full-color and finely gradiated
In my espionage work for the anarchist underground, I recently intercepted this transmission from a political moderate to a radical libertarian:I am fascinated as of late by positions that are extreme and the groups that espouse them like necons, hard-core libertarians, terrorists and fundamentalists of all religious stripes. (Nice grouping, huh?) My world is full-color and finely gradiated and I find the black and white of the rhetoric, including yours fascinating. I can't decide if it is the rhetoric is actually Entertainment, political theatre, radicalism, extremism or some kind of strange political marketing that I just don't yet understand. From a moderate's perspective, it makes almost no sense and it is therefore fascinating.
I've already emphasized elsewhere that a moderate is someone without principles.
It should hardly surprise any of us then when they
confess to not understanding principled arguments. What does continue to catch me offguard is the extent to which they're willing to brag about this particular form of moral and mental retardation.What the smug moderate boasts of as a world seen "full-color and finely gradiated" is really the blurry vision of a lazy eye.
5 Comments:
I get a kick out of reading musings by Libertarians, especially when they make the mistake of believing that those who disagree with them have no principles. Certainty is a comfort but it comes at a great cost.
Maybe you are relieved to know that there are some staunch socialists with principles -- unless, of course, you mean to argue that the only principles worth considered are libertarian ones. I feel a tautology coming soon...
duane gran, you misrepresent me entirely. I did not say that all non-libertarians have no principles. I said that moderates have no principles. Political centrism is the belief that positions are to be taken for practical reasons, not principled ones.
Having said that, however, I can also confirm that most leftists I've known (and been) have been unwilling to apply principles consistently.
I don't see any tautology in any of that.
bk
PS I find it ironic that you miscapitalize 'libertarian' on a blog called lowercase liberty.
To the political moderate:
In order to tell one color from another there needs to be a point where red is not blue. It seems it would be obvious to a person using a digital medium that distinctions of on and off (positive and negative, not this but that) are absolutely necessary in creating the variety of ideas present on the web.
It's insulting as well as wrong to claim the heterogeneous position is the one of fewer distinctions.
Perhaps, BK, "duane gran" considers socialists moderate. I find that most contemporary liberals and social democrats think that the "middle-road," or moderate road, is collectivism.
I apologize if I sounded a little harsh, but I've been biting my tongue for a while now, but the comment about moderates pushed my button. As a recovering libertarian (case insensitive, to boot), I can remember fondly how my cohorts and I established a world view where anyone who didn't espouse the near edge of anarchy was unprincipled. I've never met a libertarian (myself included, back then) who didn't patronize the views of others, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Your statement about moderates strikes me as informed as when partisans equate moderate and undecided voters. There are principles which guide subjective and circumstantial decisions.
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