I disagree with Hightower.

What you will find here is: a centrist's view of current events;
a collection of thoughts, arguments, and observations
that I have found appealing and/or amusing over the years;
and, if you choose, your civil contributions which will make it into a conversation.

He not busy bein' born, is busy dyin'. - Bob Dylan

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Sunday, September 25, 2011

measures of the center

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As folks get more and more fed up with the extreme partisans in Washington it is becoming fashionable to think of oneself as a centrist. But if the only people on your right are William F Buckley and Genghis Khan or if the only people on your left are Eugene V Debs and Mao Tse Tung, then I think it is a stretch to call yourself a centrist.

Here are a couple of tests to determine whether you are a centrist.

A) My liberal friends think that I am conservative and my conservative friends think I am liberal.
(If you do not have friends on both sides, then a) that is unfortunate and b) you are probably not a centrist.)

B) For another, perhaps more objective, criterion I would suggest the questions:
1) Which candidate did you vote for in all of the general presidential elections since you became eligible?
2) Which candidate did you vote for in the last five general presidential elections?

For me the answer to B is: All (12 in my case): D-9, I-1, R-2 and in the last five: it is D-2, I-1, R-2.
This could be summarized by looking at the sequence: DDDD DDDD DIRRD
I suppose that marks me as someone who was a liberal in youth who is moving to the center with age. That is a well known path.

I think of myself as a center left person.

(For more on this click the centrist label below this post.)
Posted by Unknown at 6:00 AM
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 25, 2011 at 11:05 AM

    I remember watching one of the presidential debates between McCain and Obama at your house in fall 2008, and you mentioned some variation of the following Churchill quote:

    “If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart. If you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”

    I consider myself pretty liberal, but I am still very young. I recognize that a rightward shift is "a well known path."

    For now I don't hear many of the GOP candidates for president saying much that interests me, but I'll keep listening.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 25, 2011 at 6:21 PM

    This has become YA's January 13 comment:

    One who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart.
    One who is still a socialist at 40 has no head.
    Francois Guisot (1787-1874) also attributed to
    Disraeli, Shaw, Clemenceau, Churchill, and Bertrand Russell

    I think that it is particularly unlikely that Shaw or Russell would have said such a thing.

    ReplyDelete

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