By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate
October 6, 2008
I look at polls and try to divine what moderate opinion is. This is not an exact science, and you are all welcome to disagree, but if you chose polls carefully, use polls that display what questions were asked and who was asked, and they appear designed to get an accurate answer, the pulse of moderation can be found.
By looking at polls that get extreme responses, I’ve determined that the extreme right and it’s sympathizers are about 31% of the voting population, and the left wing and their ilk are about 29%. In the middle are people, over a third, that could be described as moderate.
The problem is that there isn’t a moderate platform. Moderate opinion can vary widely. Not all possible positions have a gray area, so we have to chose either black or white, and we don’t always go in the same direction. Some of us lean to the right, and some lean left, without falling into the extremes.
Most, but not all, moderates are against gun control. Most, but not all, are for gay rights. Etc., etc., etc. Capital punishment? Split right down the middle. We don’t like taxes, but don’t like spending money we don’t have like we had a stolen credit card, (the current Republican strategy.) We prefer a right to abortion, but not without limits, (please see my post of July 2, 2008). How can we get exited? How could we possibly form a platform? We just can’t. All we can do is choose between ignorant, frothing at the mouth right wingers or over intellectual, bleeding-heart left wingers. Which is the least evil this week?
I am sorry to say, but we moderates are really, really lame. We don’t have the wherewithal to decide if the glass is half empty or half full. We are the most tormented, the least represented, but the largest group of voters in the country! But we have no hate. If we have any anger, it’s without direction. We have no platform to rally around. We are just a bunch of defeated wimps.
So go ahead and vote for the least evil this November. There may be a good independent candidate out there, try it. He/she may not have a chance, but if you help get him/her over 5%, he/she and his/her party will get some money and recognition.
It just plain appears that until man grows a third testicle the middle won’t have any balls. Let us hang our heads in shame for being lame-ass wimps.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Quite frankly, I'm not sure that we have many moderates in society any longer, and they sure aren't in elected office. Occasionally I think that I am speaking with a moderate, and then they launch into a diatribe taking an extreme position about the candidate which they oppose. I think that a viable third party may actually emerge this time out of the public's frustration.
I completely agree with the 3rd party vote and I suggest that it doesn't stop with the president. If there is a 3rd party candidate for any position in my state, I will support them. I don't expect any of them to win but (as you pointed out) even getting them to 5% help them in the future.
Let's vote not for this election but vote for all of future.
Jonathan:
Thanks much for posting on a comment on my blog regarding the seemingly disinterest on the part of our politicians to craft a solution to our economic mess, as reflected by their behavior during the AIG CEO hearing. I think that you are pretty much spot on. Only in the government do we find leaders who feel that it is appropriate to spend more than the country generates in income. Thanks as always.
Logisitician is wrong, there are plenty of moderates in the country (and around the world). Without moderates, there would be few followers. He is right that the moderates aren't being elected to office. The problem with moderates, as your blog post shows, is that hey lack passion about what they believe. So, they follow, as we all tend to do, the person that shows the most passion about the issue(s) about which we care somewhat strongly. In other words, moderates elect extremists because extremists show passion. By the way, trickle down actually does work. It always has. Look who starts and funds charities sometime, who invests in new businesses, who brings the great ideas of the nobody into the public eye. It is not the masses, it is not the guy at the bottom. What the politicians who are opposed to "trickle down" really mean is that they want to be the ones doing the trickle down.
Ok, I'm done ranting. I like posting comments to old blog pieces, the odds are the only one who will ever read them is the blogger.
Post a Comment