This thread comes from a conservative blog my spouse sent me a link to. The kernel entry complained about how radical feminists had harmed higher education. My interlocutor goes by ReCon USMC. He took exception to a centrist manifesto I'd posted earlier:
ReCon USMC:
Ehkzu: Writes
A pox on both your houses, I say. A plurality of Americans are centrists, neither conservative nor liberal. Yet we’re nearly voiceless in talk shows, news analysis programs, blogs, and newspapers. Righties and Lefties both act as if only each other exist.
And so we get Obama and McCain to choose from–each an eager slave to his side, despite mucho independent posturing.
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In all due respect I don’t believe there is really such a being a Centrist or No opinions . That is about as Interesting as Nothingness but a lot of it .
You either believe in Socialism or Capitalism …. You either believe in Abortion or not ….. You either in Big Government or not … You believe in the Death Sentence or not ……
You believe in European Courts laws being used rather than our own Constitution on occasions ……. You either believe in Unions or not ….. You believe the Rich don’t pay enough it Taxes or Not ….. You either like Steven’s ruling or the Supreme Court or Judge Thomas views . You either Think far left Judge’s Steven’s , Bryer ,and Ginsburg have more common sense that all Judge on the right do and interruption of the Constitution .
You don’t believe that riding in the middle of the Road you get hit from both ends . Your no fun in a debate about anything ….. In all due respect ?
Jul 9, 2008 - 4:01 am
ReCon USMC [Jul 9, 2008 - 4:01 am]: When people say "in all due respect" they nearly always mean "…and the respect you're due is nada." And when you say centrist = no opinion, you remind me of the conservative commentators who said Sandra Day O'Connor had no principles—because the pragmatic principles she used were invisible to them.
Righties and Lefties share this kind of black & white thinking, and both share this kind of disdain for centrists. On the process level there's not much difference between them. Ironic, since both groups believe they're entirely different.
But let's consider ReCon USMC's points:
1. " You either believe in Socialism or Capitalism"
The vast majority of Americans believe in the mixed system we have. Only a small minority wants to totally dismantle Social Security, Medicare, the public school systems, municapal police forces, our standing Army, government oversight of businesses and other financial institutions, etc. Actually if you want a purer form of Capitalism, move to Communist China. They've privatized their entire social welfare network. And does ReCon USMC really approve of the Republicans privatizing a huge portion of our armed forces, with contractors making $150K a year working across the street from grunts making a quarter of that?
And as with "Communist"
2. "You either believe in Abortion or not"
The vast majority of Americans believe in the mixed system we have, where a 12 year old raped by her father can get an abortion (unlike in Latin America, whose dominant medieval religion regularly forces children in such circumstances to give birth to their incestuous offspring). According to the Catholic Church even using a condom = abortion (I checked the official website to confirm this because it seemed so bizarre). Even Americans who oppose abortion rarely go that far. And many who oppose abortion still believe it's permissible if a pregnancy puts a woman in serious risk of dying. Yet others believe abortion is permissible before the zygote implants in the uterus but not after. And yet others are OK with all but late term abortion. And yet others think it should remain legal but that government shouldn't pay for it. Meanwhile on the other side, few believe that abortion should be available free on demand for any female of any age without parental consent, though some do.
Though religious people never mention it in public, abortion is a religious concept that depends on whether and when you believe we're ensouled. If at the moment of conception, then it's only abortion thereafer. If at implantation, then it's only abortion after that. If not until the quickening…well, you get the idea. And I should add that there are devoted Christians who believe that we aren't ensouled until we're born and viable.
And since the Bible says nothing about ensoulment (except for one passage that implies ensoulment at some time before birth) and nothing about abortion. So your opinion about exactly constitutes abortion is just that—your opinion, with no biblical basis.
3. " You either believe in Big Government or not"
Both parties love big government when they're in power. The only difference is the Democrats don't lie about it. And the Republicans' pervasive privatization has mostly produced an intermix of business and government that plays like a sort of inverted Socialism—ownership of government by business. I don't like that any more than I do government ownership of business—and the result is the same: big, big government.
Personally I believe government needs to be just big enough to protect the little guy from the people and institutions that would otherwise grind him down. I've traveled extensively in the third world, and I've seen what corporatism looks like—the average citizen has zero protection. The big guy wants his land? The little guy has to go or die. The local officials actually work for the big guy, so there's no recourse with City Hall. And if you think that couldn't happen here, talk to the former employees of Enron.
4. "You believe in the Death Sentence or not"
The vast majority of Americans believe in the death penalty—but not for retards or children (with much disagreement over what should be the Age of Death, though—but mostly somewhere between 16 and 18), and not where there's any doubt of guilt. The Innocence Project has uncovered so many cases of prosecutorial misconduct (usually self-aggrandizing conviction fever) and witness misidentification that most of us need to know for sure that we've got the right person. Oh, and outside the most barbaric parts of the country we don't want the death penalty applied to those who haven't killed their victims—for the simple reason that we don't want to give them an incentive to murder their victims to silence them. And on the other side, we don't want it to take 20 to 30 years to carry out justice. So the answer to youir statement, for most of us, is "It depends." Not yes without qualification. And not no.
5. "You believe in European Courts laws being used rather than our own Constitution on occasions"
This is one of those "Have you quit beating your wife?" questions, since no one has ever done this. Some of the Supremes had the temerity to mention the world outside
6. " You either believe in Unions or not"
Most Americans believe unions have a right to exist but need to be regulated. Interestingly, some of the most corrupt are some correction officer unions here in
Every locus of power needs checks and balances. And precious few Americans are so deluded as to think that absent unions the wealthiest ½% of Americans wouldn't turn this country into
That ain't the same as the blind union worship of aging lefties. It's a centrist view—balanced, clear-eyed, acknowledging how messy life is—especially when power's involved.
