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TechnographColumn: A revolution of mediocrity
By John Bambenek
Posted: 2/1/06 Section: Opinions
The current love-fest over moderates and moderate political thought is as absurd and harmful as it is devoid of an intelligent basis and philosophy. The politics of moderates is that of high school student council elections which are better known as popularity contests. Moderate thought is the idea that one should always go wherever the wind blows. The problem with that is that you end up never getting anywhere.
Let us take a moment to see what contributions the moderates have had in the past. During our nation's founding, there was a problem over slavery and how to count slaves in terms of the census. The South, fearing that counting them as people would lead to their freedom, vehemently opposed counting slaves in a census. The North thought that not counting slaves gave the South an unfair financial advantage. The moderate compromise? Blacks are three-fifths of a person.
Moderates brought you campaign finance reform that did nothing but increase the amount of big money in politics and reduce the ability of the common individual to participate. That law has gone to such ridiculous extremes that have led to the push by the Federal Election Commission to try to regulate blogs to make sure they don't engage in political speech at the wrong time. Moderates have brought you free speech restrictions on private citizens.
Another great icon of the moderate compromise was segregation. The anti-slavery movement wanted segregation eliminated. The pro-slavery crowd basically wanted to minimize the impact of emancipation. The moderate compromise? Separate but equal. The problem with moderates is that pragmatism trumps principle, and on some things there can be, and should be, no compromise.
If you reject ideology for pragmatism you get shortsighted solutions. When you choose style over substance you get plenty of good-looking, but nevertheless, empty shirts. This can be seen very clearly on the state pension issue.
The state has under funded the pension system for years. Instead of funding it appropriately in the last budget, they only made the under-funding worse. Despite claims from the College Democrats, you don't make a pension system more secure by cutting the funding that is required by the state constitution and contractual obligation. This decision was made by moderates who looked at the short-term gain and wrote off the long-term cost on someone else. This indiscretion is largely lost on an organization whose indiscretions include glorifying sexual abuse with their club's t-shirts.
Let us take a moment to see what contributions the moderates have had in the past. During our nation's founding, there was a problem over slavery and how to count slaves in terms of the census. The South, fearing that counting them as people would lead to their freedom, vehemently opposed counting slaves in a census. The North thought that not counting slaves gave the South an unfair financial advantage. The moderate compromise? Blacks are three-fifths of a person.
Moderates brought you campaign finance reform that did nothing but increase the amount of big money in politics and reduce the ability of the common individual to participate. That law has gone to such ridiculous extremes that have led to the push by the Federal Election Commission to try to regulate blogs to make sure they don't engage in political speech at the wrong time. Moderates have brought you free speech restrictions on private citizens.
Another great icon of the moderate compromise was segregation. The anti-slavery movement wanted segregation eliminated. The pro-slavery crowd basically wanted to minimize the impact of emancipation. The moderate compromise? Separate but equal. The problem with moderates is that pragmatism trumps principle, and on some things there can be, and should be, no compromise.
If you reject ideology for pragmatism you get shortsighted solutions. When you choose style over substance you get plenty of good-looking, but nevertheless, empty shirts. This can be seen very clearly on the state pension issue.
The state has under funded the pension system for years. Instead of funding it appropriately in the last budget, they only made the under-funding worse. Despite claims from the College Democrats, you don't make a pension system more secure by cutting the funding that is required by the state constitution and contractual obligation. This decision was made by moderates who looked at the short-term gain and wrote off the long-term cost on someone else. This indiscretion is largely lost on an organization whose indiscretions include glorifying sexual abuse with their club's t-shirts.
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