It's pure bullshit, Kevin. Ignore it.

How about we stick to the facts- that's enough to get just about everyone on our side- no need to engage in wingnuttery of any kind.

George W. Bush is the worst president ever?

True or false: Persistent exposure to lefty ideologues causes centrists to sympathize more strongly with conservatism than they normally would.

True. Although I consider myself to be a centrist, I've become more and more conservative because of the hate filled attacks on the right and center by leftists who regularly post in the comments on Political Animal.

Persistent exposure to rediculous, strawman "liberals" as portayed by conservatives probably drives centrists to the right. But once they listen to what we actually say brings them back.
IMHO

This is true--I live in San Francisco, where hardcore lefties drive me up the damn wall so much that I'm forever describing myself as a "moderate democrat," whatever that means. And most of my friends who attended UC Beserkley went through at least a short phase of conservatism, usually after being attacked in a supermarket for not carrying groceries in the right kind of cloth bag ("Hey, is that an ORGANIC hemp bag? It's not? Die, racist pig!!!)

What lesson should we draw? Obviously, we should seek to claim the center. It's only a claim--most democrats really are the center.

I think that underlying realities make the difference here.

"Lefty ideologues" can say all they want about health care in America - the $2000 bill for a couple of stitches makes the best argument.

Conversely, "rightwing ideologues" can say all they want about judicial activism - one school busing decision makes their case for them.

Lesson?
Hunter Thompson was somewhat afraid of going on an ether binge.
You should be too.

It doesn't make any sense unless and until you define 'centrist' in some useful way.

Centrist, as applied to voters, usually indicates voters who are not really engaged.

These voters do not give political matters enough thought to assemble their beliefs into an ideology. Either due to lack of education or lack of interest, they simply do not behave as if they are the "We, the People" who are supposed to be running their own government. Instead, they tend to gravitate toward authority figures who make them feel comfortable with themselves. Thus, they tend toward conservatism.

Another term for these voters is low information voters. What information they do get is delivered by corporate media. Thus, they tend toward conservatism because the little information they do get and use comes from conservatives.

In order to be a liberal in thought, word and deed, one has to spend time and effort acquiring information and judging its validity and utility. The majority of people do not do this. I don't know if they could ever be convinced to do so.

Silly question, Kevin. If you hang out with a smart persuasive liberal, you become more liberal. If you hang out with an idiotic obnoxious liberal, then you become more conservative. Duh.

The real question is: which is more pervasive?

Absent an accepted definition for any of these labels ("lefty", "centrist", etc.) it seems likely to be an untestable hypothesis.

Well as someone that considers himself somewhat centrist I will say this: exposure to increasing amounts of conservative rhetoric combined with some amount of liberal thougth, common sense and ever increasing doses of reality since the mid '90s have made me far more liberal. My family for generations have been Republicans, including a few local elected officials here on Long Island. Cant find one person under the age of 65 that voted Republican in the past 3 elections. Bottom line, if you want to think for yourself and apply reason or logic to a problem you simply dont have a place any longer in the Republican party.

Does that help?

False. The opposite is true.

See, for instance, Cass Sunstein's book Republic.com (the normative part of it is silly, but the descriptive part is accurate).

In response to these kinds of questions, Kevin, I refer you to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

FYI, I'd go with the known knowns.

True

Every time I dip a toe into the fever swamp I end up sending money to a republican canidate. So not only does it pull me rightward it's costing me a lot of money. However, I feel it is entirely worth it if it keeps the gaggle of fucktards here away from the levers of power.

True. Although I consider myself to be a centrist, I've become more and more conservative because of the hate filled attacks on the right and center by leftists who regularly post in the comments on Political Animal.

You may consider yourself a centrist, but it's yet more evidence that you are a total boob.

>If this is true, what lesson should we draw from it?

That everybody should avoid taking extreme stands, even when correct, to avoid alienating centrists?

That "centrist" in politics is a term with no meaningful denotation, but has the connotation "I am damn near perfect in my political judgment. If your opinion varies a great deal from mine, you are one of the crazies."

That when centrists support stupid wars it is all the fault of those damn dirty hippies?

False.

Constant exposure to an idea tends to normalize it as an option for how society ought to function. This is especially so if the idea's proponents are articulate and possess a likable personality.

" . . . being attacked in a supermarket for not carrying groceries in the right kind of cloth bag ("Hey, is that an ORGANIC hemp bag? It's not? Die, racist pig!!!)"

Give me a break.

why don't you guys try reading Drum's post?

cause you obviously didn't.

he said "zealous idealogues" not "articulate and likeable" or "smart and persuasive"

nice try at avoiding the question though. its much easier to answer the question you wanted him to ask, instead of the one he did.

the real answer is that of course it's true.
exposure to raving idealogues turns off everyone besides true believers.
when I read K. Lopez at the Corner I become more liberal...cause she's a lunatic. when I read Kevin Drum I generally feel more liberal cause he's sensible. when I read these comment threads, which are full of raving lunatics, I become more conservative.

it's not rocket science.

Doesn't it depend on who has the best arguments to make?

Right now, there's tons of ammo lying around for lefties to pick up and use. So right now people on the left can make very effective arguments, even ones who are ideologues. They just have to be fact-based and stick to the truth.

