Wulfie's Wurld

Commentary: Moderate Power

Normally I think about what I'm going to say for a while, write it up elsewhere, let it simmer, make changes, and evenatually pop it up here. I've been swamped both at work and at home with this thing called "real life," so I haven't been very publishy for a while. I'd been thinking about this subject, but haven't had time to do much else. After reading a blog elsewhere, I decided to jump right into this one.

The subject can be interpreted two ways, depending on whether you consider the word "moderate" to be a verb or a noun. As a verb, it works quite well as a two word paraphrase of concepts like "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," and documents like the U.S. Constitution. It's a lesson, or perhaps a suggestion, that should be taken to heart by the Congress, the Executive Branch, and corporations, perhaps moreso now than any time in the past 50 years.

But I really want to talk about the word as a noun.

I frequently call myself a conservative. I reason this because I believe in the things conservatives should believe in and used to. Things like a balanced budget, small government, taxes only high enough to pay for what's spent, a slow, considered approach to making changes, no riders on pieces of legislation, separation of church and state. The current crop of so-called conservatives, from my point of view, have somehow slipped further to the left than the so-called liberals.

Maybe it's the influence of computers or something. Computers only recognize two states: on and off, or "ones" and "zeros." It seems to be a tendency of late to give everything a binary classification. Things are right, or wrong; good, or evil; left, or right; black, or white." Maybe this was true back in the 1940s, but we have cameras that take color pictures and televisions with programs in color. Honest. Does it make sense to get onto ones hands and knees with a magnifying glass to determine whether a particular shade of gray should be classified as white or as black? Not to me. It's a waste of time to do that.

So I'm not going to call myself either a liberal or a conservative, a leftie or a rightie, a blackie or a whitie. I'm going to call myself a moderate. When people ask "moderate conservative or moderate liberal," I think simply respond a "yes," or simply "just moderate."

We moderates have a bad rap, you know. Some like to call us "mugwumps." You know what a mugwump is, right? It's a bird that sits on a fence with it's mug on one side and it's "wump" on the other. A fence sitter. There are some very incorrect unstated assumptions made by this attitude. The first assumes that such individuals are apathetic and don't care. The second is that such individuals lack the courage to "commit." The third, perhaps the most insidious, is that there is actually a fence. There isn't. There are two. One has been built by the "conservatives" around themselves, dividing "us" from "them." They are seeking converts. The other has been built by the liberals around themselves, also dividing an "us" from a "them." They, too, seek converts. And you should hear the conversation between the two camps. It's like getting Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses together for a "calm discussion."

Nope, I'm a moderate. I'm empowered. I don't have to be stuck part and parcel with the entire package from one group of encircled wagons or the other. I can pick and choose what I like, and what seems good for the country and my loved ones. I don't have to follow talking points and march in lock-step with one side or the other.

You know what else? I have the power. I elect the congress and the presidents, not the Demmies or the Pubbies. The "liberals" will never vote conservatively. The "conservatives" will never vote for a liberal. Talking to them is useless anyway. Just listen to their conversations.

The moderates have the power. We listen. We take the time to consider things from several angles. We make the decisions based upon what facts we have available. We can discuss things amongst ourselves and can agree to disagree without calling the other "evil" or "a nut case." We have the swing vote. We're the ones the wackos in the wings need to court. And we're the ones they better hope never get organized. Because you know what you'd have then?

Moderate power.