centrist 7

I am struggling to deal with the demands from some liberal readers that I define centrist.

Here are some thoughts as I stumble along that may be of value.

I thought a friendly definition of conservative and liberal might help.

Do you have any comments or suggestions?

1.           “The Liberal is impatient because his country is not more perfect. 

The Conservative is concerned that his country will become less perfect.”

2.          My sense of things is that the liberal is a dreamer and the conservative is a realist.

(both of which are required for progress)

3              I think the conservative's basic approach is : "The burden of proof is on the advocate of change."      

while a liberal would agree with Jefferson

4.           “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." 

and  most liberals would agree with the quote by RFK et al

5                 "Some people see things as they are and say why?

                   I dream dreams that never were and say, “Why not?"

6           But I wonder if the liberal's basic approach might be better captured by: "Improvement is always an alternative."

The Centrist

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The following was posted by David DuBay on the Rise of the Center under the title of Where Liberals and Conservatives Agree with the American Majority in the Center: Meet Moderate America. I agree with the theme and most of the content.

Recently the New York Times published a series on what the Right gets right, and what the Left gets right. What stands out is that the typical partisan line that the other side is wrong about everything causes us to miss out on some important ideas. It’s in the best of both worlds that we meet moderate America.
The political center isn’t a flabby middle that stands only for compromise without any firm convictions. Instead, moderates support both individual and economic freedom, instead of one but not the other. Like conservatives, moderates support free enterprise and fiscal responsibility. And like liberals, moderates support personal freedom.

Sol's Unscientific Bell Curve of the American Political Spectrum
Moderates are pro-capitalism but also understand that some regulation and environmental protection is necessary. Regulations, though, should be simplified with unnecessary and inefficient regulations eliminated. Balancing the budget is important, but moderates recognize that tax cuts increase the deficit. Tax cuts aren’t really the issue though – we need to simplify the tax code.
Moderates are not knee jerk anti-government because government does play an essential role, but power should be decentralized to the extent possible. This means limiting the role of the federal government and giving states greater flexibility. And it means the US should stop being the world’s police force.
Like liberals, moderates understand that poverty is systemic. And although individual responsibility is primary, society has a responsibility to the vulnerable (children, the elderly, and the disabled). Programs for those in need often create dependency, but instead of ending these programs they should be redesigned and simplified based on behavioral economic research to reduce dependency.
Moderates also support individual liberty, which at times is controversial. Gay marriage isn’t viewed as a moderate position, but the march toward equal rights in American history is undeniable. Your freedom to live your life as you choose is what America is all about, and this includes your constitutional right to own a gun. So personal freedom is not strictly a liberal or conservative issue, but moderates are more consistent on the matter.
Finally, there’s the question of whether moderates should create a new political party. I’d vote no. Third parties have a poor track record. And besides, it’s partisan politics that creates gridlock in Washington, and a third party would only contribute to that. There are moderates among both Republicans and Democrats, and especially among independent voters. Moderates need a bigger voice within the two major parties, and this will require directly confronting the party leadership. And moderates will continue to advocate for issues and run for office without the support of a political party.

centrist 6

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I am again asked to explain what I mean by saying that I am a centrist. In a world where both sides of the aisle have apparently begun to believe their own propaganda I can give a brief approximate answer.

The left, led by Obama says that we can get all of the money that we need to operate the government by a modest increase in taxes on the rich.

The right, led by various people says that we can get all of the money we need to operate the government by cutting tax rates.

In this context, a centrist is someone who recognizes that both of those beliefs are nonsense and we are all going to have to pay to get out the hole that we are still digging.
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political extremes

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Revised 9-27-11
The reason that the center appeals to most of us (who are in it) is not that the partisans advocate stuff. Our problem is that each side has a mythology and its followers actually believe that mythology which is why they act so strangely.

The Rs believe this stuff about all problems can be solved by lowering taxes.
The Ds believe that if they put enough time between them and the day of reckoning then the existence of the day of reckoning is just propaganda.

For a better presentation of this thesis see Brooks's piece in the NYT.
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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.)

centrist - 5

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A friend was talking about being a centrist the other day as if it was a choice.
I didn't decide to be a centrist.
The positions that I came to seemed to put me there.
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down the middle

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Here is another example of a centrist positions.

I agree with the left that we should modify the system so that it divides the pie of wealth in a fairer manner.

I agree with the right that you have to make sure that you have a pie that is big enough to be worth dividing.

I will support whichever one is willing to move off of their absurdities* in order deal with the impending debt disaster.

[11 AM 3-11] If neither party will act, then I will support a new party.

* The Ds think we are not spending too much money and
the Rs are unwilling to pay for the government.
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NPR again

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I contribute annually to NPR.

NPR, NEH etc should really be supported by endowments so they can be independent. As long as they are supported by the government they are going to have a bias.

If NPR would drop the 10% of its budget that comes from the government and move more toward the center, then I would increase my contribution by $100 per year.