Then again, even the truth can sometimes be accused of bias because it can sound extreme. NYU prof Jay Rosen has some things to say about this in his latest post:

Retreat from Empiricism: On Ron Suskind's Scoop

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/12/18/suskind_empiricism.html

es:

if you don't think that exposure to Moscow on the Bay doesn't change people (even if briefly) into conservatives...you really are in a cocoon. I live in Manhattan which is only about, oh, 75% Democrat and virtually everyone makes fun of how lunatically left the bay area is.

The 2 ideas are not the converse of each other. It's the same idea, applied twice against 2 different objectives.

Nothing would cause me to become more sympathetic to the right wing wackos. Nothing whatsoever. I can not imagine such a thing.

Occasional acute annoyance with the left-iest of the left notwithstanding.

'A study out today from the Center for Responsible Lending predicts that subprime borrowers are going to lose their homes to foreclosure on a massive scale. Looking at more than 6 million subprime mortgage loans issued from 1998 through September of this year, the study calculates that 2.2 million households have either already been foreclosed on or will be foreclosed on in the next few years.' — Peter Coy, Hot Property

false.

ex. Limbaugh's audience is loyal, which implies they're not being driven away.

Although I consider myself to be a centrist, I've become more and more conservative because of the hate filled attacks...

Oh Al, go fuck youreslf, thou caluminous fen-sucked measle!

Among the many types of people, there are those who are highly suggestible, and those who are not. This idea affects the former more than the latter.

True or false: Persistent exposure to zealous lefty ideologues causes centrists to sympathize more strongly with conservatism than they normally would. Conversely, persistent exposure to zealous righty ideologues causes centrists to sympathize more with liberalism.

Well, let's define our terms, shall we? for decades, zealous righty ideologues in politics and the media have been defining the nation's center-left party as zealous lefty ideologues. Only in this election cycle has the extent to which the Republican Party is composed of zealous righty ideologues ("Texified," if you will) been so obvious to the mushy middle. Ironically, the result was that Republicans in more centrist districts got dumped, while those whose constituencies are zealous righty ideologues were retained, making the contrast likely more obvious thru 2008. So we'll see, won't we?

If this is true, what lesson should we draw from it?

That the so-called "liberal media" is a myth perpetrated by zealous righty ideologues and parroted by dupes and liars.

"if you don't think that exposure to Moscow on the Bay doesn't change people (even if briefly) into conservatives...you really are in a cocoon. I live in Manhattan which is only about, oh, 75% Democrat and virtually everyone makes fun of how lunatically left the bay area is."

I was commenting about "DK's" story of the grocery store "attack".

It is a myth that the left and the right have two equal, but competing, doctrines. When Bob Altemeyer gave his right-wing authoritarian survey to Russians in the declining years of the Soviet Union he found that in Russia the high RWAs were the communists. They held the same views of authority and coercion, and dislike of gays, etc., as American right-wingers. The difference was in the doctrinal tradition they were defending. Here atheism is not the result of skepticism but of an orthodox tradition.

At the other end of the scale, people who score low on the RWA survey, are those who are more receptive to cooperation and pluralism. The defense of traditionalism and the use of coercion is not a ‘conservative’ position but an authoritarian position against pluralism and liberal democracy. It seems that people who fall in the middle of the RWA scale can be motivated rightward by fear. This is a possible explanation for why all authoritarian governments, no matter what the doctrine, encourage fear of enemies, crime, and violence. The last thing they want is for the people to feel secure.

In this context low RWAs are liberals. They are not against George Bush for Putin or the Iranian mullahs, but against all these authoritarians and their coercive power and iron traditions.

Nathan wrote: when I read these comment threads, which are full of raving lunatics, I become more conservative.

Okay, after a brief period of confusion in which the handle "Nathan" was used by an honest commentator, this has to be the return of the perenially dishonest failed lawyer known for his serial prevarications and misrepresentations as well as incessant water carrying for Bush. Given his history, then, what "Nathan" would term a "raving lunatic" isn't worth a bucket of cold piss.

Although it does beg the question if Nathan terms the parade of lawyers who must get the better of him in the courtroom "raving lunatics" as well.

Al

Although I consider myself to be a centrist,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Follow-up question: If this is true, what lesson should we draw from it?

Answer: We should kill everybody who's not in our tribe, just like in Iraq, Bush's Flowering Democracy.

Al

Although I consider myself to be a centrist,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Posted by: tomeck

Yeah, that's exactly my reaction as well. The Al parodist outdoes himself on occasion.

False.

It is very clear to me that what made voters shift towards the Republican party since the advent of talk radio and the elimination of the fairness doctrine had nothing to do at all with "exposure to zealous left-wing rhetoric" -- it was, and I can't believe, frankly, that Kevin would even consider this a debate point, repeated exposure to BS STRAWMAN CHARACTERIZATIONS OF DEMOCRATIC/"LIBERAL" POSITIONS BY ZEALOUS CONSERVATIVES.

The Democratic party has no organized, or effective method to battle this with its own "BS
Strawman Characterizations Of Republican/"Conservative" positions so its been pretty much a one way street.

If the proposition were true, Limbaugh and his ilk would have cemented a permanent Democratic majority by now.

Dear Nathan,

I don't think "zealous" means what you think it means.

