The Principled Center

I'm a radical left-wing anarcho-communist in personal philosophy, but I'm also a democrat (small 'd') that believes that 1) it is inhumane to force people to accept political philosophies they disagree with (I'm doing a terrible job of referring to the failed Communist experiment in the USSR) and 2) it doesn't work anyway - thus, why the USSR failed.

So, what does that mean? It means that I believe that my vision of a just, peaceful and caring community (and how to get there) is the best vision and what needs to happen is that other people need to believe in it too. This is basically an exercise in cultural change, which is exceedingly slow, since we humans like our cultures the way we understand them. We don't like them to change on us because, well 1) it means a shifting balance of power which is scary and 2) our cultures are also markers of identity - they belong to us, they inform who we are, and that is something deeply valuable.

Anyhoo - all of this to say that while this is my long-term goal, I also am working on short-term goals: making the most of what we've got at the moment. So, what would make the US a better place today? Well, among other things, if we could maybe have a rationale conversation across the ideological divide. But there doesn't seem to be much of a moderate movement anymore - and while I would hardly call myself a moderate, I respect moderates. I might not respect the Sean Hannitys, but I do have a lot of respect for folks like Lincoln Chafee, ex-Republican Senator from Rhode Island, who was essentially chased from his party for being too moderate.

But I think part of the problem is that moderates are often seen as being unprincipled - they don't seem to have Republican principles, and they don't seem to have Democratic principles. Of course, there's also so-called moderates like Arlen Specter, who really are just unprincipled and don't seem to have any basic values from which to reach conclusions. (Is anybody really surprised that he lost the PA primary?)

Is there a moderate ideology? I suppose the kind of moderates I'd like to see are people who are socially liberal (I just don't think you can be moderate on human rights); fiscally responsible and economically centrist - they should respect workers' rights, but they don't have to be necessarily anti-corporate. I would think that this is enough to wrap principles around. Maybe the antidote to crazy Tea Party people is a nice, rationale Center Party movement.

Moderates - get thee to a convention hall.