From the center

Crusaders, the filibuster, Bill Frist, etc.

2005-04-27T05:49:00.000-07:00

A few issues that have come up in the past few months. They've all built up anger inside me to a boiling point:

THE CRUSADES:

Town to town, broadcast to each house they drop your name
But no one knows your face.
Billboards quoting things you'd never say...
You hang your head and pray
For Jesusland.

It's not that I have a problem with religious people. I have no qualms or issues with Christianity. However as of late, there's been a growing and frightening movement of Christianity that's pushing the religion, in its most extreme of forms, into the mainstream more than ever before. Don't believe me? Look at this quotation:

"There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'"

Who said this? Not some liberal senator. Not some Michael Moore type figure. Not some wealthy funder of MoveOn.org. This was said by a certain Senator Barry Goldwater--you know, the one that lost a bid for the presidency because he was too conservative.

There's been a change over time. Today those comments would make Goldwater be regarded as slightly left-of-center. You see, when it comes to the issue of religion, the minority of extremist Christians has managed to do a few frightening things:
1) They've managed to pull in enough unextreme Christians with more loosely (sane more sanely) defined values to where they have the backing of the majority... or at least, a majority that doesn't realize how dangerous they are.
2) They've managed to utilize grassroots campaigning to such an extent that our political leaders have to listen to their every will. And they've gotten enough backers in Washington to where their pressuring and posturing is listened to.
3) They've given the perception of being a persecuted smaller group when they're actually capable of wielding more power than most groups could ever hope to achieve.

Normally, I find it cute when Rolling Stone tries to write about anything outside of the top 40 hits of the day, however this is actually a pretty decent (albeit skewed) article on this topic:
Click here
Now, I'm not left of center. I'm in the center. And from my position in the center, I find this kind of thing to be dangerous. Dangerous, as in: Whenever one organization or group begins to move too far to impose their perspective too much on others, it's never a good thing. Especially when the opposition--primarily those who aren't religious, or are religious but more apathetic about it--can't possibly mobilize against them (as was indicated by the failed Bright movement). These are people on the far side of the aisle, far beyond the religious perspective everyone else presents. And to have our nation bow down to their every whim because they express a disproportionate degree of power is not right. We need to foster a climate of religious openness, instead of letting one side of the religious argument push us in their direction.

THE FILIBUSTER:
Here's a topic of particular importance right now. In their quest to constantly please the small-but-deadly group of uber-Christians in our country, the Republican party is now looking to destroy the minority party's only means of holding up judicial nominations: eliminating the filibuster. This option, commonly referred to as the 'nuclear option' by arrogant bozos who support it, is perhaps the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas.

How so? Well, look at this: Clique

"In light of the revolt of the center, Senate Republican leader Bill Frist sent exactly the wrong signal at the worst possible time by speaking over the weekend to a group of Christian conservatives who see Senate filibusters of judicial nominees as blocking 'people of faith' from the courts."

Apparently, people don't like the concept of throwing out an age-old (and vastly important) component of our legislative branch solely because a bunch of insanely right-wing hacks would like to fill our supreme court with insane right-wingers. So from the liberal, and even from the centrist, perspective.. this is a bad idea right now.

But it also demonstrates the incredible short-sightedness of the Republican party. Their recent successes have driven them into the same state of arrogance that befell the Democratic party during the days of LBJ. What they do not realize is that government works in cycles. In fifteen to thirty years, the Republican party will have lost power (and their arrogantly trying to push through extremist judges and legislation that only a relatively small number of people actually want isn't going to help matters), and they'll all be sitting around like the Democrats of today, twiddling their thumbs, wondering what just happened to their indestructible success. And it will be at that time that they'll be wishing they could filibuster the judicial nominees of the Democratic party--a bunch of overly left-wing nominees that I'd be equally opposed to. But because the idiots got rid of the filibuster back when they were in control, suddenly they'll have no means of stopping those nominees from getting through!

This is short-sighted on their part and something that will inevitably backfire. It will backfire both today, because it's making for a lot of disgruntled moderates... and in the future, because if it passes, they'll be missing that filibuster some years down the road.

