My opinion Kathleen Parker: Centrism's time may have come
In today's food-fight environment, where extremes dominate debate and choice is defined by either-or, finding a comfortable place to land is increasingly difficult.
Like most people I know, I tend to run screaming from both ends of the spectrum. Too conservative for the left wing and too liberal for the right wing, I find myself scrambling for the center aisle. Yet, people in the middle often are held in contempt as fence-straddlers.
Abortion provides a convenient if unpalatable example. I've written dozens of columns through the years, more or less urging a pro-life position - having a baby forces a review of one's assumptions - while clinging to a pro-choice conclusion. Abortion is a terrible thing, I say, the violent termination of a life and a decision many women (and men) regret with time and perspective.
Nevertheless, I can find no way to justify government-enforced maternity. Under penalty of what? By whom? The practical applications of the moral ideal become nightmarish as we extrapolate to the real.
In the spirit of compromise, I also can argue passionately in favor of tougher education standards when it comes to abortion. In time, given what can't be ignored when abortion is studied up close, we'd accomplish the goal supported by most Americans and articulated by President Bill Clinton: to make abortion safe, legal and rare.
Caught between extremes of community morality and individual choice, people like me are adrift. Given current trends, we may declare we have a perfect storm of political backlash. Americans who cleave to neither extreme - about 50 percent of whom identify themselves as "moderate" - are fed up with the Ann Coulter/Michael Moore school of debate and are looking for someone to articulate a common-sense, middle path.
They may have found their voice in John P. Avlon, chief speechwriter for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a New York Sun columnist, whose 2004 book "Independent Nation" has just been released in paperback.
Avlon insists centrism is the more patriotic political position because it adheres more strictly to American values and founding principles than to ideology. A balance between idealism and realism, centrism is a yin-yang proposition that rejects shrill extremes and embraces reason, decency and a practical perspective. To those who insist centrism is the death of dissent, Avlon argues that centrism is dissent - from outdated political orthodoxies.
"Extremists and ideological purists on either side of the political aisle condemn compromise," he writes. "But inflexibility either creates deadlock or dooms a cause to irrelevance."
Extremists won't agree with Avlon that centrism is a patriotic position, but who cares? They've held the nation hostage long enough. Meanwhile, independents are the fastest-growing group of voters across the country, especially among the young, hundreds of whom e-mailed Avlon after his "Daily Show" appearance on Comedy Central last week.
A Pew Poll published last week in The Economist broke down voters as 39 percent independent, 31 percent Democrat and 30 percent Republican.
Socially liberal and fiscally conservative, independents could be a powerful reckoning force by 2008. Politicians better wise up and tone it down.
Kathleen Parker writes for the Orlando Sentinel. Contact her at kparker@kparker.com. |