Zealous (Synonyms: enthusiastic, eager, fervid, fervent, intense, passionate, warm) is not antithetical to "articulate and likable" or "smart and persuasive."

I would say on balance and very provisionally, true -- but only if I get to define the two poles more carefully.

First, it depends on the quality of liberal rant. And by rant, I mean something off in the stratosphere, not a moderated discussion about real-world politics that you'd read from K-Drum or his blogging buddies. There are some pie-in-the-sky liberal rants that don't turn me off in the least: Stuff on global warming, peak oil, the out-of-control energy industry, ending world poverty, enacting universal healthcare, strengthening the UN, advocating universal nuclear disarmament and world peace, etc. I may not consider any of these proposals fully workable -- but I think whoever is ranting about them has their heart in the right place, and that counts for much.

However, there's another species of lefty rant that *does* set my teeth on edge: our decaying consumerist culture that the state has to protect us from by regulating video games and sticking warning labels on CDs, anti-smoking fascism, humorless PC language fascism, intolerance of crude and/or sexual humor, radical gender feminism which amounts to misandry, extreme identity politics in general. These things *do* tend to tweak my Inner Centrist and I tend to pull back from these positions and argue against them even to the extent of devil's advocacy because they're fundamentally anti-civil libertarian.

Conversely, there is some right-wing Libertarian ranting that I'm down with: Foreign policy realism (even to the edge of isolationism), small business over multinational corporations, defense of the Constitution and checks and balances, rants against ordinary bureaucracy like at the DMV or the IRS, "We're from the Government; We're Here to Help You" humor, small, self-selected organic communities vs anonymous mass administered society. Even though I might not go nearly as far with any of these things as a straight-no-chaser Libertarian -- I can see where they're coming from and don't feel alienated by the perspective.

And likewise, anything social conservative requiring state intervention or, on the other side of the coin, free-market fundamentalism makes me cringe, vomit, sweat, laugh bitterly and pushes all my righteous Democratic center-leftie buttons.

Bob

Such would be true of the significant portion of the population of lacking cognition (i.e. the folks who continue to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9-11 attacks and that Sadam and al Queda were in league), a number of whom have posted here.

Dealing with people who actually believe in things definitely makes me contemptuous of the things they believe in, but I don't think it makes me more inclined to believe some other things. If that helps.

Jim E. fine, but "idealogue" is always pejorative in my book.

Your culture and the level of economic development of your country do seem to influence how traditionalistic your values are. Ronald Inglehart and colleagues in their World Values Survey found that Catholics and Protestants within a given country tend to have similar traditional views. Catholics and Protestants in Britain are more liberal than their coreligionists in Nigeria. It also turns out that culture groups have similar values. English-speaking countries are quite traditional compared to Confucian nations.

The empirical research implies that if you wanted to make people more traditionalistic and more authoritarian you have to make them politically and economically insecure.

when I read K. Lopez at the Corner I become more liberal...cause she's a lunatic. when I read Kevin Drum I generally feel more liberal cause he's sensible. when I read these comment threads, which are full of raving lunatics, I become more conservative.

Um, yeah, what he said. Although the real result for me has been to turn me into an increasingly unhinged libertarian. The more online political commentary I read, the more I'm convinced that these people need to be kept as far away from government as possible, left or right. There have been other factors in my conversion (Bush, world politics, lots of reading), but every time I doubt my committment to the 2nd Amendment I just visit Powerline. And the discussions I've read here about libertarianism tend to drive me even further into the wild.

On the other hand, the few sites I actually read regularly tend to be those written by more sane and personable people, regardless of political orientation. They also tend to be more realistic about what government can or can't accomplish. So if we could assemble a coalition government of, say, Kevin, Spencer Ackerman, Jim Henley, Stephen Bainbridge, John Cole, Greg Djerejian, and maybe one or two of the TNR/Prospect writers, I'd be pretty happy. (I'm probably leaving someone out; Max Blumenthal of The Nation, maybe, or Michelle Goldberg of Salon, but they tend to stick to traditional lefty journalism and don't blog.)

Perjorative? Maybe. But as all of our grandmothers used to say "if the shoe fits..."

If this is true, what lesson should we draw from it?

Never rub another man's rhubarb?

The empirical research implies that if you wanted to make people more traditionalistic and more authoritarian you have to make them politically and economically insecure.
Posted by: bellumregio

And there in a convenient nutshell is the story of the South...

True. Although I consider myself to be a centrist, I've become more and more conservative because of the hate filled attacks on the right and center by leftists who regularly post in the comments on Political Animal.

Al's a concern troll!

Nathan wrote: "idealogue" is always pejorative in my book.

Thant's nice. "Liar" is always a perjorative in mine.

Al's a parodist who's made jumping the shark into an art form of sorts.

Cracks me up.

If this is true, what lesson should we draw from it?

IF it's true, the lesson we should draw is that centrists are really contrarians who are purely reactive and don't think things through for themselves.

Definitely, true.

Here in San Francisco one is exposed to a boatload of idiotic leftists, so much so that I am sometimes glad we have idiotic conservatives who might serve to cancel out these Chomskyites.

If this is true, what lesson should we draw from it?

That centrists are hopelessly confused wusses?

Silly question.

"idealogue" is always pejorative in my book.

