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Those Pesky Moderates

If you read between the lines here you'll note that there is something just slightly more 'pesky' to Rachel Maddow than moderates. That would be liberals. She, like many liberals, have tossed the term into the wastebasket and replaced it with the term 'progressive,' a label which apparently polls better among likely voters.

If conservatives decided to re-label themselves, just toss the term 'conservative' out completely and invent a whole new word, do you think anyone would buy it? And if conservatives were to do something like that... wouldn't that be an obvious indicator that the public believed 'conservatives' and 'conservatism' were failures?

:2wave:
 
Grateful Heart said:
If you read between the lines here you'll note that there is something just slightly more 'pesky' to Rachel Maddow than moderates. That would be liberals. She, like many liberals, have tossed the term into the wastebasket and replaced it with the term 'progressive,' a label which apparently polls better among likely voters.

If conservatives decided to re-label themselves, just toss the term 'conservative' out completely and invent a whole new word, do you think anyone would buy it? And if conservatives were to do something like that... wouldn't that be an obvious indicator that the public believed 'conservatives' and 'conservatism' were failures?

:2wave:
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Moderates are only good if they are on "our side". Otherwise they are worse than the enemy, right?

Well, they wouldn't say failures, they would say, stigma or negative connotation. ;)

As for name changes like that, yeah I suppose it would be almost an admission. The other thing that works is that liberalism has changed a lot in 100 years, so changing the name to distinguish schools of American liberal thought was probably a good thing as well. It was 1) Liberal, 2) New Left 3) Progressive...which one sounds cooler?
 
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Fiddytree said:
Moderates are only good if they are on "our side". Otherwise they are worse than the enemy, right?
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Oh no...among your "very conservatives" here on this board, if you are a moderate then you are just as bad as Code Pink. The "very conservatives" on this board tend to spit the word "liberal" at us moderates like it's a gypsy curse set to rot our posting fingers. They hate us.

But it's ok because a lot of them are far more liberal than most far leftists.
 
jallman said:
Oh no...among your "very conservatives" here on this board, if you are a moderate then you are just as bad as Code Pink. The "very conservatives" on this board tend to spit the word "liberal" at us moderates like it's a gypsy curse set to rot our posting fingers. They hate us.

But it's ok because a lot of them are far more liberal than most far leftists.
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That's something I would expect a liberal posing as a moderate to say!

;)
 
Unfortunately there is a range of moderat-ism. There are many who are frankly spineless peons who do nothing but occasionally vote. And often vote based on who's bribing them the most with self-gratification and/or money. On the other side are moderates that have solid left and right beliefs (social liberal/fiscal conservative or vice versa) which is very disconcerting for them when it comes time to vote. Sadly the first mentioned group outweighs the second mentioned group.

Hence moderates get shat on because frankly alot of them deserve to be while those that don't have to take residual flak.

There are many centrists and "moderates" who have earned my respect on these boards and elsewhere for their firm beliefs which may not coincide with mine. However, there are a great deal of pretenders and limb-noodle scum who grant themselves those titles as an ideology shield or excuse who have earned my ire and pure contention.

p.s.- who is this lady and why have MSNBC saddled themselves with a female version of Olbermann. Come to think of it, why is Olbermann better looking than her (this is coming from a straight guy)?! :rofl
 
Grateful Heart said:
If conservatives decided to re-label themselves, just toss the term 'conservative' out completely and invent a whole new word, do you think anyone would buy it? And if conservatives were to do something like that... wouldn't that be an obvious indicator that the public believed 'conservatives' and 'conservatism' were failures?

:2wave:
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Wait a minute, they already got the "Right". In other words, the correct, good, and true party.

Democrats, on the other hand (yuk-yuk) got stuck with the "Left" which is associated with the Devil or Temptation. That is why we throw salt over our left shoulder after spilling some; To hit the devil in the eye.

The Republicans also got the mighty elephant, while Dems got stuck with a jackass--thanks to Andrew Jackson's opponents.

If the Repubicans were to rebrand, I'd go with the Movers&Shakers or the Freedomists.
 
jallman said:
Oh no...among your "very conservatives" here on this board, if you are a moderate then you are just as bad as Code Pink. The "very conservatives" on this board tend to spit the word "liberal" at us moderates like it's a gypsy curse set to rot our posting fingers. They hate us.

But it's ok because a lot of them are far more liberal than most far leftists.
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The sort of argument between who is a true believer and who isn't, and whether one needs to be a true believer?

Keorythe said:
Unfortunately there is a range of moderat-ism. There are many who are frankly spineless peons who do nothing but occasionally vote. And often vote based on who's bribing them the most with self-gratification and/or money. On the other side are moderates that have solid left and right beliefs (social liberal/fiscal conservative or vice versa) which is very disconcerting for them when it comes time to vote. Sadly the first mentioned group outweighs the second mentioned group.

Hence moderates get shat on because frankly alot of them deserve to be while those that don't have to take residual flak.

