What Would A Moderate Underground.Com Look Like?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I owe no fidelity to an ideology, a party, or even a religion but to my own conscience...


I have developed my own code of right and wrong and use it as a guide in my life...


I am nominally pro choice and anti capital punishment but I believe adoption is preferable to abortion and I won't be going to San Quentin to hold a candlelight vigil when they execute David Westerfield and Scott Peterson and I won't be going to Starke when they execute John Couey...

I believe in a robust social safety net and a decent wage for a decent day's work but I also believe in individual responsibility...
Everyone regardless of their limitations or lack of limitations should try to realize their potential as a human being.... If you try and fail I'll be there to help you if not personally then with my tax dollars...

I support affirmative action but I do hope that one day we live in a color blind society and gender blind society where we all are equal and where John marrying Michael is no more remarkable than Michael marrying Mary...

On foreign policy I support a strong military but one that is judiciously used... Like in any situation, force or violence should be the last resort not the first...

I see many folks on this board mock the Third Way as envisioned by Messrs Clinton , Schroeder, and Blair but I think they envisioned a political and economic system that encompassed the liberal vision while accounting for the real world in which we live in...

[smoogatz]

1. Empty.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Prollly

When I posted in another board I used to get in arguments with folks on the left and the right...

I use a lot of self censorship on myself here because I like it here and choose my internet battles wisely...

One sage had it right ... He opined that moderates are the most misunderstood people in America...

[ET Awful]

2. The most often used smilie would be

:shrug:

:)

[WilliamPitt]

3. It would look like DU during the campaign

when the board came together almost completely unanimously behind a moderate Dem named Kerry.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. We Supported Kerry Because He Wasn't Bush...

I am not saying this to denigrade Kerry but there were a lot of folks here who supported him grudgingly...

[WilliamPitt]

18. Exactly my point

[iconoclastNYC]

21. Did you think that was a good thing?

I imagine you do. Unity is good for the party after the nomination. But us liberals really need to get reform to the primary seasons so we have a chance at getting a better nominee. Doesn't look like Dean is going to rock the boat with this too much tho.

[WilliamPitt]

24. We needed the unity

[HuckleB]

4. DU?

:)

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. There could be no such thing. I consider myself a moderate. Yet many

would call me a liberal...flaming at times even. The Democratic Party is big tent. I like it that way. I like being able to dislike the actions of those who are supposed to represent me. I like not having to participate in group think ideology.

[rodeodance]

10. maybe not so many would be blasted for having an opinion??

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. Nah...it'll never happen.

:hi:

[TahitiNut]

6. Who cares?

:evilgrin:

[Arkana]

7. I can think of the planet Neutral 8 from Futurama

"If I don't survive this, tell my wife I said hello."

[BlueEyedSon]

8. You mean this place isn't moderate? Ooops!

[Walt Starr]

11. About four posts per week

:shrug:

[Vladimir]

12. 'The real world we live in'

the point, as a certain well known bearded man once said, is to change it...

PS Blair gets mocked not because of the third way, but because he is a lying, murdering war criminal. His domestic policy transgressions are nothing compared to that...

[doublethink]

13. Like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz ...

"No I can't make up my mind, because I haven't got a brain. And some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don't they?" :shrug: Actually this describes a freeper site ...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. James Russell Lowell Nailed It...

"The foolish and the dead never change their opinion."

[bowens43]

15. Freerepublic lite

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. I Doubt It...

They think they have it all figured out...They have reduced politics to a a camp manichean struggle where those on the left are the black hats and those on the right are the white hats...


There are some real pricks on the right like Tom Delay and Rick Santorum but there are also some thoughtful folks on that side who's views are entitled to a fair hearing...


I listen to Rush and Sean Hannity... They turn their opponents into cartoons... Their whole shtick is to offer one reductio ad absurdum after another..

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

17. Arrogant

I don't think I'd want to meet anyone who didn't have some "liberal" and some "conservative" views. But I consider self-proclaimed "moderates" to be arrogant. Also, they usually aren't even moderate.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. That's A Good Point...

but I think the arrogance emanates from the fact that they think have it all figured out...


That malady is epidemic and not confined to moderates...

[skids]

19. Probably somehing like this site here:

...of course by being "centrist" they've designated themselves as a battleground for flame wars between right and left, but... heck if they have fun doing it I guess that's all that counts.

http://www.centristcoalition.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpBB_14&file=index&action=viewforum&forum=1&POSTNUKESID=53f185a784753d9da95d0bfbc2df3ddd

[bloom]

20. "I won't be going..."

I think that sums it up.

Moderates tend to not get involved...

[HereSince1628]

22. MU?..would people be too cowed to say anything?..

[ret5hd]

25. Best Reply Yet.

[riverwalker]

26. fighting RW extremists with moderation

is like trying to stop a tank with a BB gun.
Nice symbolic effort, and maybe it can even be done if there are enough BB guns hitting the right vulnerable spot, but the odds are against you in having any affect at all. (and you'll probably get run over by the tank)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. It's Not As Much As Stopping The Right As Forming One's Own World View....

We can get into a large discussion of what politics is:


Is it a

rational and deliberate pursuit of the good life in which we are all involved


or


a power struggle over who gets what when and how


I am looking for a synthesis of cooperation and confrontation...

[Nite Owl]

28. At one time I might have been

considered a moderate but they up and moved the middle. What they call the middle now is really right of center so that leaves me on the left. The bar has been moved and those who held more moderate positions are more left of center. I can't disagree with anything you mentioned but those are really no longer considered in the center. For example Senator Clinton's wanting to increase birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Is that moderate in today's climate? Didn't pass, they went with absinence programs. Tax cuts, the dems had it right, give them to those who need it not the richest. There is no real middle.

[WoodrowFan]

29. no woo-woos

and no Nadar wars.

[yvr girl]

32. What you determine to be left, right or centre depends on your frame of

reference.

Many of the things you fight for on the left in the States are part of the fabric of society in Canada. We have Universal Health Care - you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who wanted to get rid of it.

Our Conservatives are much more of a centrist party, with a few wing-nuts. Our Liberal party clings pretty close to the centre too.

Our history and culture is based on negotiation and compromise. We didn't have a revolution, but a series of legislative acts that gave us our freedoms.

You had a civil war. We had referendums.

Politics in the US strikes me as much more adversarial. It's a competition to win. You value Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We value Peace, Order and Good Government

Go visit the Canadian Forum.