Comments on: Fecking Brooks and the Moderates Up

By: Puttin’ Yer Dukes Up | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Puttin’ Yer Dukes Up | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen — Sat, 09 May 2009 08:05:10 +0000

[...] I’ve noted in the past, this is not an uncommon perception around the position of moderation and it is one that moderates [...]

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:00:48 +0000

I think the big problem is that many people believe “moderate” is an ideology that reflexively believes the truth lies between what the two sides are proposing. The recent example of that is the compromise on the stimulus package by Senators Snowe, Specter, and Nelson. They pared down the stimulus package without offering any reasons why what they were proposing was the right size to fit the economy. So we had people from the left saying the stimulus package was too small, people on the right decrying the long-term debt, both of them with some facts to support them. But nothing about why they decided to set it at that level other than due to an ideology of being moderate.

By: Mike at The Big Stick

Mike at The Big Stick — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:41:36 +0000

I’ve always looked at Centrists as being true fence-sitters. They can vote for more gun rights in the morning and vote in favor of gay marriage in the evening. They like unions and they are opposed to affirmative action. They are the Liebermans of America…the ones that like to keep us guessing. I also think many Americans think they are Centrists deep in their hearts, even if they have voted the party line in the last 6 elections.

Moderates I see as being more in the John McCain mold. They generally stick to the stereotypical conservative or liberal position, but are willing to take steps towards compromise when it suits them. They don’t have the Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid level of conviction but they aren’t caucusing with both sides as the wind blows.

By: Scott H. Payne

Scott H. Payne — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:09:05 +0000

I think you’re right about that, James. A big part of this post is about articulating an alternative vision for “moderatism” that diverges from the principle in a meaningful way that doesn’t conversely stretch notions of being a moderate beyond recognition.

By: James

James — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:05:41 +0000

Oh, in my first comment I wasn’t talking about moderates. But I do think that they’re led along by “The Goldilocks Principle” plenty.

By: Scott H. Payne

Scott H. Payne — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:01:41 +0000

I suppose, but that’s not what I took you to mean by “guiding principle” and I don’t think we need to ascribe anything so vague as that as a moderate’s basis for understanding the world. It’s not about moderates not having guiding/first principles, it’s more about their relationship to those principles.

By: James

James — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:36:32 +0000

If you were going to be pretentious about it you could argue that one of moderates’ guiding principles is Aristotle’s Golden Mean.

By: Scott H. Payne

Scott H. Payne — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:58:10 +0000

James Williams, I think at heart Obama is a moderate, yes. But Pelosi and Reid are anything but and Obama’s willingness to go along with their plans on some economic issues leaves people like Brooks with a different taste in their mouths. That taste is derived mostly from not looking at the whole of what Obama is doing on a broad spectrum of issues.

Mike, I think that a definition of centrist is much closer to how James describes pragmatists above, at least to my mind. Middle of the roaders whose primary aim is the achievement and maintenance of power. Moderates on the other hand are as I describe in the above post.

James, certainly pragmatists and moderates are not completely dissimilar, but my definition of of moderate doesn’t involve no guiding principles. Rather moderates will have guiding principles but be willing to work with them in a non-dogmatic manner and look at others’ guiding principles as useful sign posts. Also, I think the moderates’ guiding principles are not dictated by their ideological preference, their malleable ideological affiliation is an outcome of their guiding principles having value outside the perspective of that ideology.

The point you raise about pragmatism is a good one and in reality I think it points out that no one is a 100%, dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist.

By: James

James — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:24:31 +0000

This reminds me somewhat of the deeply enraging word “Pragmatist”, which somehow suggests that someone devoid of any guiding principles can be far more effective as a governor. “In acheiving what?” is the immediate, and never replied to, response to that proposition.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:18:01 +0000

I would suggest one starting point would be to define the difference between ‘moderate’ and ‘centrist’.