There are many centrists and "moderates" who have earned my respect on these boards and elsewhere for their firm beliefs which may not coincide with mine. However, there are a great deal of pretenders and limb-noodle scum who grant themselves those titles as an ideology shield or excuse who have earned my ire and pure contention.

p.s.- who is this lady and why have MSNBC saddled themselves with a female version of Olbermann. Come to think of it, why is Olbermann better looking than her (this is coming from a straight guy)?! :rofl
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You know, I have always heard of the spineless and the apathetic moderates, but I haven't the same conviction about the "designation" if you will. I tend to think of moderates as being people who tend to be either firm believers in individual positions that will range all over the political map, or will be favored towards moderation,skepticism, and a bit of optimism.

And that is Racheal Maddow: a woman who irritates me more than Keith or Bill O' Reilly ever could.
 
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hazlnut said:
Wait a minute, they already got the "Right". In other words, the correct, good, and true party.
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True... but note that once the term 'right' gained in popularity under Reagan in the early 1980's... the MSM was quick to popularize the term 'religious-right.' And we all know that the 'religious-right' is a very, very, very scary bunch. Scarier than the 'religious-left', a voting block of Jeremiah Wright types we hardly ever hear about.

;)
 
For twenty years the leadership of the GOP has deliberately tried to destroy moderates and centrists in both parties, from Clinton to Jim Jeffords, to make the political center a scorched no-man’s-land. The aim was to force America to choose between the far right and the far left, in the hope that America would always choose the far right. They steered the national debate toward wedge issues and so forth. They tried to drive Obama, or at least Obama’s image, way to the left, screaming “socialist” at him for months.

Conservatives had their big powwow in Virginia to discuss the future of the GOP. They determined that the GOP lost the election because they didn’t stick to their far-right principles. They refuse to believe that Palin drove some voters away from the GOP. They were actually glad that some moderate Republicans lost. They declared that the moderate wing of the GOP is dead: they will not tolerate candidates who are “squishy” on conservative principles and will turn their backs on moderates. They will only support people who want fiscal restraint (i.e. Bush’s tax cuts), opposition to abortion, tough border security and a strong national defense. Others like Michael Reagan have echoed the sentiment: the moderates are not real Republicans, and they betrayed the cause.

The party moderates want desperately to send the backward racist loons on their march, behind T. Rex and the dodo, on the path to extinction. They want them stuffed, mounted, and displayed in the Smithsonian along with their intellectual equals in the Cro-Magnon family. They know that the GOP can only win national elections by expanding their numbers with centrists and independents. But how do they do it? The rightwing loons run the party, and they control the congressional caucuses, the donors, the think tanks. By driving the less-hardy moderates out of the tent, they have improved their numerical advantage over the moderates, ensuring that the centrists can neither take over the party power structure, nor win any battles on issues, nor recruit more moderates into the party to expand the numbers of the centrists. Seldom have the GOP moderates even won a hearing, let alone a battle, on Capitol Hill, or anywhere else – the far right even forced McCain to go to the right for his VP pick, leading to the fatal choice of Palin. All they can hope for, is for younger voters to push aside the hardliners in the next decade or two.

If the party lasts that long.
 
HelloDollyLlama said:
For twenty years the leadership of the GOP has deliberately tried to destroy moderates and centrists in both parties, from Clinton to Jim Jeffords, to make the political center a scorched no-man’s-land. The aim was to force America to choose between the far right and the far left, in the hope that America would always choose the far right. They steered the national debate toward wedge issues and so forth. They tried to drive Obama, or at least Obama’s image, way to the left, screaming “socialist” at him for months.

Conservatives had their big powwow in Virginia to discuss the future of the GOP. They determined that the GOP lost the election because they didn’t stick to their far-right principles. They refuse to believe that Palin drove some voters away from the GOP. They were actually glad that some moderate Republicans lost. They declared that the moderate wing of the GOP is dead: they will not tolerate candidates who are “squishy” on conservative principles and will turn their backs on moderates. They will only support people who want fiscal restraint (i.e. Bush’s tax cuts), opposition to abortion, tough border security and a strong national defense. Others like Michael Reagan have echoed the sentiment: the moderates are not real Republicans, and they betrayed the cause.

The party moderates want desperately to send the backward racist loons on their march, behind T. Rex and the dodo, on the path to extinction. They want them stuffed, mounted, and displayed in the Smithsonian along with their intellectual equals in the Cro-Magnon family. They know that the GOP can only win national elections by expanding their numbers with centrists and independents. But how do they do it? The rightwing loons run the party, and they control the congressional caucuses, the donors, the think tanks. By driving the less-hardy moderates out of the tent, they have improved their numerical advantage over the moderates, ensuring that the centrists can neither take over the party power structure, nor win any battles on issues, nor recruit more moderates into the party to expand the numbers of the centrists. Seldom have the GOP moderates even won a hearing, let alone a battle, on Capitol Hill, or anywhere else – the far right even forced McCain to go to the right for his VP pick, leading to the fatal choice of Palin. All they can hope for, is for younger voters to push aside the hardliners in the next decade or two.

