I’m not a moderate by any stretch of anyone’s imagination but after watching this week’s Sunday talk shows I was asking myself. “what do the moderates think of all this?” The subject of immigration came up where people on the right said that the president has to lead. It wasn’t but a couple of minutes later when Newt Gingrich said that any proposal offered by the president would not be accepted by the Republican House of Representatives. John Boehner keeps saying that he doesn’t think President Obama. “has the guts" to seriously address the country's debt and deficit. The word “seriously” means austerity to Boehner and it only, reinforces the saying.. “ damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
The pundits love the squabbles, and they ask questions in a way that they hope will escalate the fighting because it helps their ratings. It doesn’t have to be at the national level either; I kept wondering what the moderates thought of my view on civil liberties and the use of drones which I made on another blog. I’m not trying to appease the moderates, but I often wonder if the needle of my left-of-center meter is taking a downward trend toward extremism when I answer another poster’s question. I think people like honesty because they can see through the lollipops and unicorns' effort to remain uncontroversial. For example,BigJ asked on another blog,” Since this is a liberal/ progressive blog, let me tell you where I stand that is against liberals. Why are liberals believe in man made global warming, but yet refuse to acknowledged sunspots in relation to Earth temperature? Why is liberals are pro choice, but yet anti-choice when it comes to unions?” I can answer the questions honestly as I can, but they would be my own opinion because I obviously don’t speak for liberals. As for myself, I don’t disavow sunspots, natural warming, or any other reasons our planet is getting hotter. I’ve continually said that we know fossil fuels (hydrocarbons) are heat-trapping gases, which is contributing to our planet getting hotter. We have control over this by curbing emissions and investing in cleaner energy. The second part of BigJ’s question is much harder because one is a social issue, and the other is economic one. A consistency of the word “choice” is more about wordplay than anything else.
Study after study has proven that liberals and conservatives are wired differently, and this is why they approach problems the way they do. For a variety of reasons, moderates carry ideas from both ideologies but oftentimes their ideas don’t come to the surface because they can’t get past the noise coming from the extremes of both sides. The extremes of both sides are where the markers are, so the answer to our problems is to navigate between the two and then side with the one that makes the most sense for now. The most sense side will vary from time to time. In politics, we know that for right now,we need legislation that can generate 218 votes in the house and 60 votes in the Senate in order for it pass and be sent to the president before it will become law. As for climate-change remedies, all we can expect is to shore up the flood barriers to combat the rising sea levels that cause havoc after a storm. Universal background checks will be the only thing that has a chance of passing in this Congress to curb gun violence, but that doesn’t mean that the fight is over. The only way things will happen, is to change the makeup of Congress. In the examples I gave, that moderates are the equalizers and not necessarily the generators of good ideas.
I’ve never met a moderate, but I’ve met several who call themselves that but they are just disinterested in the political process. I’ve also met those who say they are fiscal conservatives and social liberals, but they’re saying, “I’m above the fray.” An example of that are the six senators who are afraid to vote to ban the extended clips because they live in a red state. I’m saying that a politician’s vote might not be a good gauge to determine whether they are moderate, liberal, or conservative because some of them are opportunists.
Today is Presidents Day and we all have a favorite president, but I wonder whether any modern-day president will make the list since we are so polarized. Today and in the future, every president or candidate will get more and more scrutiny, so much so, that good people may not come forward and take part in the process.