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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (379)	6/5/2005 11:23:06 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541348

Interesting discussion - now imagine that there are two rigid ideological sides, neither of which can command a permanent working majority on major issues. But neither side will give an inch due to its ever-growing dislike for the ugly politics of the other side. Instead of reasonable compromise you get a series of train wreck outcomes masquerading as public policy. If nothing else, supporting a centrist compromise means evaluating issues pragmatically and on their merits before stamping them with an ideology, i.e. government is always bad, using force abroad is militaristic, welfare mothers are just lazy, wealthy people are tax cheats who buy politicians for their own benefit, never question military policy during wartime, favoring abortion means favoring murder, opposing death penalty means your are a wimp and soft on crime.... It just goes on and on, the name-calling, zero-sum ideological train wreck game. Useless. My yardstick for measuring public policy is what needs to be done and what gets done. If we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, what are we doing about it? If we need to reduce the budget deficit, what are we doing about it? I won't accept "we are doing what our ideology says is right" and let this pass if the policy is failing. More often, the problem is something the ideology either ignores, or the politicians are hypocritically ignoring their own platform and doing the opposite. Best example of that is deficit spending.

To: Lane3 who wrote (379)	6/5/2005 11:53:43 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541348

Whether the middle ground makes "sense" to you often depends on your own position. I think it's often hard to see the sense in positions you do not agree with. I can see the sense in the NRA hard line folks, the ban the gun folks, and the moderates. I like the moderate position because it makes sense to me. While I like the constitutional right to own a gun, I don't really want mental patients to be able to run out and get one, so I prefer the moderate balanced approach. I think the middle ground is attractive to me on most issues- even drug legalization. I'm not sure I want LSD legal (for example), but I KNOW I want pot legal. So I think the moderate position is really far more than just "compromise"- I think it is a rational parsing of an issue to find out exactly what you want- what are the boundaries of the best solution for the most people. The moderate position is often the harmonious confluence of utilitarianism and non-extremism- both of these things I like, a lot.