Centerfield

GRRRR.... That (quote) really really aggravates me. Idiot! Being "centrist" does NOT mean that one "sees value in everyone's viewpoints". What a stupid thing to say. (I hope James Taranto is reading the comments.)

Anyway... sorry to get all P.O.ed in your comments. Way to make a first impression, huh? I could say more but I think I might save it for a rant for my own blog. :-)

Oops. I guess Frank is the guilty party. In that case I'm not sure how seriously I should take it.

It's just a little something called satire. No big whoop.

Moderates are better than petty, partisan circle-jerkers.

The left/right debate is played.

Yeah, it's satire. And funny. Especially the last line.

But it is satire in the sense of "this is something I kinda sorta believe about these people" ... not in the sense of "this is such an outragous thing to say it's funny".

It's like Al Franken's satire. Reflects his beliefs.

Jonah Goldberg wrote a few years ago on the difference (in his view) between "moderate" and "centrist":

We are all familiar with the problem of centrists in politics. All moderates think they're centrists, which is what usually but not always gives centrism such a bad name. Moderates believe in splitting the differences. The mean-spirited conservatives don't want a federal program designed to guarantee that small children never again get splinters. The impractical liberals want to implement the program, costing billions, right away. The moderate splits the difference and carries on as if he's incredibly brave for introducing legislation that will make a "fiscally responsible down payment" on this much-needed program. It should come as no surprise that these are the politicians I despise the most.

But there are some self-described "centrists" who actually are centrists. These are the ones who actually arrive at a middle position because they believe it is the right way to go, without ever going through the hassle of splitting the differences. On gun control, for example, a lot of people believe that guns should be legal but hard to get. And they draw that conclusion without splitting the difference between the NRA and Handgun Control Inc. Rather, they make a legitimate compromise between principle and reality, not between principle and the unprincipled.

Generally, I'm not a huge fan of these folks either, but they're infinitely preferable to the moderates who concede vast swaths of rhetorical ground to the Left but hide behind a burning desire to find "common ground" or to avoid spending too much money.

Discuss amongst yourselves, Centerfielders...

Ick, the blockquote tag doesn't work here... The second, third, and forth grafs in the above post are Goldberg's.

Ah- But what makes humor funny is that there must be a ring of truth to it....

***I bet right now a moderate is reading this and partially agreeing with it. Damn you!***

---Frank, you have a point. Not a good one, but it is barbed. ---

Score one for Frank.

(geeze I can't even make italics and bold? What is the point of being on the web?)

By popular demand I've turned on HTML tags.

William Swann: But it is satire in the sense of "this is something I kinda sorta believe about these people" ... not in the sense of "this is such an outragous thing to say it's funny".

the former is the satire, the latter is not satire.
satire != comedy

I consider myself a centrist, moderate, neocon, whatever. My take was always more that I agree with liberals on some issues, conservatives on others. I agree strongly with some positions, and some place in the middle on others. I guess I tend to think that anyone who is just trying to be in the middle, as Taranto tends to assume moderates or centrists are, is not what most people who consider themselves moderate are. For example, I am pro choice on abortion, and I am a second amendment supporter. I am not really anywhere near the middle on either issue, that is just what makes sense to me in evaluating both issues.

Even more, I think that you would find that most centrists are people who were liberals and at least were and are more comfortable with liberal culture, that agree with liberals on abortion and gay rights more or less, and with conservatives on most everything else. Something close to this, with maybe a variation on an issue or two off that. Schwarznegger Republicans maybe we could call it.

Michael H.'s description of his politics comes close to describing mine also. I probably agree with liberals on most issues but the liberals who are making the most noise these days are such twits I'm embarrassed to wear the same label. On the other hand, while I mostly agree with the conservatives on foreign policy I still find them backwards and mean-spirited on many issues and way too cozy with big corporations and religious groups, so I don't want to be called a conservative either. So what's left?

Most people don't like someone who doesn't fit neatly in either the liberal or conservative camp because they see them as one of the "enemy."

Touché Paul:

You beat me to it with:

***I bet right now a moderate is reading this and partially agreeing with it. Damn you!***

---Frank, you have a point. Not a good one, but it is barbed. ---

But on the serious side, I'm curious what the moderate or centrist "position" in the US is? Understand that I'm a Canadian, but an odd one it seems - I used to work literally next door to the World Trade Center.

To this point, I'm squarely in the current US President's camp on how everything is progressing. What's the stated alternative that a centrist is offering?

-Vic

Many centrists, like myself, are a bit schizophrenic on the issues--left on some, right on others--rather than down the line centrist on every one.

As regards myself, I attribute it to having a working class background and an Ivy League education. An Ivy League education has a liberalizing effect. The working class background, contrary to Marxism, is what makes me more conservative than many of my peer who are the children of affluent professionals.