You offered this without explanation, but perhaps I can offer mine: an ideologue maintains belief in his or her ideas, however scatterbrained, even in the face of evidence that contradicts them. Furthermore, the ideologue will usually twist the evidence to support these preconceived ideas. Creationists and Communists are my favorite examples.

In theory liberalism is, by definition, less susceptible to ideologues, because it's a worldview built around the concept that change and new ideas are both good. In practice, liberalism and leftism have become so conflated in theory and practice that, policy-wise, there isn't much open-mindedness remaining, although it's still more adaptable than the wretched mishmash of prejudice that usually passes for "conservatism" in this country.

Following up on somebody's comment about Berkeley students...

In the UC Berkeley econ department I met more conservative ideologues than I had the prior 7 years in San Jose nor the folowing 2 years in San Francisco. One of my buddies at Berkeley cribbed Grover Norquist almost perfectly.

Note that the liberals I know in the Bay Area have high salaries, pay taxes, and raise children - whereas the students did not. So my experience tells me that underlying reality is the determining factor, not proximity to zealotry.

Neural Linguistic Programming teaches me that people are inclined to trend towards the opposite behavior that is presented to them in a forceful way.

For example, if someone is anti-war but I make a comment saying we must hang all of the generals, then s/he should tend to find good reasons why we need generals since my assertion is so polarizing.

The lesson one should take from this is to not polarize but find agreement. While the consciousness of the subject is distracted with the agreement, the communication with the unconscious can begin. My understanding is this is what hypnotists do.

If anyone wonders why they have so many more ideologues than we do:

"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." -Bertrand Russell

no fair quoting Bertie Russell!

I have to say, some of the idealogues I ran into at ZooMass, during Teh Late 80's did have the effect of hardening some of my positions, sorta like pouring reinforced concrete.
Funny that one of their ilk jest got sent to the slammer. (google: Tony Rudy)
No really, it was funny. Like the prairie dogs were all "why you fall out your chair giggling?" and stuff.

The real funny thing,There is no diff. between Far right and far left,No diff. at all.Prove me wrong

The conclusion is that centrists are useless, and should be ignored.

False

What ever happened to Americans.Are we not headed down the same path as Iraq. If all that matters is everything that is Rightwing is what I believe,Or all that is Leftwing is what I believe.Then what happens to America? We all are Sunni or Sheia. Shame.

Oh when it comes to Bertrand Russell, I have an arsenal. When I was 14, all the other girls had posters of some guy names Rex Smith and ABBA. I had Einstein and Bertrand Russell on my bedroom walls. ('Splains a lot, don't it?)

But back to Bertrand. Hows this one? Particularly apt to todays crop of conservatives:

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

I am a raving Leftist and some liberal leaning centrists have accused me of being a Freeper. I think that is enough proof that the theory has some merit.

That I am unable to permanently learn the lesson, even though I am aware of the idea, and attempt to find agreement instead, means I probably do not score the way I perceve myself to be in that test bellumregio described.

Have I mentioned that the soldiers who serve in Bush's War are criminals and they should not be honored?

Do you want to honor Private Green now?

Yeah! Yeah! And persistent exposure to facts causes centrists to sympathize more strongly with fantasy! Exposure to God causes them to sympathize with the Devil! Exposure to Christianity causes them to sympathize with Islam! Exposure to onions causes them to sympathize with tomatoes!

Often overlooked: persistent exposure to other centrists causes centrists to sympathize more strongly with ... shoot ... this is hard work ....

I'm with janinsanfran: if that's true, then "centrists" aren't really centrists at all--they're just impressionable contrarians.

Exposure to onions causes them to sympathize with tomatoes! - dcbob

Good 'un.

I don't know, Kevin, how do you feel? You seem like a real centrist. Do you find yourself becoming more liberal or more conservative by reading the Comments section of your own blog? The commenters seem to range from extreme right to extreme left wing. You may be in the best position to answer your own question.

Would the Divine MsN check her email please?

True. Although I consider myself to be a centrist, I've become more and more conservative because of the hate filled attacks on the right and center by leftists who regularly post in the comments on Political Animal.

Posted by: Al on December 20, 2006 at 3:03 PM

As opposed to the love-filled tactics of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and our beloved O'Reilly?
The hate from the conservative side flows like a landslide over half of America.

False: if it were true, characters like David Broder, Fred Hiatt and Peter Beinart would have left Washington long ago and joined an ashram.

I think the very idea of centrist is totally made up. It's like if we take an apple and an orange and combine them, we have an orple. It's a chimera, not a real thing.

Why is that, you ask? I'll ask you - is someone who votes for both the current crop of sociopathic conservatives AND truly liberal candidates anything other than confused? Should that person even be voting?

The scale between radical lefty and rightwing zealot is not a number line that extends in both directions from "0". In the actual right to left scale, "O" defines the rightwing zealot position - scared, racist, uninformed and often just plain sociopathic. The only permitted direction is positive, with no predefined "end". Even lefty radicals are interested in the greatest good. Those we call centrists are not really even on the line - they are in limbo, awaiting the call to take a position. Individual predisposition dictates whether reality is meaningful to them or if, like GWB, they are immune to it's siren call.

I don't know what stopped up GWB ears to reality, but whatever it is, it works well. Or badly, depending upon how expansive you make the universe of outcomes.

