RickSpace

How many Americans are truly far left or far right? 20%? MAYBE? Not every conservative is Newt Gingrich just as not every liberal is Jesse Jackson. I have a feeling at LEAST 80% of America is not only not in line with the far extremes (I guess hence the term extremes) but is tired of/annoyed at those extremes.

Typically the conservative far right is associated with Republicans and fundamental Christianity, and it seems the liberal far left is associated with Democrats and either a lack of religosity, or an unwillingness to make public religous views. Why can’t there be a party for the other 80% that maybe contains members of all religions and those of no religion, where religion can be a part of those peoples’ lives without being platformed and shoved down each others’ throats? Why can’t there be a party that covers people who have socio-economically conservative views, but feel that a more liberal foreign policy (i.e. any method of foreign interaction dissimilar to Bush’s current paradigm) would be better? Why is there no party you can agree that some times people are down on their luck and need a little help but at the same time be disgusted by the fact that some people purposefully keep themselves in such a position that they can draw government aid indefinitely without ever having to do anything; I mean, does it really have to be all or nothing? We either say “If you can’t cut it, you should have tried harder” or “Here, we’ll by you cigarettes for the next 50 years while you pump out kids that you don’t take an active roll in raising.”

I think political extremism was so last-century. I understand that these people have to exist in order to define the far left and far right, and I know that their main concern is basically scaring the 80% who fall in between into voting for their party’s candidate because that candidate can supposedly fix all the problems that the other party’s candidate either WOULD cause, or HAS caused by being in office.

Give me an honest candidate. Give me someone who says “I inhaled, but I don’t smoke now.” Give me a president that says “We’re going into this country, and we’ll PROBABLY spend a lot of money, lose a lot of lives, and be there for a very long time, but we have to. This is why” and then procedes to give the American people the proof/information that has caused the decision. Obviously not all the intelligence could be shared, but enough information to show us that we need to go and enough honesty to tell us that it’s going to be rough and probably end in an occupation for an indeterminate amount of time. Heck, if a presidential candidate had done a lot of wrong things early in life but had made amends and was willing to be perfectly open and honest about it without side-stepping every question regarding those issues, I would not hesitate to vote upon them; even if many of their views conflicted from mine, I would likely vote for them because I would KNOW what their views are, and I would know which conflicts to expect in the future.

Anyway, it’s nothing that hasn’t been said before, but where is the party for the extreme moderates? Those people who are only left-leaning, right-leaning, slightly left of center, slightly right of center, etc… I’m waiting for the Peoples’ President but I’m not sure we’ll ever see him/her… at least not in my life time.