Being a hard nosed centrist my only option is to live in the middle of nowhere with you guys!!

Just want to say that I think two of the comments above -- John Tabin, per the quote from Jonah Goldberg, and Michael H. -- pretty much hit the nail on the head.

There are a variety of kinds of moderates. Some try to "split the difference" and find the middle ground on each issue. Others mix stronger positions drawn from both sides of the political spectrum.

I believe in the second kind -- the one's Goldberg describes as "centrists", and I think he's right that the term centrist is more often used to describe those of us who are more activist, movement type centrists, while "moderate" tends to include the middle segment of the electorate that is probably less opinionated in regard to specific issues and more oriented to a general pragmatism.

Whoa! You want to let him get away with that? I don't know about you, but I have s set of very firmly held beliefs.

The fact that they might be called "centrist" or "moderate" does not mean that I am in "partial agreement" with the extremes. However, to their credit, some of the beliefs that they hold are in partial agreement with me.

Unfortunately, not enough. In their goals to stake out their "conservative" or "liberal" manifestos, and to cast all arguments into "us" vs "them", they are in profound disagreement with some of my most firmly held beliefs:

1 - The world is not black and white, and there are more than two sides to most arguments. Not all of the real situation may have revealed itself when the argument begins.

2. Ideologies do not work for the real world. The Law of Unintended Consequences requires that you constantly revisit and adjust your strategy to conform with reality as it unfolds, if you want it to actually work.

(Save ideology for your religion, where you only find out whether or not you were right when you die, and where the consequences of your beliefs are yours alone. But remember that God gave you a mind and the ability to reason; my belief system tells me that he expects us to use them.)

3. The Law of Unintended Consequences reigns supreme. See 1 and 2.

Are you willing to allow the "two sides" to stake out the extremes and claim they own and get to apply all the labels?

Not me. I walked into a political/economic discussion not long ago between a couple of folks who identified themselves by the "liberal" and "conservative" labels. I made some observations with which both found themselves agreeing.

As they did, they tried to figure out whether they could identify me with their label; "So, would you call yourself left or right?" one of them asked.

"Neither left nor right," I smiled. "I just happen to be correct."

It was a good zinger, and of course it doesn't apply to all situations and I don't claim to have a perfect view of the world (see points above). Nevertheless, I had made my point.

I truly believe that thoughtful reason by enlightened, educated people who do not filter their view of reality through ideological shades can come up with better and more practical policies than those who follow scripts from ideological playbooks.

Especially if they always keep in mind point 3.

"Exactly. The free exchange of ideas between dis-agreeing parties is now worthless in light of our new-found ability to ignore issues and chat amicably."

In terms of the left and right sides of the blogosphere, I'm not sure there are that many places where there is a constructive free exchange of ideas. In most cases, people aren't listening to the other side of the argument -- just looking for the newest zinger and crafting the latest ad hominem.

There are exceptions to that pattern. To my mind, Drezner's site is the best single place for reasoned, thoughtful discussion. Tacitus does a good job too.

There are places to really discuss politics. But far more places where opinions are expressed but never really examined critically, because the point is essentially to "hit" the opposition rather than genuinely examining the issue.

Also, to address your second point, what makes you think we "ignore issues"?

Centrist versus moderate versus independent versus ideologically androgynous.

What are you if you are not following a party lockstep?

I have strong beliefs that correlate with Ds on this issue and Rs on that. For Taranto to assume that a moderate must be "squishy" is rather unsophisticated, and the mark of a man who does not have many friends of differing backgrounds.

More generally, does anyone else think it is bothersome that political discourse in this country is filled with popular books recounting "Lying Lies," "Big Lies," "Thieves . . . Who Stole our Country" from the left about the right and "Treason," "Slander" from the right about the left.

I know alot of Democrats and Republican political leaders who are good people committed to positive visions for our country. I know as many assholes who are Republicans as who are Democrats.

Demonizing the enemy solidifies one's base, but it also makes discussion more difficult, and as Taranto makes clear, a neutral is trusted by neither.

I guess that respcting someone qualifies as seeing their viewpoint. My bad!

Ducktape,

I've been reading your 3 laws. Reading and re-reading and trying to come up with a way to reconcile what I see to be two competing points. First being that everything we do has consquences we can't control and the other being that we should have strong opinions that defy labels.

Then it hit me: You want to feel strongly, but not at the risk of changing anything. Because taking a stand or attempting to change anything (which would require and ideology) would have "unintended consequences", apparently negative ones from the way you invoke the law.