Some of you think I should state what I think are centrist positions. This is one.

a centrist's view - 4

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In response to an invitation (See comments following my Jan. 11 post.) to identify the nature of the political spectrum, I offer the following as my first try to answer that question. This is how I look at people, place them, and evaluate what they say. It is partly based on the kinds of positions they will take and partly on the way I expect them to approach a question. (Sorry, there is some overlap between this and centrist - 3.)
Of course a model can never be a perfect representation but here it is.

LWN---LWP---LWF---CF---RWF---RWP---RWN

LWN and RWN are the left and right wing nuts. They are committed to their perspectives and cannot be relied on to care about what is true and what is not.
LWP and RWP are the left and right wing partisans (or propagandist). They approach questions like an attorney would for their side. They (may) have respect for the truth but they are, primarily, committed to winning the argument.
LWF and RWF are the left and right wing folks. They arrive at most questions with a predisposition toward one side but are susceptible to reason.
CF are the ones in the middle who may be there because they have not developed many positions or because some of their positions lean one way and some lean another. They are also susceptible to reason. The requested examples are listed below.

Olberman---Paul Begala---Evan Bayh --- Ben Nelson & Scott Brown(?) --- Lindsey Graham --- Karl Rove --- Limbaugh
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a centrist's view - 3 revised

The model of the spectrum is now in a centrist's view - 4

Just outside the centrist are the left and right wing folk and together make up the broad middle of American politics. They believe that it really is true that two honest people can look at the same situation and come to different conclusions. They try hard to be reasonable and among other things they try not to misrepresent the other participant’s position. The left and right wing folk differ from the centrist in that they are generally predisposed to see things one way or the other. The centrist is either not inclined to do that or (as is my case) finds himself sometimes predisposed toward one side and sometimes the other.

Further out are the partisans of each side. Their objective is to win the argument. They range from those who operate like a lawyer, who is making the best case for his client, to those who make arguments that should be embarrassing to them. For an example consider Jonathan Alter: "When it (Obamacare’s mandate) goes to the Supreme Court it's even crazier because you have these judges, these justices, who they've spent their whole career preaching against judicial activism, legislating from the bench. And they're about to be the biggest hypocrites ever to wear black robes." What he is saying is if a justice claims to be against judicial activism, then that justice can NEVER judge a law to be unconstitutional. That is, there is no legitimate position that opposes judicial activism.

Moving further out you get to the wingnuts of each side who basically appear to not understand the concepts that go into making a discussion, things like evidence, argument, etc. For example, if you produced a Hawaiian birth certificate that listed Obama as a Muslim at birth, I know people who would simultaneously see that as being a) reliable enough to prove that Obama is now a Muslim but b) not reliable enough to prove that he was a natural born citizen.

a centrist's view - 2

Some would say that a position on a particular issue can be labeled “centrist” based entirely on the balance between number of people would disagree on one side of the issue versus how many people would disagree on the other side of the issue. One problem that you would have with such a definition would be with “when” and “where”. That is to say, when do you hold up your finger to check which way the wind is blowing and from where do you get your sample of opinion? I would not agree with a definition that was based on that kind of simple arithmetic. Consider the following example of a centrist position on which the public breaks very unevenly: the Muslims have a right to build Park 51, which would contain a mosque, near ground zero. (See elsewhere in this blog for further details.) That is a position that would not meet the split down the middle, but I think that it is a centrist position because the right to do so is clearly protected by the first amendment, Newt Gingrich to the contrary notwithstanding.

a centrist’s view - 1

In his December 16th post, KW led me, as he often does, to rethink what I mean by something I have said. In this case the word centrist.

Perhaps I have misled the reader into thinking that I believe that I hold some “centrist position” on every question, the collection of which amounts to a well defined “centrist dogma.” Surely finding such a thing is even less likely than locating a single “left position” or “right position” on every question, because in the latter two cases one has, at least, the positions of the two major political parties that could be used as a base starting point.

I do not believe that there is an organized centrist position.

However, I do believe that there is such a thing as a centrist type person. To make it clear that I am using centrist as a noun and not as an adjective, an ’s has been added to the word centrist in the header.

The fair question then is, what do I mean when I describe myself as a “centrist”? The reason that I began, in the early nineties, to think of myself as an independent or centrist was that I started to notice that all of my liberal friends seemed to think that I was a conservative and all of my conservative friends seemed to think that I was a liberal. It seemed that in almost every discussion I ended up arguing that “the other side has a point, too”.

So this is part one of my effort to say what I mean when I use the word centrist. I will add to it regularly until I get it to look like I want it. Your comments and suggestions are invited.

Sorry Rob, I cannot bring myself to call it the Yellow Armadillo Way.
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wingnuts and no-labels

In KW's post a couple of days ago and comments afterwards we were talking about whether IN SOME CASES it is difficult to identify a centrist position.

There really are some people who want us to believe that there is no center.
You can guess who they are.

Rob pointed out to me an article on the subject by John Avlon author of the new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America, and the founder of nolabels.

Dan adds the following link.