If the party lasts that long.
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After the liberal presidential candidates were thoroughly humiliated in the 1980, '84, and '88 elections, were you equally as adamant that the Democrat party should abandon its liberal core values?

:rofl
 
Most moderates are really liberals.
 
Tucker Case said:
I'm both very conservative and have Donkeys under my name! That makes me a true moderate! :2razz:
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Andrew Jackson preferred the term jackass over donkey......but I suppose you can be PC if you like...
 
Fiddytree said:
Moderates are only good if they are on "our side". Otherwise they are worse than the enemy, right?
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No.

Moderates suck big weinies. They can't make up their mind, they can't verbalize an ideological basis for their views, let alone a rational basis, and they can't be trusted to stay put.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No.

Moderates suck big weinies. They can't make up their mind, they can't verbalize an ideological basis for their views, let alone a rational basis, and they can't be trusted to stay put.
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but not yours, right?
Moderates don't bind their brains ability to reason, we don't enslave themselves to artificial ideology, we tend to look at each issue individually. We don't need an extremist mantra to chant....
 
UtahBill said:
but not yours, right?
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No. Not mine. You're absolutely right about that.

I can verbalize the derivation of my political philosophy from first principles using logic.

UtahBill said:
Moderates don't bind their brains ability to reason, we don't enslave themselves to artificial ideology, we tend to look at each issue individually. We don't need an extremist mantra to chant....
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Sure you're blind to reason.

Moderates refuse to accept the perfectly reasonable principle that, for one example, my money isn't a solution to their problems, or anyone else's.

Their artificial ideology is that they're ideas are better because they can't verbalize their rationale. That's just great, isn't it?

And I tend to look at each individual as a person, not a solution to someone else's problems.

I respect the power of free choice, and I respect that people that make choices shouldn't expect to harm or rob someone else to escape the consequences of that choice. Moderates, by the very fact that they have to compromise with socialists, deny everyone real choice.

I understand the Constitution and apply it to the problems of the day. Moderates can't handle the Constitution. It keeps telling them "no", and they can't accept that.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No. Not mine. You're absolutely right about that.

I can verbalize the derivation of my political philosophy from first principles using logic.



Sure you're blind to reason.

Moderates refuse to accept the perfectly reasonable principle that, for one example, my money isn't a solution to their problems, or anyone else's.

Their artificial ideology is that they're ideas are better because they can't verbalize their rationale. That's just great, isn't it?

And I tend to look at each individual as a person, not a solution to someone else's problems.

I respect the power of free choice, and I respect that people that make choices shouldn't expect to harm or rob someone else to escape the consequences of that choice. Moderates, by the very fact that they have to compromise with socialists, deny everyone real choice.

I understand the Constitution and apply it to the problems of the day. Moderates can't handle the Constitution. It keeps telling them "no", and they can't accept that.
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Those pesky moderates. Intellectually inferior to our agenda.
 
The problem with moderates to me is they help enshrine a very one dimensional view of politics. They call themselves moderates but they actually only moderate between two particular ideological areas. The call for moderation in this sense does tend to exclude not only the extremes in those areas but other areas. At least to me anyway.
 
Wessexman said:
The problem with moderates to me is they help enshrine a very one dimensional view of politics. They call themselves moderates but they actually only moderate between two particular ideological areas. The call for moderation in this sense does tend to exclude not only the extremes in those areas but other areas. At least to me anyway.
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The problem with moderates is that they don't realize that many times there is no middle ground. Compromise isn't always the answer. Sometimes one side of the issue is flat wrong.

Almost all the time that side of the issue is espoused by the Left, since they're assumption is that someone else's freedom is a bargaining chip they're allowed to play with.

Moderates enable the left to use that chip, because moderates don't stand up for freedom.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Moderates refuse to accept the perfectly reasonable principle that, for one example, my money isn't a solution to their problems, or anyone else's[/BTheir artificial ideology is that they're ideas are better because they can't verbalize their rationale. That's just great, isn't it?

And I tend to look at each individual as a person, not a solution to someone else's problems.
I respect the power of free choice, and I respect that people that make choices shouldn't expect to harm or rob someone else to escape the consequences of that choice. Moderates, by the very fact that they have to compromise with socialists, deny everyone real choice.

I understand the Constitution and apply it to the problems of the day. Moderates can't handle the Constitution. It keeps telling them "no", and they can't accept that.
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My neighbor lost his job, he worked for an architectural firm. Business is very slow and half the staff got laid off. I will be paying him with my money to help sovle his problem. He will help hang sheetrock in my basement. Is that OK with you?
Somehow, I have never felt that the constitution tells me no about anything related to being a moderate, but that is just me....
Ubercons, and farlefties, are at the ends of the political spectrum, and do NOT represent the majority, but want to be the tail that wags the dog.
Not gonna happen. Neither end of the spectrum has ever had that power for very long, if at all.
 
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