Confusing Political Terms Revisited
By Edward Daley (04/18/05)
In my previous article I asked if anyone could explain to me what a political moderate is, and within days of its publication I was swamped with answers to my query. In fact, more people have contacted me about this subject than practically all the others I've written about combined, and the surprisingly strong reaction to it has prompted me to follow-up my initial article with this one.
The topic, which I first perceived to be of only marginal interest to the general public, has proved to be a very divisive and controversial one indeed, and so I've decided to share with you some of the responses I've received via email and on various internet message boards regarding it.
Although most of the people I've come in contact with seem to hold negative opinions of moderates, I thought I should present an equal number of opinions from both the pro and con camps, if only for the sake of contrast.
The following quotes have been taken from written responses to my opinion article titled "Confusing Political Terms". I have only changed the wording of a few of them slightly in order to correct errors in spelling and grammar. The true identities of most of the authors are unknown to me, so I have decided not to attribute any of their remarks to anyone in particular.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/daley/050407
The first group of quotes is from people who have a negative opinion of moderates, and the second is from people who are either moderates themselves, or view them in a positive light. After each group I have added my own impressions of the opinions expressed therein.
--"Moderates never stand for anything strongly and never oppose anything meaningfully."
--"A moderate is someone who is able to see both sides of an issue and cannot commit to either side. That's because they would topple off their perch on the fence and rip themselves a 'new one' from that picket up their butts."
--"A moderate is an appeaser who waits for the world around him to define him."
--"A moderate must, perforce, always reach decisions on the basis of transitory utility. Lawyers are moderates."
--"A mom catches her little boy playing with himself in the bathroom, and says 'if you keep doing that you'll go blind!'
The boy thinks a minute and says 'can I do it until I need glasses?'
The little boy is a moderate."
--"A moderate is a liberal who needs to consult a mainstream media poll before demonstrating his or her stupidity."
--"A 'moderate' is someone who can't take his own side in a quarrel."
--"A moderate is a wolf in sheep's clothing."
--"The hallmark of a moderate is the willingness to settle for a comprise on anything. If you are able to stand firm, then you aren't a moderate."
After reading these statements, it's not difficult to understand why some people have a low opinion of moderates. To many, they are perceived as being incapable of committing to a cause, or unable to think for themselves. Moderates are often seen as disingenuous, weak, or downright cowardly. They are viewed with suspicion at best, and at worst, contempt.
--"A moderate does not think people holding a different viewpoint must be either morally defective or mind controlled."
--"Moderates like myself believe that Republicans and Democrats are equally right and equally wrong."
--"Moderates don't need parties to tell them what to think."
--"We moderates have expectations for politicians that are too damn high, so we are never truly satisfied. We actually expect them to fulfill promises, live up to American ideals, and remember why we voted for them."
--"A moderate believes in taking reasonable measures, even when everyone else is calling for something drastic."
--"I'm a moderate because I listen to people on all sides of an issue before making up my mind."
--"A moderate is a person with true convictions, who isn't swayed by party politics."
--"A moderate is someone who wants the right to stay out of his bedroom, and the left to stay out of his wallet."
--"A moderate is one who doesn't subscribe to any particular party platform."
The common thread weaving its way through these statements is that the views of moderates are not dependent upon, or limited to, the talking points of any particular party. To these folks, moderates are open-minded individuals, who consider all sides of an issue before reaching a conclusion. They are people of conviction, who find those on both the left and the right to be equally limited in their perspectives.
So I guess now is as good a time as any to get down to the nitty-gritty, as it were, and try to make sausage out of all this colorful meat.
Let me start by cannibalizing a famous line from the movie 'the Breakfast Club'. Each of us sees the moderate as we want to see him, in the simplest terms, and the most convenient definitions. We see him as an appeaser, a free thinker, a poser, a pragmatist, a dullard, and a sage.
It's clear that while most of us are content to refer to ourselves as either liberals or conservatives, there are some people who are not, and I'm not talking about those folks who call themselves moderate conservatives, or moderate liberals. In my mind, attaching the word moderate to either of the two primary ideological terms is like sticking a whistle up your backside to cover up a fart. The sound may not give you away, but there's no disguising the smell.
In my personal opinion, the average moderate probably wouldn't object to being called an Independent. However, since they, like most of us, generally think of Democrats as liberals, and Republicans as conservatives, just being called an Independent doesn't quite cut their mustard. Think about it... what ideology does the Independent voter embrace, if he considers himself to be neither a liberal nor a conservative?
Moderatism seems to be the answer to that question.
Then again, I could be wrong. After all, I'm just a raving, right-wing extremist. What the hell do I know?
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