I think the defining characteristic of a modern conservative zealot is the ability to deny reality. The lefty radical, for all his rough ways, want's to change reality. That's a huge difference.

Anyway, anyone who is antagonized by polarizing statements that reflect actual reality deserves what they get. Human beings are not still here because we are good at denying reality. We are still here because at least SOME of us are capable of recognizing reality even, or particularly, when we don't like it.

Jake

I used to base my beliefs on whether I was annoyed by people who held or voiced the opposite beliefs.

Then I turned 13 and put all that behind me.

Mention Israel and let the polarizing begin.

Now I base my beliefs on whether my hero, Rush Limbaugh, was annoyed by people who hold or voice the opposite belief.

if you don't think that exposure to Moscow on the Bay doesn't change people (even if briefly) into conservatives...you really are in a cocoon. I live in Manhattan which is only about, oh, 75% Democrat and virtually everyone makes fun of how lunatically left the bay area is.

Yes, indeed, the self-esteem of Manhattanites is so low that they make fun of EVERYONE. So what's your point again?

Definition of a Centerist: someone who can't stand either righty or lefty idealogues and votes based on aversion to whichever side is being the bigger a**hole at election time.

I think, therefore, I'm liberal?

I am a Centrist.

While I hold views that some people may consider Radical, I don't like being thought of as a Radical. So I'll happily frame views that are objectively or statistically "mainstream" as "radical" if it serves that purpose. I'd rather they be marginalized, instead of me.

I'm not crazy.

You're the one that's crazy.

Welcome back, CW - that's a good one. When I interviewed with the head of the life sciences department for my current job she was in a mood. While I was waiting for her I heard her slam down the phone and say loudly "What a bitch!"

She came out, called me in, appologized for her outburst, then got to the interview.

When she called me back in the next day to offer me the position she told me as I was leaving "It was that button. I decided to hire you when I saw it." and she pointed to the button on my Sierra Club backpack that says I think, therefore I'm dangerous.

Wow. What a parade of cookie-cutter inanities - with the laudable exception of Nat and Bob; both those guys make sense to me. And here's the incredible thing that so very many commenters seem incapable of digesting: the fact those two make sense to me doesn't automatically make them right. I know. Astonishing.

Being a centrist isn't a bullshit category, the result of "false consciousness," the result of being unable to think or read, a feckless mind, or the result of being overly "impressionable" or any of the sub-moronic crap that filled the comments. It grows from a lack of arrogance, from accepting the fairly sane proposition that some schmo reading the daily paper or some jackasses blog may not have all the relevant information at his/her fingertips. It is, rather, an approach that relies more on empricism than sorting events through the lens of what one presumes to know. It's certainly not a function of not caring; it has more to do with forgoing the automatic assumption that people who don't think exactly the way you do are neither insane, racist, or out to enrich their friends.

To put this in concrete terms, it's accepting the idea that the government doesn't do everything well (a cheap shot at liberals) and neither does the sacred market and teaching family values. The centrist project amounts to finding the sweet spot between those polls. And it's a thinking exercise.

To answer the question, though, my actual sympathy for this position or that doesn't change with what I read. With much of the drivel above, I just take it for what it is: someone's opinion and, not incidentally, the voice of zealotry. But it doesn't make me want to vote for or against Bush. It just tells me the people who posted those thoughts - and this is ironic - stopped actually thinking quite some time ago; I call this ironic because that's precisely what these posters are accusing centrists of doing. Think seriously about James E. Powell is asserting in his comment: essentially, that anyone who reads and thinks about the world can only reach the same conclusions he has reached; his is, apparently, the universal mind. Thus, anyone who doesn't share Powell's precise view on any given subject is either uninformed, dangerous, or, well, stupid. That's just silly. Mind-blowingly arrogant as well, but, fundamentally, it's silly.

Incredibly, he's got ample support down the thread....

It just tells me the people who posted those thoughts - and this is ironic - stopped actually thinking quite some time ago; I call this ironic because that's precisely what these posters are accusing centrists of doing.

You know what's more ironic?

Accusing someone of being ironic because they are doing what they are accusing you of doing while you yourself are still doing it.

Ya, ya'betcha JB,

Lots of Frugtkages out there - Came on to post on a thread below about why no one mentioned Smoerbrod when they talked about European being "toast" - Is it merely liverwurst or something?

But, that Frugtkage of all Frugtkages called rdw made me think that my government back in Copenhagen is freakin' Liberal compared to him. And they are in Bush's hip pocket. Ya, and go down there and read rdw, Mr Jeff Bull, and then come back and talk about closed minds from the leftist side of the lane.

Glaedelig Jul to all - Even Centrists and trools, to boot.

Jeebus Disputo, pass me a freakin' aspirin.

Jeebus Disputo, pass me a freakin' aspirin.

Greetings, Global Citizen! Good story. We seem alike, diagramming sentences and thinking!!!!
I enjoyed your reminiscence about the interview. We are just too clever sometimes!!

The important point is that truly crazy liberals represent a very small fraction of the population and have very little media voice. (For every Michael Moore there are a many Bill O'Reillys.) Truly crazy right wing people represent a sizeable fraction of the population--10%? 20%? 25%?--and have considerable media voice.

