Centerfield

Throw sand in the bull's eye.

IMO, we're not partisan only in the sense of not being overtly partisan for either the democrats or the republicans. It doesn't mean we don't have some values that we think are inherently better.

Speaking only in this sense, we're not partisan because we have seen and rejected the opposite sides of the coins that are partisan arguments, pious oversimplifications, dramatic distortions.

We're not partisans because of the way we view data as both essential and to be viewed with an eye to its limits. We don't start with a viewpoint and look for data to support it while ignoring data that doesn't support it. We start with a hypothesis that can be reinforced or discredited. We strive for self-correction in our views.

Most importantly, we know what we don't know, cheerfully admit what we don't know, and regard excess certainty in political matters with the highest suspicion.

On these values, critical thinking values, I for one am EXTREMELY partisan.

The difference between us and wing partisans is the difference between a working hypothesis and facts in search of verification.

Posted by: bk at July 20, 2004 01:44 PM

Simple. Both major parties keep pissing me off.

When the Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about sex, I vowed never to join the Republican Party. If they had censured him, that would have been fine. Clinton lied under oath. And for that, disbarment was a punishment that fit the crime. But trying to create a constitutional crisis by removing a sitting president for covering up personal indiscretions was completely beyond me.

Just when I could have been drafted into the other party, the Democrats accused Bush of knowing about 9/11, then ignoring the signs of 9/11, then lying to the American people about Iraq's WMD even though many Democrats had sworn that Saddam Hussein was developing them, etc. We're in a war, and lefties are trying to take cheap shots at our president, and they are weakening the country as a result.

Plus, I don't understand the arbitrary lines between liberals and conservatives. Liberals want to legalize marijuana and outlaw cigarettes. Conservatives want to defend tobacco smokers but keep marijuana illegal. They're just plants that grow from the ground, and I believe people should be able to smoke both. The traditional positions seem somewhat contradictory.

In short, I can't align myself with any party because I can't trust any of them.

Posted by: Staunch Moderate at July 20, 2004 02:26 PM

Simple. Both major parties keep pissing me off.

LOL! I second the motion, SM.

And what Bryan said. As I said to Perlstein, I'm an agnostic empiricist. Show me the data. I'm not interested in theology, I'm interested in results. I like using facts to form conclusions, not using pre-determined conclusions to hammer the facts into ideological format in the avoidance of cognitive dissonance.

Partisans seem to believe you must be partisan to have beliefs at all, or that if your beliefs don't match theirs you must then be from the Other Side. I dissent.

We place no reliance
on Virgin nor Pigeon;
our method is Science,
our aim is Religion.

Kind of an odd context to quote Aleister Crowley in, but somehow the sentiment seems appropriate.

Posted by: Tully at July 20, 2004 03:53 PM

Yeah, I agree with SM. I can't convince my brain to swallow the entirety of either party. Republicans are economic libertarians and social authoritarians, while Democrats are economic authoritarians and social libertarians. The state of the parties today is not the product of some divine forge of ideology, but an accidental conglomeration of years and years of political wrangling. Think about it, if you want your vote to be an actual piece of political currency, you have to support one of those parties, for all their warts. Likewise, if you want to be a viable politician, you have to become a pro-tobacco anti-marijuana Republican, or an anti-tobacco pro-marijuana Democrat. As contradictory as it is, the system perpetuates itself.

Posted by: Epic at July 20, 2004 04:10 PM

If only Pragmatism were a political party, Tully. There is a natural science party. But I don't even think they qualify as a third party. Maybe a seventh party.

Posted by: Epic at July 20, 2004 04:13 PM

The real reason I'm non-aligned is probably a heavy dose of personal iconoclasm. I'm a contrary kind of guy.

But honestly, it's fairly convenient to be an independent here in Ohio. We're relatively close to being an open primary state -- I can vote in either party's primary by requesting their ballot at the polls.

Thus, I was able to vote for McCain in 2000, and Edwards in 2004, even though neither of them won the primary. What would I do if I was a consistent Republican or Democrat? I would lack appealing choices in at least one of the last two presidential elections.

Posted by: William Swann at July 20, 2004 05:19 PM

My working hypothesis is that people who identify themselves as centrists--some, not all, but especially those who make it a big part of their political identity--carry around a set of sedimented political assumptions just as rigid as partisans of the left and right.

When I get the time to work out my guest post I'll be illustrating the thesis more deeply.

Rick perlstein

Posted by: Rick Perlstein at July 20, 2004 05:27 PM

To echo what others have said, I don't consider myself a partisan because I don't think any 'side' in the current political landscape has a monopoly on good ideas or decent people. My personal bundle of political ideas and axioms don't all come from the same portion of the political spectrum, and so they don't interact to form a nice, smooth, hermetically-sealed worldview.

I also don't care for partisanship because in my experience it tends to produce sloppy overgeneralization about people and ideas.

How did I get this way? I think mainly by living and travelling broadly, and interacting with lots of different sorts of people. The liberals that I know don't wish for the destruction of America, and the conservatives I know don't blindly follow Bush. Both groups do have a lot of funny ideas about each other, though.