7. "You believe the Rich don’t pay enough Taxes or Not"
The crowning achievement of the Republican Party has been convincing its most devoted members to betray themselves, their families, and their country through supporting the class war by the wealthiest ½% of the country on everyone else, including ReCon USMC.
In American in the '50s and '60s—one of our most affluent periods ever, for everyone, rich and otherwise, corporate CEOs made 20 times the wages of their lowest-paid peons. That's still the case in the rest of the industrialized world. But starting in the Reagan era, CEOs have contrived to get more and more of the pie. Today they get 400 times what their peons make.
As a consequence we've seen a massive shift of America's wealth from the lower and middle classes to a handful of people at the top—those with incomes of $1M a year or more.
The recovery from the 2001 recession is the first in American history in which no one's real wages went up except for the wealthiest. Today most people's earning power is dropping substantially due to rapid inflation of most things ordinary people buy, coupled with ongoing deflation of our homes' values. Through the same period the CEO/investor class's income has zoomed upward—even for many CEOs whose companies' profits have dropped substantially.
Today most Americans believe
So if you believe in the flat tax, congratulations—it's here. But the vast majority of Americans' opinion about whether the rich are taxed enough is accurately represented by their opinion of today's Republican Party, which has gradually morphed from a small c conservative organization Eisenhower and Goldwater would recognize into an enabling organization for the corporatists' class war on
I'm sure most Americans would agree that CEOs, investors and rentiers deserve to make 20 times what entry-level workers earn. That's enough incentive for entrepreneurs around the world to do what they do. That's vastly different from Marxism, whose theory advocates paying everyone pretty much the same. It's also vastly different from Corporatism, which advocates letting rich people do whatever they like or else our economy will collapse like it did in the '50s. Not. Letting them do as they please caused the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. Giving them free rein from 2000 through 2006 produced a titanic deficit our great-grandchildren will still be paying off.
Taxes aren't inherently evil. They're how we keep our country going. I've been a many places where tax revenue is extremely low. You wouldn't want to live there.
8. You either like Steven’s [sic] ruling [sic] or the Supreme Court or Judge Thomas [sic] views. You either Think far left Judge’s Steven’s [sic], Bryer [sic], and Ginsburg have more common sense that all Judge on the right do and interruption of the Constitution"
Stevens and Thomas have voted together on a number of occasions. How does that fit your either/or model? Stevens is a decorated WWII veteran, a Republican appointee, a self-described legal conservative, and more Libertarian than Liberal in his voting patterns, and sometimes right over on the Right. For example, he authored the opinion that the Feds could prosecute medical marijuana cases within states—something I disagree with since it's based on an activist interpretation of the Commerce Clause. He voted to reinstate the death penalty. Are you some bleeding heart who objects to that? He voted to uphold states' rights to require photo ID from voters—a hot button right wing issue that solves a nonexistent problem. Overall his voting record over the last several years has been described as moderately conservative.
A plurality of Americans are pragmatic centrists, and if they studied the different justices they'd probably like Sandra Day O'Connor best. Thomas is an activist whose contempt for stare decisis shouldn't be very appealing to a small-c conservative. Stevens is a Republican appointee—as are seven of the nine justices. There are only two actual liberals on the court—insufficient for anything but writing impassioned dissents. The other seven comprise a range of Republicans from moderates to ultra-big-C Conservatives.
As a centrist I think the court's ideological composition should mirror that of
And as I've shown, it's ridiculous to call Justice Stevens "far left." If you think he's far left you don't get out much.
As for Breyer, even though he's considered to be the intellectual leader of SCOTUS' so-called liberal wing, calling him "far left" is almost equally ridiculous. For one thing, over the last 14 years he has voted to overturn congressional legislation less than any other justice, and that's over a period when Congress was controlled by the GOP. So you can't accuse him of rubber-stamping a liberal Congress. It is true that he isn't an originalist or a literalist, but that's not anything like pushing a left-wing agenda. It just means he's a pragmatist. I'd call him a moderate Democrat--nothing like the tenured radicals who pollute college liberal arts faculties.
Justice Ginsberg is certainly liberal, and I wouldn't want a whole court of Ginsbergs, as I've said. But one like her is good for the country, giving at least a quarter of the electorate a voice on the court. And here's something you might not know: she and Justice Scalia are close friends, often dining together and going to the opera.
8. "You don’t believe that riding in the middle of the Road you get hit from both ends . Your [sic] no fun in a debate about anything." Well…don't you think the viewpoint of at least 40% of the electorate should be represented in policy debates? As for getting hit from both ends…I've gotten used to it. And to me "both ends" are the same: people who derive reality from their ideas, while we derive our ideas from reality.
And on a practical level, any faction that won't talk to us won't win elections. And we're your natural allies in so many areas, such as illegal immigration, which most centrists stoutly oppose; English as the national language and ballots only in English, ditto; the death penalty under the guidelines I mentioned earlier; support for legitimate war efforts, such as in Afghanistan; amending the Constitution to close the loophole that permits anchor babies, and also to eliminate the loophole that mandates counting illegal immigrants in the census for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats.
I'd also amend the Constitution to mandate nonpartisan redistricting and requiring the position of state election chief to be nonpartisan, and to require all states to apportion Electors to the Electoral College by % of the popular vote in a state. That would force both parties to pay attention to all the states instead of just a baker's dozen battleground states.
These are all reforms that are neither Left nor Right—just fine-tuning our legal framework to make it work more fairly for everyone, not just Repubs or Demos.
You'd be well advised to focus on where we agree rather than on where we differ.
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