GC,

Be sure to take that aspirin with either Tuborg, Carlsberg, or AquaVit - No, not Aqua Velva - That's for hiccups.

"the communication with the unconscious can begin"
You can talk to Bush supporters?!

"Exposure to onions causes them to sympathize with tomatoes!"
Hang on, I thought onions like tomatoes?

And via the Rosen piece - check out the 2004 Alan Wolfe article linked to in comments over there, tracing the 'destroy the enemy, give no quarter, victory is annihilation' strain in recent Republican thinking to " . . . an obscure and very conservative German political philosopher.":
" . . . To the degree that conservatives bring to this country something like Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction, they stand against not only liberals but America's historic liberal heritage. That may help them in the short run; conservative slash-and-burn rhetoric and no-holds-barred partisanship are so unusual in our moderately consensual political system that they have recently gotten far out of the sheer element of surprise, leaving the news media without a vocabulary for describing their ruthlessness and liberals without a strategy for stopping their designs. But the same extremist approach to politics could also harm them if a traditional American concern with checks and balances and limits on political power comes back into fashion. . ."

Global Citizen: "The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." -Bertrand Russell

Similarly,

"When confronted with new information, I reassess and modify my position. What, sir, do you do when
confronted with new information?" -- John Maynard Keynes

For the record, since I feel a little concern-trolled by Jeff Bull (apologies to Jeff, since I have a feeling he was being sincere if a little unreflectively -- not to mention ironically -- arrogant):

I do not consider myself a centrist. I have no problem with passionate rhetoric in politics; I was against the war in '02 when it was entirely unfashionable. I supported and worked for Howard Dean in the '04 primary, and so have a major thing against triangulation as a political strategy. I don't tack to the middle with a sense of smug superiority that I'm "more balanced" than "the wackos" on either side. I made no claims about my political beliefs other than that they're my own personal opinions.

I merely meant to say that "left" and "right" aren't monolitic categories. While I'm certainly no anarchist and reject the central Social Darwinistic premises of Libertarianism and free-market fundamentalism -- my strongest political values tend to be civil libertarian. Therefore, I find things to object to in the radically communitarian left, as I find things to support in the civil libertarian right. I recognize the need for a government -- especially to regulate the public sphere (which includes much economic activity) -- but at the same time I believe very strongly that the government has no role in regulating personal behavior, even for goals I may support.

This makes me a garden variety liberal -- made angry in the past six years by one of the most ideological (perhaps *the* most ideological) administration in American history.

To *that* extent, my practical politics are probably more "radical" than they'd be in more normal times, under a president like Bush I or Clinton. But I've always been an ardent Democrat who has volunteered for the party in every major election.

Bob

Listening to Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter etc. sure did make me despise conservatism more than I would have.

Here is an example of the polarizing affect from a comment earlier today about Gen. Abizaid's retirement:

American Generals are as corrupt as Nazi Generals, and they expect to live as well as Saudi princes.

As always, my feelings are that generals should be hung.

-- tpx
-- # Dec 20 2006, 10:48

That's me over at Gilliard's News Blog.

Here is a response:

American Generals are as corrupt as Nazi Generals, and they expect to live as well as Saudi princes.

(cough) Godwin's Law (cough)

-- marquer
-- # Dec 20 2006, 11:05

Now I do not know if marquer is a centrist or liberal leaning or what, and I did use the example of the notoriously corrupt Nazi generals, which was the point I was trying to make about American generals. My comment was just a drive by and I was not part of any discussion. I guess Godwin's Law could be invoked and I suppose using Nazi comparisons should be avoided, but I think marquer was reacting to my polarizing blanket expression of dislike for generals. Marquer's (sorry s/he is just an example here, I do not mean to be picking on anyone) use of Godwin's Law to refute my statement indicting generals and the American Abizaid in particular, is an example of the polarizing affect I was trying to explain.

I think humans are susceptible to polarization because of the division of the brain, with one side being dominate over the other. Interestingly, from a centrist point of view, one of the goals of NLP therapists is to help people reconcile their competing desires. I have mentioned before my brother has tried to quit smoking every week for the past ten years. From my NLP perspective, his consciousness wants to quit smoking but some other part of him, unconscious to him, derives something important from smoking and dominates that part of him that wants to quit. Therapy is supposed to help find a way to for the unconscious part to find another way to satisfy that need smoking provides. When that is achieved, the person has a more balanced, or centrist, personality, at least as far as that problem is concerned.

" From my NLP perspective, his consciousness wants to quit smoking but some other part of him, unconscious to him, derives something important from smoking and dominates that part of him that wants to quit. "

Is this level of analysis necessary? Can't we just go with ~physiology?

Which I guess would be saying the same thing, more or less . . .

I don't tack to the middle with a sense of smug superiority that I'm "more balanced" than "the wackos" on either side. I made no claims about my political beliefs other than that they're my own personal opinions.

Yeah, Bob, and you're also not calling everyone who disagrees with you a right-wing fascist, or any of the many other insults flung people like me and Jeff Bull. Your political views - civil liberties aside - are substantially different from mine, but you seem to have given them some thought, and you're open to debating with those of us who have different views without calling us names. That's really all we ask, and it seems to be incredibly difficult for most of the other commenters here. Or anyone conscious of American politics, for that matter.

