I determine this by my own reasoning, not by popular opinion. Sometimes public opinion is smart, pragmatic and balanced . . . but sometimes (martin will love this) they are not. Michael Moore does not speak for all liberals. Ann Coulter does not speak for all conservatives. The public consensus does not speak for all moderates.
I do. I just opposed what Bush was trying to do which was even more costly than doing nothing. We still need a plan, but Bush's plan crashed and burned because it was asinine. See truism, obtuse. Endlessly so. And I tire of retyping the same rhetoric. Perhaps we should number our issues, points, and counterpoints. Then you could just say. "32 is a fact. How do you account for 114. Jeebus says 79A." And I could respond with, " 154, did you forget? 07 suggests otherwise. You have a tendency to 211." Then we wouldn't have to type so much and our associates would be less bored. :grin:
Problem I see is though, "moderates" shift with whatever is the popular opinion at the time. The press loves to call McCain a moderate. I think what McCain is though a windsniffer.........he's no moderate. He's a Democrat. When you vote 80% of the time with liberal Democrat's like him and Lincoln Chaffey, you're a liberal. McCain is like Hillary......he'll speak to whatever audience he's in front of. There's a difference in moderation and compromise. Reagan had a foundation of conservatism and he knew how to negotiate. When he went to Congress with a $800 million tax cut plan, he knew he wouldn't get $800 million. He got $450 million. Still more than he really needed but he didn't give in against his principles. I don't think McCain or Hillary have principles.....just the need to get elected. Bush 41 actually got talked into raising taxes because he didn't have the same strong conservative principles as Reagan. He gave in because he wasn't grounded in a conservative philosophy. That is a moderate.....someone who is not grounded in a core belief. With Reagan and conservatives in general, stong national defense and the balls to use it, lower taxes of all kinds......basically getting out of people's lives and wallets. No, many Republican's do not stand up for those core beliefs and everytime they don't, they lose elections. Moderation in politics has nothing to do with avoiding the extremes. Like what, war? War is an extreme and sometimes necessary. Moderation in politics is the path of least resistence and that is seldom the right way. The Clinton's only choose the safe path......never fixing anything, just talking about fixing things or the need to fix things. Choosing the tough path is hard and risky.....something that moderates know nothing about.
Prove it. Give me an example. McCain is a Republican and everybody knows it. There are many moderate Republicans. Even in war there is a spectrum of political thought. At one extreme is reluctance to ever engage in war regardless of the need. At the other is persistently engaging in war regardless of the need. The moderate political position is to only engage in war when it is neccessary and prudent and when the virtues of doing so outweigh the dilemmas. Got an example? Be specific. Again you don't see the spectrum here. At one extreme is never ever taking any risk resulting in complacency. At the other extreme is always taking needless risks resulting in disaster. Political moderates advocate taking risks when the chance of success is high and avoiding risk when the chance of disaster is high.
The Clinton's are considered moderates. They never actually DO anything? They talk about doing things, changing things and then never actually DO anything. For one, Kerry spoke before the "Take Back America" liberal conference over the weekend and said he was wrong for voting for the war, was misled, blah blah blah. IN January, he was on Meet the Press and said the exact opposite. In front of whatever crowd, he'll say anything dude. That's why John F ing Kerry didn't win. People saw right through that crap. No he isn't. He has an R after his name but in terms of the GOP party platform, he's a liberal. A liberal Republican. He'll say anything to any audience. No, you don't see the spectrum here amigo. I see it plain and clear when I watch these so called moderates doing nothing but talk. All talk, no action is what got us to 9/11. I'll stay conservative thanks and you keep waiting on the "Moderate" party president.
