Toni
Contributor
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2011
- Messages
- 19,899
- Basic Beliefs
- Peace on Earth, goodwill towards all
I tend to think of myself as a progressive moderate or a moderate progressive. I look at our US Constitution +Bill of Rights as a blueprint for a fairly ideal society. Obvious flaws including the exclusion of non-white, non-males from full participation, among some other things. Amended by the Bill of Rights, as an ongoing process as we understand more about ourselves and each other and the world around us.Right.What a shocker, after being picked by Obama to serve as his VP, eh? It's like fucking treason, right?Personalities can change once in office. Like Biden who campaigned as a moderate, but then allowed himself to be coopted by the Bernie-AOC wing of the party.
To be a moderate, one must be inflexible, unyielding, and committed to defending a fixed point on the political spectrum at all costs, forever.
No changing policies to address changing conditions, no consensus building with less moderate colleagues, no compromises, no exceptions.
Yes, indeed.If enough people vote blue, that can be done.- Secure the border. Allow easier deportation of illegals. Reform the hopelessly outdated asylum system - it was never envisioned to effect de facto open borders like it is doing now.
Otherwise forget it. "The Border" is one of the last few teats Republicans cling to, to derive their life-giving nourishment.
As a very young person, I worked for a time (in an extremely minor way) for the government of an emerging nation that was struggling mightily to go from the Middle Ages to modernity and I saw both the vision and the extremely sharp knife edge they walked to lead people forward, while respecting their own culture and people and traditions and rejecting some of the ways that we westerners had gone wrong. For context, this was during the fall of the Shah of Iran, although, no, it was not Iran that I worked for. But yes, that affected the people I worked for/with.
I think that much of the fundamentalism that we see today, around the world is really an expression of fear and tension around so much change in such a short period of time. And so that is where my moderate leanings come from: Slow, steady progress, not change for change's sake is the best path forward. Sure, I'd love to be able to wave a wand and make the world my version of perfect. But I know how limited my vision is, how short and how weak my grasp. Instead, I think it is best to find ways to dream together, to build together, to forge together the world we want our children and grandchildren X seven to inherit. We must keep in mind that in moving forward, we leave not just bad things behind but also some very good things, as well, and so we need to move forward mindfully, carefully, preserving what good we can, and learning as much as possible so that we have the wisdom to know the difference between good and bad. It's not as easy to tell as we sometimes think.