What Jeff was complaining about is leftists who believe that everyone should share their opinions, and that those who don't are uninformed or prejudiced or just bad people. Except for when I'm dealing with the extreme fringes like the aforementioned creationists and Commies, I don't assume bad faith on the part of my ideological opponents. I also don't assume that just because we disagree on one matter, we'll disagree on everything else. In fact, I've learned quite a bit by talking to my opponents, and where I have common ground with someone, I try to work with that rather than focusing on issues where we'd clash.

To refocus on Kevin's question, however: the problem is that when you call someone names in the course of trying to make an argument, they not only stop listening, but also start to wonder whether they should be skeptical of anything else you say. When someone calls me a selfish Ayn Rand-obsessed sociopath because I think our government is too large, that signals to me that they can't be trusted to make policy. (I really, really hate Rand, and have no patience for her brand of libertarianism.)

Dan S., I am not sure what you mean by physiology, but if you mean chemical addiction, which I will assume for argument's sake, it is still uncounscious to the person who wants to quit smoking and whatever the active chemical(s) is that causes the addiciton, it still satisfies a need that might be sated in another way. Hypnotists try to deal with smoking this way, I think, by communicating with the unconcsious and asking it if there is another way to do what smoking does and if will accept that alternative. Bandler and Grinder, the authors of many NLP books, frame some NLP techniques in this way.

I wanted to say one more thing about NLP, and that it was partially based on transformational grammar. What is funny and ironic is that transformational grammar was initially based on Noam Chomsky's linguistic claim to fame.

So, Professor Chomsky's seminal idea of modern grammar helps people keep their personalities in balance (centrist). It is ironic many consider him a polarizer.

Re Al: "You may consider yourself a centrist, but it's yet more evidence that you are a total boob."

Yeah, and definitely the right boob.

This is true. I go to a small liberal arts college, and the members of the Peace Studies department make me want to scream. The absence of any prominent conservative voices on campus also forces me into a position where I find myself making conservative arguments just for the sake of fairness.

Exposure to extremism does make one more likely to sympathize with extremists on the other side. One of the reasons the country turned more conservative in recent years was because people were sick of having the most extreme form of liberalism shoved down their throats by professors across the country. The nearly Marxist teachers that plague academia are not representative of the Democratic Party, and they give the Democrats a bad name.

I recall one professor of mine, during a discussion about the tragic deaths of our soldiers in Iraq, not seriously contemplating the issue, but gleefully gloating about how this would hurt Bush. I remember another professor mocking anyone who did not want the U.S. to sacrifice all her sovereignty to the U.N. as a "superstitious idiot". It's people like these that drive Americans into the arms of right-wing (or at least they claim to be right-wing) extremists, who, interestingly enough, are a mirror-image of their socialist and leftist counterparts.

What are we trying to get at with "sympathetic"? Are we trying to say it affects the way such a person votes?

All I know is that, prior to 2000, whatever crowd I was in, I tended to play devil's advocate for balance? To expose the other side's points? Who knows. At the end of the 1980s I was a grad student in government at Cornell and felt abused by the Marxists, so I was more inclined to complain about them, and to complain privately about political correctness, yet I was always aware that those who complained about it in a public forum had an agenda different from my own.

So at a time when liberals had had many wins over the previous decades, while complaining some about Reagan I also felt somewhat embittered by the left around me and probably spent more time privately complaining about them.

But it really had no effect on my politics.

I was still the same liberal as always, though graduate school in the social sciences can make you more aware of "class" in our said-to-be classless society.

Now in recent years I haven't been around Marxists, but I feel that even if I were, since 2000, I have been embittered only toward conservatives.

catherineD:

I understand that kind of pressure, having gone back to college in the late 80s/early 90s. Only for me, it wasn't so much the knee-jerk campus leftists (who were, after all, easy enough to ignore -- when I wasn't ardently agreeing with them :), it was the deconstructionists who drove me up a wall with their PC inanities and persuaded me to change my major from English to American studies.

Though they share the skeleton of an emancipatory agenda with the more garden-variety lefists, deconstructionists and po-mo theorists are a special breed of campus politico. They believe that politics -- the appurtenances of power -- is inbued in every social and personal exchange, while also believing that political action is inherently worthless. In fact, some of the most ardent opponents of the po-mo-rons were traditional socialist types in the poli sci department who considered them snickering above-it-all elitist nihilists. "Oooh, look, everything we hold dear about our culture is socially constructed. Madonna is the functional equivalent of Mozart."

As much as I've grown later on to appreciate in proper context the insights of Foucault and Derrida -- gods, I couldn't stand their acolytes at the time, especially the English grad student TAs who didn't know fook about Foucault but feared instant career destruction if they expressed any doubt. Camille Paglia and Slavoj Sizek -- from opposite ends of the political spectrum -- each do magnificently snarky jobs of deconstructing the deconstructionists. Thank gods that paradigm is finally out of fashion in American English departments.

Nat:

I dunno Nat; I don't recall us ever disagreeing on very much -- although you might be a bit more conservative than I on economic issues. I do remember us strongly agreeing on gay rights a couple months back. But like yourself, I like to try to stress agreement with people who aren't spouting pure ideology or talking points; I think I have a higher tolerance with some of our civil conservatives and self-described centrists than many here. I enjoy discussion and sharing views maybe even more than arguing and debate -- although I enjoy that too, to be sure. I'm just not as good at it as others.

