Solomon : You are doubtless right about zealous centrists. It seems to be human nature for some people, maybe most, to arrive at some form of political ideology, even when it is neither Left nor Right. Still, there is all the difference in the world between thoughtful people and ideologues as such. I can get along with almost anyone if they at least try to be open-minded and have some kind of identifiable sense of morality. That is, I have no use for Nihilists. Have tried to discuss issues with those kinds of people and it is a complete waste of time. BTW, not to give the wrong impression, comedians like Stewart can be funny as hell, its just that after a while --in his case-- his overbearing Atheism makes me want to ram a copy of Aquinas, or the Buddhist sutras for that matter, down his throat. He is utterly blind to so damned much, all the while arrogant to a fault. It isn't Atheism per se that irritates me. I happen to be a fan of Sam Harris, and his unbeliever credentials are as good as anyone's, but he also knows his stuff and could probably ace any Comparative Religion course he took. About your comment : "All centrist means is we're between the left and the right, and in other nations the center is nowhere near where the center is here..." The second part of your statement is Very True. The first part, as you will see soon enough, is not. At least "Radical Centrist" means a great deal more than simply being in the middle somewhere. For what it may be worth, and we hope eventually a great deal, we have been piecing together a fully articulate philosophy of Radical Centrism over the past 7 years and finally have something to show for it. As I said, check out the RC.org site and look around. Only fair for me to do the same for you. What is there full name of your site ? I will be glad to take a look. Billy ==================================================== 12/1/2011 2:30:32 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Well, I donno about a religion of Centrism. Not my idea of what RC should be all about. Speaking personally, I regard RC as akin to social science, but for a good cause, trying to make sense in a useful way of the political mess we find ourselves in, not to further the interests of the Left. I am what you could call a professional centrist (I blog and freelance about politics for a living), but I'm not so blind to my own biases that I believe this sort of nonsense that our system is somehow less colored by personal opinion than any other. All centrist means is we're between the left and the right, and in other nations the center is nowhere near where the center is here, and if you don't think there are centrist zealots out there... run a popular centrist blog for a while. They're out there too, and they'll assuredly come out of the woodwork once there is a more organized political center in our country. There is no centrist religion, or centrISM, yet... but it's pretty much a 100% likelihood that, if a centrist political establishment developed one would eventually come about. Its just human nature to try and develop systems of thought like that. Billy is right above... people like John Stewart and Steven Colbert (I'm a much bigger fan of the latter myself) can't be the actual leaders of a movement like what we need. The job of satirists is to use their satire to point out absurdities in our world, and they (especially Colbert) do that amazingly well. They can,however, goad things in the right direction... and help lay the groundwork for something to come along and try to break the back of the two party system... organizing the vital center against the left and right, and working towards making it so the center has nearly as much of an equal representation in Washington as the left and right do. -- 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