But a more thorough understanding of the law would include both the consequences of action and inaction. To say it another way, not having an ideology will screw us at least as bad (and in my opinion, much worse) as having widely divergent opinions. To say it yet another way, the Law of Unintended Consequences applies no matter what the circumstance, so there's really no point in using it to defend a political (or any other stance).

If you really want to use a natural law, I'd say that game theory (Nash's "Governing Dynamics") would be more applicable. It's the competition of motives that provide the best result to the largest population. It's more like a mode, less like a mean.

Alan,

Nothing that I said has to do with not taking any action. The Law of Unintended Consequences also does NOT assume that all unintended consequences that result are negative. It merely states that all actions have consequences that are unforeseen. Perhaps I should call it the Law of Unanticipated Consequences.

It doesn't mean inaction. The Law equally applies to the "action" of leaving things the way they are when circumstances are changing. Ceteris paribus is unreality; the world is always changing and revealing a new reality.

What it does mean is that, if you want to have the best chance of achieving your goal, you need to recognize that you cannot anticipate all of the consequences (and likely cannot even see all of the current reality), that you will need to revisit your assessment of reality and modify your course of action as you go along. By corollary, that means that the more rapidly and radically you take actions before you pause and reassess, the more likely you'll find that reality on which your course of action was based has changed from your beginning assumptions.

It doesn't mean you don't take action; it means that you stay flexible as you act, and have fallback positions that change as you move along your path. It also means that you will be more successful with a broadly-defined goal or final destination than you will with a narrowly-defined path to get there.

Let me pull this out of politics for a moment and talk about business, where all of the same rules apply (as, I believe, they do in all of life).

Would you invest all of your money in a company whose CEO did NOT recognize in the Law of Unintended Consequences? Especially if the company had a business plan was one that had worked before, but in a different time and economy, but was being touted as a great plan for today because it was a "proven success"? Would you accuse the CEO of "flip flopping" if he evaluated the market as it developed and modified the business plan? And how would you feel if he executed a business plan that was based on flawed assumptions that were never revisited, and then said "well, hindsight is 20-20"?

There is a great deal more at stake in the direction of our country than there is in any business.

You are trying to create a straw man, and I'm sorry, I don't play. My own business survived my industry's shakeout because recognition of the Law gave me the ability to avoid the black hole that caught most others, and the flexibility to move on an opportunity that I had not anticipated (which opened up because some others' unintended consequences).

I believe it, and I live it. A philosophy and overall goals are entirely different from ideological playbooks. Maybe they don't make as good sound bites, but a flexible game plan towards goals that is constantly modified based on reality has a lot better chance of coming close to its success than a cast-in-concrete ideology.

Vic did you notice something?

To this point, I'm squarely in the current US President's camp on how everything is progressing. What's the stated alternative that a centrist is offering?

Words and words and words talking about how wonderful it is to be a centrist.

Not a single one of them had an idea.

Centrists are ALWAYS far more interested in talking about themselves than solutions.

Don't believe me??? Reread this thread.

ROFLMAO! "Centrists are ALWAYS...."

You don't get it, do you? We're the swing voters - the ones that YOU have to convince. There is no "Centrist" or "Moderate" party with its own people to trot out to the Sunday talk shows.

The one thing we probably have in common is that we don't drink your KoolAid!

Why does anyone here care what you think about "Centrists"? We're not after your vote. Go troll somewhere else before you do your cause some harm.

Ducktape and Alan: Regarding your laws as a way of looking at this, I generally agree, the way I have looked at is that reality changes over time. Our actions and policies do have effects, and sometimes if not often ones we never thought of beforehand. I think of Reagan saying that he did not leave the Democratic party, it left him. The world changed and the Democratic party did not, as far as he was concerned.

I think people get stuck in ideological positions and it blinds them to the fact that things have changed, sometimes radically, over time. I heard this married couple I know bragging that they were still the liberals they were in the 60's, and I thought, well you are out of touch with reality then, hello!

In 25 words or less, I think what happened is that in the 50's-60's white males acheived a high level of success, and liberals brought about equality more or less for every other group through the political action since then. Somewhere in the 80's women and other races acheived more or less parity of opportunity, and what is happening now is that the non-white non-male groups that have gained access now have to use it with responsibility. So in that sense I see the conservatives now being the progressive group, and I tend to align with them on that at this point.

Hope that makes sense (in this little tiny box to write in), my point is that the world goes back and forth between the concerns of liberals and conservatives, and at any point in time one or the other is more needed to achieve a proper balance. People get too ideological, for example still thinking racism is as bad as it ever was and is as urgent as it was in 1955, rather than being willing to see what is going to take blacks forward a lot more now is to get off the victim who needs rescuing trip and more toward taking personal individual responsibility for taking the next step forward.

WTF is Ducktape?