Posted by: David Fleck at July 20, 2004 06:03 PM

Perl, thank you so much for accusing us of holding strong political positions. I get tired of wing-nuts arguing that all moderates are weak-kneed, test-the-waters, go-which-way-the-wind-blows wussies. Yes, I do have very strong opinions. But sitting in the middle of the political tempest, I can see that there's no way everyone will agree. So pragmatism and compromise are often the best way to achieve our goals.

Posted by: Staunch Moderate at July 20, 2004 06:08 PM

...people who identify themselves as centrists...carry around a set of sedimented political assumptions just as rigid as partisans of the left and right

And this is surprising...how? I would assume just about everybody who thinks about politics carries around a core set of assumptions about how the world works.

Posted by: David Fleck at July 20, 2004 06:12 PM

This post from last October summarizes part of my philosophy: http://www.centristcoalition.com/blog/archives/000129.html

Another major factor in my thinking is that neither the liberals nor the conservatives are going to disappear soon, nor is the public at large going to behave exactly as the ideologies of the right or left predict. (One constant in human affairs is that someone can and eventually WILL figure out how to cheat a system!)

That leads me to echo what Staunch Moderate said about the importance of pragmatism and compromise. In fact, the absence of a willingness to compromise is what makes the current one-party control of government distasteful to many -- and I'm old enough to remember that this has not always been the case.

BALANCE is key. That's why, although in my early adult life I thought of myself as a Lincoln Republican, I now find myself supporting Democratic candidates much of the time simply because the 'other' side needs a more effective voice in government.

Also, I think it is important to keep a balance between the COMPETITIVE forces and the COOPERATIVE forces in our world. When one becomes too dominant, it's not good for the general welfare or the pursuit of happiness.

Finally, I believe it's important to understand the arguments and assumptions of each side ON THEIR OWN TERMS, not just through the lense of my own worldview. This requires a willingness to dialogue and empathize rather than simply grab the stock solution from the shelf. (I like the thought that we have TWO ears and only ONE mouth for a reason!)

Excellent topic and comments!

Posted by: Erasmus at July 20, 2004 07:48 PM

How did I get this way? I think mainly by living and travelling broadly, and interacting with lots of different sorts of people. The liberals that I know don't wish for the destruction of America, and the conservatives I know don't blindly follow Bush. Both groups do have a lot of funny ideas about each other, though.

Thank you, David. This is something that just doesn't get noticed. There's quite a gap between the way real people are and the stereotypes that prevail on either side.

The folks that I know who strongly identify with either side -- solid liberals or solid conservatives -- get along with each other pretty naturally, it seems. I'm not sure there's as much of a sense of "values gap" between real people of opposing political persuasions, as opposed to the professionals in each camp.

I've lived in a mostly conservative milieu -- grew up in the south, attended on of the most conservative college campuses in the country, and now live in the midwest. I worked for a while in the traditionally conservative banking industry.

I've worked with and for lots of conservatives, but I have yet to encounter anyone who wasn't open, inclusive, and supportive towards the folks in our office with a different sexual orientation.

On the other side, you have my wife, who is a lifelong Democrat and so liberal that she embraces the term "socialist". She's in a stereotypically liberal occupation -- social worker -- and she works with the elderly population.

You might be surprised how easily and intuitively she understands the concept of "tough love" -- of not doing things for her little-old-lady clients that they can do for themselves. She really pushes them, with a remarkable intuition for when it needs to be done. It's a gear she shifts into automatically, easily, every day in her job.

Seems like there are conservative values floating out there in liberal America, and liberal values floating out there in conservative America.

And there's even a possibility that if centrists took office, folks on both sides would largely appreciate and understand the kind of government they're getting.

Posted by: William Swann at July 20, 2004 08:48 PM

William, I think you're on the money. Why I posted this article in my Odds and Ends post this weekend.

The article says that it isn't the mass of voters that have polarized, so much as the party leaderships and die-hard faithful.

Posted by: Tully at July 20, 2004 09:34 PM

I wrote in a related vein a few months back
about my belief that extremism and fear are
tightly related.

See http://www.centristcoalition.com/blog/archives/000376.html

(how did I get this way? runs in the family)

Posted by: Jon Kay at July 21, 2004 03:51 AM

The only part of RP's characterization that I find objectionable is "sedimented," which I am interpreting to mean "settled" and not open to re-examination in light of new facts.

Now I don't suppose this can be entirely inaccurate if I am to be able to have any core values whatsoever. However, one of my strongest core values, sedimented if you will, is the assumption that it's very important to be aware of such things as the possibility that your views might be becoming sedimented. I spend a lot of time entertaining the notion that I might be wrong, examining additional ideas, and aiming for constant self-correction. (I'm open to the idea that striving for self-correction and being aware of my own biases isn't a value, but it's by default sedimented assumption until shown otherwise.)

Now, since RickP has taken care to suggest that his upcoming essay is a "working hypothesis," I hope we can expect that since it is a hypothesis, and he is working on it, instead of finished with it, we can expect this essay to also entertain the notion that centrists are NOT the same as wing partisans, and come up with some evidence that counters the hypothesis he's working on. After all, that's what it means to WORK the hypothesis.

If instead, his essay only marshalls the most compelling case that we are the same as wing partisans, then I'll take this as evidence that RP didn't work the hypothesis, being instead content to lazily practice only weak-sense critical thinking. Let's stay tuned.

Posted by: bk at July 21, 2004 08:08 AM