I will agree with you very strongly regarding incessant ad-hominem argument. I don't like to bring this up much, but there are a handful of regulars here (who shall go nameless; to ad-hom the ad-hom-ers would be the height of hypocrisy) many posts of whose I just have to skim, despite how little I have to argue with their views. They ad hom so much it literally becomes a schtick -- I see the first predictably repetitive buzzword and it's hit the spacebar, bye-bye message.

It isn't even so much whether the charge is accurate or not -- it's that in these cases, the charge is always exactly the same. It's like they have an ad-hom macro set up. Their response would be "but in each case I'm fighting off the same [fill in the blank] arguments from the same [fill in the blank] trolls," and maybe there's some truth to that. But it's boring as hell! Focus on what's different in the arguments. Rebut the facts and logic and leave motive speculation out of it. That should be especially easy now after Blog Reform, when the truly disruptive and useless trolls have been chased out of here.

I'm not objecting to snark posts. And there are times when everybody has cause to indulge in argument ad hominem (even cmdicely) -- because it's an interesting question *why* our opponents seem to make the same arguments over and over again. I'm just pitching for a little variety, is all ...

Bob

We keep talking of conservatives as if being too stron, too virile, too outspoken a conservative was the issue. Hell, a real conservative is perfectly capable of being a real liberal. Conservatism is about slowing the process of change, about thinking before leaping, about caring for things as they are.

The problem is Republicans - not conservatives. If this were ONLY a discussion between true liberals and true conservatives, it would be a vastly different conversation.

In reality, it is a discussion between authoritarian true belieivers and everyone else. Marxists were authoritarian true believers, Bush et al are authoritarian true believes, etc. It really isn't an issue of left and right, but about whether power should be absolute and central or relative and diffuse. In this frame, there can be no centrist. At best, like the yin yang symbol, a centrist is both - but unlike the yin yang, both means conflicted. Authoritarians are not interested "sort of absolutes" they want and need the whole enchilada. That kind of leaves EVERYTHING else to the "not" authoritarians.

Which is just about everybody except the sociopaths - and even they want THEIR authoritarian to be in charge, not someone elses.

It isn't about health care, or education, or welfare - it's about power, and money is the measure.

We should stop abusing the word conservative, and we should stop crediting the Republicans in this country as wearing a mantle of conservatism. We should call them what they now are, and may have been for more than 50 years - power mad totalitarins.

Jake

We should call them what they now are, and may have been for more than 50 years - power mad totalitarins.

Jake

Wealthy power mad totalitarians.

That too, MsN.

Jake

Much as I don't want to admit it, I have a horrible problem with tone; I can't count the number of times I've been accused of, and probably have, come off as arrogant.

Anyway, Nat digested the point; so did Bob, even if he called me out as "unreflective" (my only defense: I respond badly to what I perceive as arrogance - e.g. arrogantly).

The thing is, what I wrote comes from obsessive reflection. This entire conversation is one of my chief obsessions. We're in a place, in American politics, where the Republicans/conservatives blame the Democrats/liberals for the state of rage, while Democrats/liberals blame the Republicans/conservatives. We're stuck on a question of who started it. And that's devolved into something worse, something Nat pointed out: the assumption of bad faith from our political opponents; and if it isn't bad faith, it's either ignorance or false consciousness. Now I know too many ripping smart conservatives (for the record, I've become a "classic liberal," kind of doped up on the concept of "freedom" broadly applied) to accept the idea that they're either stupid, greedy, or duped; they happen to be friends of mine. So...I get a little agitated while defending them.

When illegal/irrational/aggressive/offensive/acquisitive war becomes a part of our national policy, my tone becomes hostile. War brings out the worst in me and makes me have bad thoughts about those responsible and those who support it, which I then try to communicate abhorrently. I wish my thoughts about war could always communcate a positive antagonism, but they do devolve into personality attacks, whose defects I consider to be a cause for acting out violence.

1) Yes

2) STFU

The message is clear: STFU

It means that the PC crowd helped make Rush Limbaugh and other conservative wankers actually come off as reasonable and helped usher in the current ungodly mess we now face. Thankfully, Rush and his palsies are now returning the favor.

But don't worry, idiots like Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon will help usher in the next era of conservative dominance.

One more: my mother thought Ayn Rand was a communist because of the novel Atlas Shrugged. Rand's ruthlessness could only be identified as representative of the evil communist Stalinism that was being propagated. I always find humor in that.

Actually, persistent exposure to a zealous righty ideologue was one of two major influences that caused this former centrist Dem to start moving left.

I'd just started teaching at a small Christian college in the early 1990s, and a zealously anti-government economics professor had a class just down the hall from my office during my afternoon office hours. Needless to say, a lot of questions came to mind that I would have loved to have the opportunity to ask as one of his students. (For instance, I remember his showing a film that equated a parent's inheritance to his child of talents and abilities with inheritances of money, noting that the former weren't taxed, so why tax the latter? It wasn't all stupid shit like that, but a great deal of it was.)

Building up counterarguments to the things he would say in his lectures wound up moving me much further to the left than I would otherwise have been.

Thank you, Mark Ahlseen, wherever you are.