BILL FRIST:
Let's rewind to 2002. If you recall, Trent Lott was the Senate Majority Leader. He was as right-wing as they come. And he was alleged to have pent up racism that he just couldn't get out of his system. After a few comments about the segregationist presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond, he was forced into resignation.

In steps the glowing hero, the unextreme, non-racist Tennessee senator Bill Frist. A former doctor, a pragmatic senator, a person willing to work with both sides of the aisle. A fairly young senator, a man with little relative time in politics, a person with a slant to the right but not one so extreme that it wouldn't allow for some compromise.

What happened? Today he's the one responsible for all that talk of eliminating the filibuster. Today, he's more in the hands of the Christian right than anyone aside from perhaps Tom DeLay. He's one of the reasons why the Terri Schiavo situation became the birdsong of the Republican party. He's someone who has tried to argue with his medical expertise (being a former doctor) that one can contract AIDS from tears. He's suddenly no longer that pragmatic, closer-to-center Republican I wanted--now he's just a mouthpiece for the right and basically Trent Lott remixed (minus the racism). Why can't we have one decent politician who tries to foster an environment of discussion and compromise instead of ramming partisan rhetoric down our throats, Frist?

EVIL DRUGMAKERS:
Okay, they're not really evil. The pharmaceutical industry has done a lot of good. But the problem right now is that the good things accomplished by the industry are being overtaken by the financial interests of the companies in it.

First off, there's the issue of patenting the human genome. It's been a topic of interest as of late, as more and more companies have been trying to get their hands on it. In essence, the companies want to patent maps of human genes before their scientists even get a chance to figure out what those genes can do. Why? Because, as their scientists figure out more and more about what those genes can do, the companies want to have a full grip on the medicinal opportunities offered by those genetic codes. So they can make money. But this stymies progress! A more open scientific community would allow for faster and better cures to diseases.
Here's an article on the issue from five years ago...
You'd think an issue that's been around for so long and has been discussed for so many years would have some sort of government intervention to prevent it from happening. But for some reason, the issue is still rampant.

Of course, that could be because the pharmaceuticals are in cahooots with the government. Our second issue:
Drugmakers go furthest to sway congress
The government will soon be looking into possible ways for the FDA to continue placing limits on drugmakers so they don't do things like, say, allow 14-year-olds to acquire prescription antidepressants that make 14-year-olds more suicidal. This is bad for the already wealthy pharmaceutical companies, who are now stepping up efforts more than ever before to pressure the government into not necessarily limiting their ability to sell potentially dangerous drugs to the public. This means going to people like our buddy Bill Frist and lobbying like mad.

Now, there are a lot of problems with the drug industry right now. No one--aside from drug industry lobbyists and the congress members they've pocketed--will contest that. Yet at this rate, nothing's going to be done about it. From a centrist perspective.. and from the perspective of someone who wants to see better regulation of the drugs that access the market, or at least better information about drugs before they go out into public... this is a bad thing.

Alright, that's all for now.

The Biased Media

2005-01-19T15:10:00.000-08:00

Read this article. Then ask yourself, is this an article? Or is it an editorial?

Four More Years of Bush Makes the World Anxious

"The rest of the world will be watching with anxiety when President Bush is inaugurated Thursday for a second time, fearing the most powerful man on the planet may do more harm than good."

The rest of the world? The entire rest of the world? How is that known?

"Some 58 percent of people surveyed in a British Broadcasting Corporation poll in 21 countries said they believed Bush's re-election made the world a more dangerous place."

Oh, so it's only 58% of 21 countries--leaving a good 42% behind. "The rest of the world?" Bit of an exaggeration, no?

You may not see this article as biased at first. You may be conditioned by the rampant bias so prevalent in our political climate that this sort of thing sounds mild. But throughout the article there are intricately woven bits of partisanship that make it extremely biased and anti-Bush. Aforementioned bit aside, there is also this:

"Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice's vow that 'the time for diplomacy is now' will go down well at the Brussels-based, 25-nation EU. What is less certain is that words will be converted into deeds and that a genuine reconciliation will follow."

How is this a straightforward approach to the news? That is a tainted line if I've ever heard one; it directly implies a mistrust in the President. And it isn't coming from someone in a citation or source for the article... no, it's coming from the article's writer himself. Even the headline has this kind of bias present--what's the deal? Is it just a slow news day? After all, this isn't really a "newsworthy" story--it's not an event, but a report on a "vibe" felt by the world extrapolated from a poll.. perhaps the lack of a content basis for the article led to the writer inserting his own views?

