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The Two Kinds of Moderate

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#161

Post by Animats »

CameronNemo wrote: post #99

Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation. >The effect of a system based on plurality voting is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distri…

Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation.

Diverse, yes. Meaningful, maybe. Look at Israel right now. 17 parties with seats in the Knesset, none with over 30%, and, after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#162

Post by smolder »

taneq wrote: post #107

It never occurred to me that people would tailor their political views to try and be "moderate". The whole idea feels kind of dirty to me, your political views should be your honest opinion.

People tailor their political views to fit the groups preferences on either the right or left, so why not in the middle? It's a matter of wanting to please people and fit in, either within their political tribe or, for "intentional moderates", it's a matter of wanting to fit in everywhere, which is pretty futile unless you say different things to different people.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#163

Post by robbrown451 »

justin66 wrote: post #132

It is so peculiar that anyone believes the United States possesses a "far left" as a force in politics. This requires one to ignore political science and ideology, not to mention the practical politics of the rest of the world, and simply place people on a continuum and draw a line near some perceived median.

I think drawing a line near the median is really the only thing that makes sense. These concepts are relative by nature. Generally, when speaking of how far to the right or left someone is in the US, I think of it as relative to other americans, not to the rest of the world, and especially not relative to some absolute concept of right and left (which falls apart quickly if you give it some thought, as norms change over time)

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#164

Post by morelisp »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #92
morelisp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point over the past ten or fifteen years, the Democrats switched their focus Clinton was elected on explicit Third Way positions nearly 30 years ago. If you think something changed in the past 10-15, you're falling for GOP propaganda. What you're noticing is the democrats finding a new base a decade after losing their working class supporters, through a combination of Third Way politics, the Republican Sout…

> If you think something changed in the past 10-15, you're falling for GOP propaganda. You think that Democrats have not moved in the past 10-15 years? You think that the idea that they have is merely Republican propaganda? I think you haven't been paying attention. Or maybe you were paying too much attention. 15 years ago, AOC wasn't even old enough to vote. Were there Democrats in the House who held the same positi…

Your entire post is about AOC, who has spent less than two years in office. My statement was about the (non-)events in the democratic party 25-30 and 10-15 years ago. The "AOC as a bogeyman" talking points are a transparent attempt to derail the discussion along the lines the GOP wants.

I agree we've seen a shift in the democratic party - not yet in its leadership - in the past 2-4 years (beginning with Sanders, its first major electoral effects in the 2018 midterms). What does that have to do with what happened 10-15 years ago?

What did happen 10-15 years ago is Obama's election. Obama's politics do not place him in the left of the democratic party, and in some areas he's firmly in the right part.

So what's the objection to what happened 10-15 years ago, but not 30 years ago? To put it more bluntly - What's the biggest difference between Obama and Bill Clinton? One hint: it's not any political policy.

And why, if the objection is supposed to be about support for the working class, is what's happening in the past 2-4 not good? The return to labor rights as a central plank of the party should be drawing people back if that's the reason they left, but apparently it's not.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#165

Post by AnimalMuppet »

alphabettsy wrote: post #90
TeMPOraL wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're conflating your fears about a specific, and in my opinion unlikely, doomsday scenario into a general slippery slope argument against the dangers of disruptive justice. Yes, I kept repeating the one example I used, but I worry about all issues that could plausibly lead to a civilization-ending war. Of which there are many, including all kinds of problems created by worsening state of the planet's clim…

There is already bloodshed, but right now it just happens to not be yours. The point of MLK’s quote, in my opinion, is that moderates can always find reasons to maintain status quo especially when the issues at hand are not deemed personally impactful. People are being harmed, but because they are not me or look like me it’s not worth risking potential upset.

This gets really messy.

People are being harmed. There are people (let's be charitable and assume that the set does not include TeMPOral) who want to do nothing, because they aren't among the people being harmed.

Then there's a second set of people (let's be charitable and assume that the second set does include TeMPOral) who see the harm, and care about the harm, but are unsure how far to go toward fixing it, because the wrong action (or too much of the right action) can do more harm than good, even to the people you are trying to help.

And then you have the problem that the first set of people are trying to sound very much like the second set of people (and maybe even to convince themselves that they are the second set of people).

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#166

Post by hindsightbias »

wbronitsky wrote: post #143
hindsightbias wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In what way is Hillary Clinton a Marxist? That seems like a pretty outlandish statement directed towards someone with so much money and power

You’re not aware of Hillary as Saul Alinsky’s disciple? It was a right wing staple for the entire campaign.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#167

Post by rdtsc »

Where the median is depends where the extremes are. Overton window I think is the fitting term here. The Overton window in the US might be shifted such that in other countries a moderate here might be perceived to be quite right wing there.

Chomsky put it well when describing this phenomenon:

--- The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. ---

> I'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right is less ideological than the far left

I think it is because left opinions, even in mainstream media and social discourse do not get the immediate push-back and derision, but are treated more of like confusion or maybe immaturity. Say, if we see someone waving the Soviet flag in the streets at a protest we just sort of shrug at it instead of have a visceral reaction to it.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#168

Post by ip26 »

redisman wrote: post #125
namirez wrote: post #114

> For some reason the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise them as backsliders. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right is less ideological than the far left. Or perhaps that they are more confident, or more resigned, or simply more disorganized. I just don't know. This is a typical complaint by the so called moderates who feel unappreciated by the left (whatever that is). But I yet to…

It really is a bizarre setup, I think it's mostly generated by the reality-distorting effect of the ubiquitous "far-right opinion" programming on radio and Fox News and now online. The far left is supposedly in control of everything despite only controlling a handful of seats of power in the past century.

It's a common trope, e.g. a few years ago the GOP argued it couldn't pass any laws (despite controlling the Executive, Judiciary, & both chambers of Congress) because of the obstruction of the left. Or see various conspiracies that involve a weak, stupid, inept, and foolish government conducting a vast, brilliant, collaborative coverup of the most sophisticated technology on earth.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#169

Post by black_knight »

Animats wrote: post #161
CameronNemo wrote: post #99

Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation. >The effect of a system based on plurality voting is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distri…

Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation. Diverse, yes. Meaningful, maybe. Look at Israel right now. 17 parties with seats in the Knesset, none with over 30%, and, after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up.

> after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up.

Parlamentary systems without the option to call re-elections is an attractive alternative. The politicians just can't keep asking people's opinion until they get the answer they want.

Then there will have to be compromises, and even the smaller parties can get some of their important causes through.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#170

Post by nl »

eanzenberg wrote: post #147
justin66 wrote: post #132

It is so peculiar that anyone believes the United States possesses a "far left" as a force in politics. This requires one to ignore political science and ideology, not to mention the practical politics of the rest of the world, and simply place people on a continuum and draw a line near some perceived median.

[flagged]

You've said this twice in the thread now. No major politician in the US says that and just saying "for socialism" cheapens the debate here.
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