Mike : Your analysis of early September is a good starting place overview of American politics among Independents. I did not know what to do with it until now because, so it seemed to me, something was missing. About a week ago I tuned-in to the middle of a lecture at some university featuring a speaker who was discussing libertarian philosophy and politics. Still don't know who he is, and from what I heard it is unclear if he is pro-libertarian or mostly critical of the movement. But for sure he made a conscientious effort to be objective about the strengths and weaknesses of libertarian philosophy. This dovetailed neatly into a concept that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago to the effect that what is needed is an RC critique of libertarianism. Let us assume that what we most want as an "immediate" goal is to become the default position of all ( or most ) political Independents. We really wish for much more than this, of course, such as a place in policy decision-making in government, but to say the least that seems like an objective for the further future. The question is : How do we get there from here ? If we are serious about reaching Independents we need to be realistic about our competition. It would also be helpful if we could show some progress toward this goal, such as gradually winning over Independents who find our ideas to have the potential to bring about the kinds of political change they most want to see happen. Your analysis is very useful because it breaks down into definable groups just who it is we are trying to reach with the message of "enlightened Radical Centrism." But we are hardly the only people making the effort. In fact the libertarians are far along in their quest, years ahead of us, and are making serious progress despite, IMHO, having a philosophy that is seriously problematic in many particulars and not nearly as promising as RC. But libertarians are organized, have a lot of "boots on the ground," and have resources that they make good use of to get their message out. To our advantage, the "libertarian moment" seems to have come and gone. Years ago, in fact. The movement never really caught on except here and there. While there certainly is new life among libertarians these days, in large part because of Ron Paul and the ceaseless efforts of the CATO Institute, they still are selling the same and often dysfunctional set of ideas even if this pastiche is repackaged around new political issues. At stake is the growing proportion of the electorate that self-identifies as Independents. There are different sets of figures but as a rough guide, approximately a third of voters are Indies. Self-identified "liberals" come in at about 15 or 20 % and self-identified "conservatives" at about twice that number. Some surveys put the number of Independents closer to 40 % although that seems high to me. Most, in any case, self-identify as "moderates" or something similar. At least one reputable poll says that the true figure for Independents is more like 25 % since a good many of them are "soft" in their views and could easily reconvert to either the Democrats or Republicans. Regardless, the numbers are significant --to the extent that, little or no question about it-- Indies decide just about all closely contested elections. No wonder that the libertarians have a second wind these days and are making a serious push to supply the basic philosophy among Independent voters. In other words, if we are serious about wanting to do the supplying of a default political philosophy among Indies it is viral to recognize the fact that the libertarians are our chief competition. We need to get serious about the libertarians and try to "out-compete" them. Like the libertarians there are divisions in our own ranks. Our version of RC is not the same animal as the East Coast version, or versions, one of which reflects the work of the people at the Atlantic magazine and New America foundation, the other the cognoscenti who follow Tom Friedman. There is also an East Coast wild card who now lives on the West Coast, Mark Satin, this past year, or more, at work on a book about the "Radical Middle." So, here is an outline of the task ahead for anyone who has the interest in pursuing things further. We need to do two things : ( 1 ) Identify all the good stuff about libertarianism and co-opt it, simple as that, and ( 2 ) identify all the bad stuff and discredit it completely. We need to be smart about this. For several reasons-- After all, most of us, by far, have ethical motivation for why we are Radical Centrists in the first place. Usually this is because of our religious faith, but about as often it is because of shared values we have as Americans who regard our cultural traditions as good, decent, life-affirming, and offering maximum opportunities to one and all. We actually believe in the promise of the generation of the Founding Fathers. None of us are in any way cynical about this. We want to win over Independents, not make those with libertarian leanings feel like our enemies for whom the only alternative is fight to the death, so to speak. The idea, as much as possible, is win / win, not WE WIN, you lose, and "you are wrong about everything and go f**k yourself." This is about politics, about remaking the American political system, not about still more dysfunctional polarization into special interest camps which hate all other camps. We need to create a workable coalition even with people who do not share all of our ideas. While there can be no meaningful coalition with people who do not share a lot of our ideas, surely far moreso than otherwise, we cannot prevail if we demand 100 % ideological purity. That ain't gonna happen and there needs to be some sort of way to deal with disagreements. We need motivation to do our best. Picking a fight with the libertarians could provide this motivation. Obviously this doesn't mean a bitter and acrimonious fight, or let's hope not. The idea is debate, education, hashing out our differences, etc. But a healthy clash with the libertarians could be very useful to us. It could put us on the map. These are some opening thoughts. Billy ======================================================
message dated 9/9/2011 [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: Another random thing that's been brewing lately: I do think it's important for centrists to formally distinguish themselves from moderates. For one thing, there's a different ideological tilt that centrists have that makes them different from moderates. Similarly, a libertarian needs to retain his/her purity even in Republican fusionism. But fusionism is what we also want eventually, don't we? We want political power, which requires the power and influence of numbers. - I generally simplify "centrists" to mean those that pull freely from any place in the ideological spectrum that satisfies their requirement for empirically or pragmatically verifiably best results. - What I call "moderates" are those that, by the flavor of their line of thought, have a specific distaste for ideological extremes and/or are purposefully ideologically impure. -"Political Independents" are simply people who are active politically, but do not identify with a specific major ideology or identify with a niche ideology. Pros and cons of including each group in the fusion: Centrists- Pro: By believing in the importance of empirical data and reason, centrists can easily find themselves on the same debating plane as moderates and independents. Centrists can, therefore, recognize a winning position and support it wholeheartedly, even when it is not their original position. Con: By virtue of radical centrism being a hard center, radicals may find it difficult to meld with softies or accept compromise that does not result in an empirically "best" solution. That sort of compromise would require a belief in political pragmatism, which would have to be packaged with the centrism. Moderates- Pro: Moderates distinguish themselves from dominant strains (liberals and conservatives, in our system) by their ability to reject orthodoxy. By definition, they are able to wholesale reject purity for its own sake. Con: Some moderates may support positions that are antithetical to their most closely affiliated ideology not by use of reason, but through superstition or religion (pro-life liberals, compassionate conservatives). Political Independents- Pro: Some are formally unaffiliated pragmatists or radical empiricists. Con: This is a huge bloque of individuals with varying ideas. A Christian Marxist might call himself a political independent, as would a Constitutional Minarchist. The big question is: can we get a majority of all these groups to agree to argue on the same plane? If we can get a majority of those affiliated to these groups to agree to a predominance of "last things" (results), as preferable over blind, wholesale acceptance of "first things" (principles), then there can be politically powerful fusionism. This is the same fusionism that gives libertarians disproportionate power. In this iteration of fusionism, I think we could get a lot of centrists and moderates on board along with a fair number of independents. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://RadicalCentrism.org) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