In any event, this shows a prevalent problem in the media. I believe it largely is a spinoff of the fact that nobody searches for their own news anymore, with notable exceptions like the Economist. Sources like Reuters or the Associated Press are the primary source for most major papers nationwide. And when articles like this one fall into the Reuters newsstream, the article may find its way into a dozen other news sources. And when this kind of thing gets out to the masses, and is published regularly, and everyone gets accustomed to it... suddenly, yes, the papers do gain a bit of a liberal bias.

Thanks to places like the AP and Reuters, I won't say that a liberal bias is nonexistent. Such a bias does show through sometimes--this article is evidence of that.

The problem is, conservatives are the ones that primarily get fed up with an underlying liberal bias in the media. So quite naturally, they react by turning to blatantly biased bastions of conservatism, such as World Net Daily or the New York Post. They justify it by saying, "X conservative paper may be biased, but so is the New York Times!" This isn't a good way to go.

Fighting fire with fire may not be very helpful. Sure, it seems to work in the cable world, where Fox's conservatism seems to be followed far more vigorously than CNN and MSNBC's liberalism. But it certainly won't do anything for conservatives in the printed press, and furthermore, it won't do anything for the establishment of journalistic integrity.

I'd like a source that gets its own content, doesn't inject opinions, doesn't make whole articles written on solely an opinionated basis, and tries not to be liberal, not to be conservative, but to simply be. All the liberal papers are too busy trying to hide their bias, and all the conservative papers are too busy flaunting the fact that at least they're not liberals... and nobody's really trying to be a group of decent journalists. This is troubling.

I'm not trying to generalize. That's the kind of thing people like our favorite journalist, Timothy Heritage, do. There are plenty of decent reporters and journalists out there who go out of their way to be good reporters. But on a large scale the media is caught up in its own partisan hackfest and there must be some way to stop it.

So how can a Centrist handle the moral issues, anyway?

2004-12-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

Moral issues came up a lot in the election, representing the cultural divide that exists in this country. As Centrists, it's probably tempting to pick a side on most of these issues. And there's nothing wrong with that. We just have to understand the difference between holding a view and stepping into close-minded advocacy.

If you are anything like me, you probably do hold a stance on issues like gay marriage and others regarding moral responsibility. Personally, out of my middle-of-the-road stance, I tend to actually delve into liberalism here--just an inert desire for everyone to respect everyone equally. But that's only me, and a person with conservative/moralistic views on issues like gay marriage can also be Centrists at the same time.

So a Centrist is free to hold any position on these issues, fundamentally. Nobody is excluded--openness is key. What should seperate a Centrist from the partisan hacks on these issues is how we handle ourselves and compose ourselves when discussing them. Simply put, we need to strive for an environment that fosters discussion and compromise on the subject.

Liberals and conservatives alike both act in one way on these topics: They polarize it. They want to get their side into power and make it all-or-nothing. Abortion? Liberals want it free to anyone who wants it, without any parental permission required; it'd spare us a lot of unwanted children, they argue. Conservatives? They say ban it outright and entirely--it's murder in the eyes of God, and life begins at conception.

Now, a Centrist can pick a stance on the issue, too. I, for instance, feel that morally speaking, abortion is wrong. However, when it comes to the politics of the matter, I don't advocate banning it outright. Why? Not because I'm a liberal that thinks people should be able to abort babies if they want to (I just said I'm not). What I want is for the people in Washington to become more open to the different sides on this issue. Here we have a subject that splits the country literally in two. It's half-and-half. Now, if half the country wants something banned, and half the country doesn't, one must realize that:

1) Politically speaking, that'd simply be wrong--if you outright allow it or outright ban it, you're denying half of society the right to have their stance on the issue be taken into account.
2) No major changes on the issue can take place until the entire moral fabric of society changes drastically in one direction or the other. Case in point: Civil rights; no matter how much the Reconstruction era tried to give African Americans equal rights, society would not accept them until the majority of all people shifted in favor of those rights.

