Hi X, several points you raise here open up room for volumes of typing, and i've got twenty minutes max this morning .... hmm ... well first let me make it plain that i was going off the dictionary definition of 'moderate', and didn't understand the usage of the word in contemporary US politics .... now i think i got it, but don't like it - the term has been twisted around backwards somehow, in much the same way as has 'liberal'
There's a place for cozy little clubs of folks all believing the same, i guess, but there's no attraction for me in them .... to start with, i don't want to be categorised, locked into one or the other, especially since after half a century of following politics i've never found a party or even major faction within a party that had all the platform planks i would have liked .... always always got to hold my nose while voting, and often find political allies more destructive than opponents
Reasonable people should listen to each other, imho, and the ability of partisans to do so could rightly be termed Moderation .... often there are valid points on both sides - for instance, in re Iraq the insanity is vividly clear in the neocon hubris that led to a few men of power sitting around Washington deciding life and death matters for the whole planet, and i know US 'liberals' will agree on that, but that's not the end of it - doing nothing is also a conscious policy choice, and probably wasn't the correct one for Iraq, imho ... rational voices on the do-something side had some very valid points
What i wanted to see during the bushista war-marketing phase, was somebody with principle and leadership charisma, from any of the democracies [and especially Canada - oh lord where have our Lester Bs gone!], or even better maybe the right individual coming from a democracy-to-be, to stand up and say all right folks, matters this vital to all must be decided with wider participation, it's time for a working parliament of nations, let's make a good one and let's make it quick, before some Kim or Bush or Hussein sets us back on the path to jungle law
... so then [if there's only left-wing here i'll have to supply my own check on thought, right?], people get behind that idea, form an organisation, and it quickly becomes the dreaded bureaucracy of the One-World-Guvmint .... hmmm
Anyway, back to 'moderate' ... while i don't know carranza all that well, and he has chosen the nick of the man who had Zapata shot, and i haven't read all his posts here, what i did see was this - he pointed out hypocrisy in re name-calling, which is apparently discouraged in the header, yet appeared in a post, in quite juvenile fashion ..... seems to me he was doing 'moderates' a favour in pointing that out .... ? ... you know, make sure you remove the mote from thine own eye, before heaving the chopping block through the eye of thine enemy? ... anything but a resounding yes to these questions will leave me feeling very unclear on the concepts present, guaranteed .... later .... cheers
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