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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wlcnyc who wrote (11161)	11/8/2009 3:37:22 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

What is the the/your definition of a radical for purposes of classification? I'm looking at it two ways, which, fortuitously, are compatible. The first is the standard political continuum. If you are interviewed for a poll you are asked to pick a category along the continuum, they are, from left to right, "progressive," "liberal," "moderate," "conservative," and "very conservative." Sometimes the words vary. Those are from the Zogby polls, in which I sometimes participate. "Radical" is not included nor is "reactionary." Those are off the grid on either end. You wouldn't expect more than a handful of people to classify themselves that way because few people are that extreme. So, one can categorize someone as radical if his views/actions are to the left of those of progressives. It remains only to look at what progressives want and see if Obama is farther out there than they are. Progressives favor things like single-payer health care, clean fuels regardless of impact on the economy, amnesty, eliminating the death penalty, gay marriage, etc. To be a radical, Obama would have to be farther left than that. For example, he'd have to favor such things socializing not just health insurance but health care providers, outlawing the killing of animals, nationalizing all industry, mandatory union membership, and/or land reform a la Zimbabwe. Now, it's hard to say what's in his heart but his actions hardly reach the progressive level in most cases so he can hardly be farther left than the progressives. The other is standard usage of the word. A radical is an extremist. Traditionally political radicals have been revolutionaries and insurrectionists and anarchists. Obama didn't run against the system. He tries to use it to his advantage. He tests the boundaries sometimes but then so have most other presidents from time to time. It just seems so to those who disapprove of him. We always judge the tactics of our guys less harshly than those of the other guys.