…………To which I would say give me the context because yesterday’s Michael Collins is today’s moderate who was assassinated for forging a “moderate” peace settlement with the British govt which granted Irish independance……..Anwar Sadat was killed for similar reasons ……..Unfortunately as your grossly simplistic view of history illustrated, to you everything is black and white and is settled by extremists when in fact history is a mass of greys and is usually settled by people who are “moderate” by inclination or move there which I’ll loosely define as being in the middle most of the time………If you want a few names TR, FDR, HST, Konrad Adenaur, Churchill, Washington, Jefferson, De Gaulle, LBJ, JFK, Helmut Schmidt, Lloyd George, Disraeli, Lincoln, none of them “did” anything of course. You need to develop a more reality based view of the world and how it works.

A simple challenge:

Define “moderate.”

For me this is a simple task because moderates are always history’s indecisive sideliners. Or, for moderates who actually do take action, they tend to be double-agents and turncoats. People trying to bring together rebel and royalist were thus moderates. Nazis trying to save face and not have Germany ground back down to post WWI levels necessarily moderated their tone, aided and abetted by Allied forces not wanting to let the same conditions that lef to The Third Reich to repeat themselves. Moderates exist to be the unprincipled dregs of society waiting for something fashionable to latch onto. Somebody, after all, has to be the useless load that others must carry.

All of the men Mr. Kabaservice mentioned were taken from their historical roles as polarizing, animating, and powerful figures and fit into the cookie cutter mold of the “moderate” with zero explanation. Moderates do not leave an imprint on society. By definition they seek a third, often incoherent garble between two opposing positions that taken as a whole within themselves are both more intellectually thorough and consistent than moderation.

Here’a the real stinging difference between moderates, liberals, and conservatives:

When moderates go on scathing political condemnations and spectacular personal crusades, nobody cares.

Rush Limbaugh matters because he has actual principles that follow a coherent internal logic.

Ditto with Jon Stewart.

When some self-proclaimed moderate whines about either or excoriates them, people don’t listen because they can’t respect the opinion of someone whose strongest argument for their existence is that all other systems have flaws and someone must stick around to criticize them. The very existence of moderates is a powerful argument for closed primaries. After all, it isn’t as if moderates ever *do* anything.

……..Of course but I’ve a serious allergy to misinformation particularly when so many need a prolonged stay with Mr Gradgrind.

“During the 2006 and 2008 elections, the Democrats deliberately fielded moderate “Blue Dog” Democratic candidates, and even “Fighting Democrat” candidates with strong military backgrounds, to win contested seats away from Republicans”

………..And many of those fighting democrats are pretty radical actually like Webb and Sestak…….quite apart from all the demographic issues the GOP is married to a set of ideas that are basically doomed…….Max Weber said the story of modernity is the bringing of more and more activities under the rule of rationality……If ever a prophecy was true it was that one…….so does anyone really think the articles of faith that constitute Republican and conservative belief (just list them mentally) can really withstand the embrace of rationality……sure there will always be an increasingly isolated of the totally irrational on matters of science and good government but it’s hardly a base for a governing party is it.

“All this babble is perfect hotair.”

Well… DUH…!!! (*HUGE FRIGG’N GRIN*)

Yes, CfC, I’m pretty sure that even OTTO realizes that our blog chatter her at NewMajority changes nothing. (Except I do hold out hope that we educate each other to a certain extent via sharing idea, facts, and source material.)

(*CHUCKLE*)

Re: Sinz54 // Jul 24, 2009 at 12:54 pm –

“That would be like a hawkish American defecting to the Soviet Union in protest against Carter’s dovish policies, during the Cold War.”

No. (*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)

It would be exactly what it was.

In any case, Sinz, we were talking about what you and “the moderates” should do to help the GOP and serve the best interests of the nation. I believe my 8:55 am and 8:59 am posts laid out a pretty good case concerning that. (*SHRUG*)

BILL

The GOP will be left with that one-third of the voters who still adore Cheney, who still think the Iraq War was a wonderful idea, who think that birth control and embryonic stem-cell research are moral abominations. And the GOP will never win another election again.

Until it figures out that 2/3 or more of the nation doesn’t agree with the GOP base on a whole lot of issues.

The GOP, in contrast, doesn’t know how to field moderates to win seats away from Democrats in moderate or liberal areas of the nation. They keep waiting and waiting for the entire country to turn so far to the right that they won’t have to.

Given the demographic trends, they’re going to be waiting an awful long time.

That would be like a hawkish American defecting to the Soviet Union in protest against Carter’s dovish policies, during the Cold War.

………….Ditto…….except my old man was in Italy during the war as was my father in law in the Royal navy……both thought it extremely bad form to talk about it