Clearly we cannot just go one way or the other. And advocating a position that tried to force this idea upon such a divided electorate would be simply wrong. So instead, I advocate an environment of compromise. No more black and white--lets dive into the gray.

I want politicians who will seriously stop with the thick-headedness and understand that, hey, this guy has a point. The liberals must understand that conservatives are not stupid for feeling the way they do; they have a strong religious, traditionalist, or moralistic reason for holding this belief, and have given intelligent thought to the idea as well. The conservatives must understand that the liberals are merely trying to be progressive and advocate freedom for everyone--the same freedom those conservatives take for granted. In either situation nowadays, we have both sides calling the other side stupid and nothing can be accomplished.

We need people who will sit down and discuss the topics. Both sides must be listened to so we can work toward a consensus. That's the only fair way to handle these topics; both sides, left and right, must realize that there is no fair way for them to completely impose their perspective on everyone else. It would be blatantly wrong to do so. They must instead discuss the issues--not with hostility, not with unfair arguments--but authentic understanding and attention paid to the other side. Through this we could start making some progress toward a society where we can come to conclusions instead of arguing with one another on every moralistic topic under the sun.

So as Centrists, we must work toward this common goal. Controversial topics wouldn't be so controversial if people did not make them so; if we listened to eachother suddenly we could open up and figure out different ways to tackle them. It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing, regardless of what your personal stance on the issue might be. So don't treat it as such. And that, my friends, is how we can tackle the moral disagreements throughout the country.

I'm not saying we all have to agree, but lets account for the fact that disagreements in society cannot be avoided and must be represented through the laws in place.

The Radical Middle

2004-11-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness for the Utne reader.
(alternative link, in which the article is split into five different sections)

I don't know how long that will be up there, so read it while you've got the chance.

Anyway, that's a great article. Very reassuring to people like myself who are disenfranchised with both sides of the political spectrum. Lets me know that I'm not alone in my views, that there really is a movement of very intelligent people out there who are expressing the exact same centrist sentiment--people who, regardless of where they stand on the issues, realize that our government should foster nonpartisan compromise and not partisan bickery.

I may have to try out Mark Satin's book, Radical Middle; it sounds like it articulates my ideas extremely well, though I suppose I can't know until I actually read it.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

2004-11-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

Moderates are wusses.

No, seriously. They are. I used to be one. But I don't want to be one anymore. See, moderates tend to side with the fray. They are people who follow mindlessly the views that are most popular. I used to be like that, but no more of that for me now. I'm now a Centrist.

A Centrist? Aren't the terms "Centrist" and "moderate" synonymous? Yes, according to Merriam-Webster. But not according to me.

Unlike moderates, who stand for things out of convenience, we Centrists don't stand for anything. We don't have a set stance on foreign policy. Or moral issues. Or what have you. No, we live by a situational philosophy--lets apply what works at the time it works best. If cutting taxes will hurt the economy when it's already suffering, then lets keep them where they're at. If cutting taxes looks necessary because the tax rates are already high--by all means, lets cut them! Lets not adamantly stick by mentalities just because it's popular. Or worse, just because we think that's what we need to do.

We don't pick sides. We don't care for either stance on the issues. We look to the left of us and look to the right and think, "You know.. these people are all idiots." And they are.

Our political system has been reduced to a mindless mudslinging fest; a bunch of partisan hackery. Well, I'm here to represent the rest of the country. The 50 percent who are too disenfranchised to vote. The ones who are sick and tired of this mudslinging. The ones who don't see everything in the same simplistic black and white polarized way our government tries to make us. Not everything is clear and there are gray areas. Unlike other parties that abide by certain mentalities at all times, this Centrist party will instead abide by one simple rule: Lets do what's best for the moment, because not everything is always black and white.

Yes, lets fix the government. Lets stand on the sidelines, notice the hypocrisy, criticise the inept, and question everyone's reasoning behind their every idea. We can stand for things, sure, but lets not stand for them so much that we cannot shift. All of these different parties have good and bad ideas; lets not stand for or against any of them. Lets just stand and try to keep the nation standing.

Centrism is about standing for nothing and being an active observer. And someday it will evolve into something absolutely delightful. Until then, lets sit on the sidelines and criticise what is wrong--that's the best we can do.