House of Eratosthenes

FrankJ is trying to figure out why the left thinks so many things are “far right.” Concluding that it’s all relative, but not really, he came up with a nifty chart that is spooky accurate:

On the Hello Kitty of Blogging, I had some harsh words about “moderates” that fall roughly into line with this:

The trouble with “moderates” is they don’t know what is moderate…

Now most moderates turn to the nearest leftist for instructions about what they are to think is moderate and what they are to think is extreme. It reminds me of Homer Simpson getting ahold of $15,000 and asking the nearest car dealer, “does this car cost fifteen thousand dollars?” and the car dealer says, “it does now!”

If you’re faced with an issue and you want to figure out which position is extreme, and you just pick the one that cannot be expressed without using the words “always” or “never,” you’ll be right about eight times out of ten. If you decide it by asking the nearest moderate, you’ll be right only about two or three times out of ten because the moderate is going to ask the nearest liberal what he should think.

If you pick whichever position is more conservative, you’ll be right only one time out of ten. Seriously, think of an example. “I’m a conservative and I want a law against anyone having sex in this position” — that would be extreme. Okay, there’s one…but how often does that happen? What if it’s “I’m a liberal and I don’t think any executives in a company should make more than such-and-such a salary or bonus.” That’s extreme, but nearly all moderates will tell you that’s moderate. And right! But they are so, so wrong…moderates very often are seduced into being anti-freedom. You can’t call them useful-idiots, because moderates who do this aren’t quite so useful.

Now, if you want to be right only one time out of a hundred — ask a GROUP of moderates what is moderate, and allow them to discuss it among themselves before they get back to you. Then they’ll start trying to impress each other. In all likelihood you wont get a coherent answer back, they’ll just come to a consensus that Sarah Palin is a moron, we need to stop hearing about her, and let’s keep talking about her constantly until we’re not hearing about her anymore.

When do the moderates feel that they are most powerful? When there is a perceptible fatigue with “all of the fighting”; that the “two sides need to get along, and work together to get things done.” When do the liberals feel powerful? In exactly the same situation. They feel that all of the arguing has been done, and they are right to feel this way; they’ll simply package the liberal solution up, as the definitive answer to “all the fighting,” the moderates will believe it uncritically and thus be taught to parrot the liberal line. As if it were their own.

And presto change-o! The “moderate” solution to our health care crisis is socialized medicine, and the “moderate” solution to an oil leak in the gulf is a drilling moratorium. On and on down the line, we pick the solution that makes liberals happy. The moderates are satisfied and even feeling a little bit smug. Liberals stay grouchy. Nobody notices that, and since the solution doesn’t work there will be another “crisis” in a few years so we can go back Jack and do it again.

But meanwhile, deep down where the personal values are, moderates are actually conservative. They’re just conservatives who have more passion about making everybody agree to the same thing, than they do about seeing to it their personal values — or somebody’s personal values — have some bearing on the final outcome. Moderates, as I have said before, agree with conservatives that after a fight breaks out on the school playground, the punishment needs to be rained down upon the kid who threw the first punch and not the kid who threw the last punch. It is the liberals who live in their own little world, values-wise; they think all strength needs to be punished, unless it is strength that advances their statist agenda. This has been consistent: If it has something to do with capability, and they cannot control it, then it must be destroyed.

Most of us, including the moderates, are not willing to sign up to that. Only the moderates can be fooled into supporting this goal, provided it is packaged as something else.

Dante was right: “The darkest placing in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
- stevehorth | 02/03/2011 @ 13:40
I like the quote from Dante. Thank you, Steve.

I was finally pushed to write a post about this very subject a couple of weeks back. I think I point out more subtleties. I called the post, “Moderate Danger.”

http://thecompostfiles.blogspot.com/2011/01/moderate-danger.html

Thanks for the link, Morgan.
- Moshe Ben-David | 02/03/2011 @ 15:40
Love the chart. Figure it’s about right … but … why is the left on the right and the right on the left? 😉
- philmon | 02/05/2011 @ 19:41

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This Is Good LXXIXThursday, February 3rd, 2011

This Is Good LXXIX
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011