Hi Mike, Some very (perhaps overly) terse answers...
On Jan 10, 2012, at 10:44 AM, Mike Gonzalez wrote: > Three overall questions, then: > > 1 - How do we usurp the term "progressive"? Practically, we could try to > separate the term "American liberal" from "progressive" and show how the > terms are different. The big issue is that we need to get it through people's > heads that we're not "liberal-lite" or "conservative-lite", and utilizing the > term "progressive" might cause conservatives to look at us as nothing more > than a front for liberalism. I suggest making it an adjective, like "progressive design". > 2 - Anger can lead one to action, but it's dangerous when the anger doesn't > dissipate before action occurs. How does one remove the anger prior to > action? Do we want a pissed-off president with his hand on the nuclear > football or an angry congress ready to indiscriminately cut defense and > education programs simply because they have an angry constituency? Anger, like all passion, must be *disciplined*, not dissipated, to create lasting change. > 3 - If the citizens of a country understand that a congress must act in a > deliberative manner, then there's no issue with massive omnibus bills. If a > congress is forced to push out these massive, unwieldy bills in extremely > short periods of time simply to react to public pressure, though, then we > deserve what we get (Real ID Act, PATRIOT Act, and pork-filled atrocities). I > don't disagree that, sometimes, some horse trading is necessary, but when we > have political power, we should promote honest, deliberative discussion in > congress on individual issues rather than developing giant, frankenstein > legislation for nothing more than ideological attention. How do you get > citizens to understand the nature of congress? We shouldn't need to understand Congress. We need to reform it to become inherently more understandable. In particular, we need more *deliberation*. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll It should be possible to setup a shadow government built on deliberative polling for around a hundred million dollars, as we seem to be starting to do in California. Then use it as a lever to make the actual legislatures more deliberative. It would take a decade or two, but there's no way for powerful interests to squelch it (unlike top-down reforms). -- Ernie P. > > On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 12:30 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar > <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Billy, > > On Jan 10, 2012, at 9:19 AM, [email protected] wrote: >> I agree that pessimism added to centrism produces populism. >> But it this necessarily a bad thing ? The best answer is "it depends." >> What is the anger directed against ? An appropriate object of anger >> and populism is a good thing. Anger in defense of racism or any other >> form of injustice and then it is an evil. > > You could go so far as to say "populism == anger", and turn this into a > discussion about the value of anger. > > I like to say anger is a great stop sign, but a lousy street sign: it tells > you something important is happening here, but not where you are or where to > go next. > > > On Jan 10, 2012, at 9:16 AM, Mike Gonzalez wrote: >> I can go with "rational evolvement". Popper called the concept "piecemeal >> social engineering". He thought the difference between piecemeal and >> utopian engineering was, "the difference between a reasonable method of >> improving the lot of man, and a method which, if really tried, may easily >> lead to an intolerable increase in human suffering. It is the difference >> between a method which can be applied at any moment, and a method whose >> advocacy may easily become a means of continually postponing action until a >> later date, when conditions are more favorable. And it is also the >> difference between the only method of improving matters which has so far >> been really successful, at any time, and in any place, and a method which, >> wherever it has been tried, has led only to the use of violence in place of >> reason, and if not to its own abandonment, at any rate to that of its >> original blueprint. > > I guess "incremental utopianism" would work for an oxymoron. Though > "rational evolution" is also a nice oxymoron, and as a bonus contrasts well > with "intelligent design". > > -- Ernie P. > > -- > 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 > > > -- > 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 -- 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
