I’m so tired of the whole “reasonable and moderate” response.
Moderateness is an affectation. It’s an aesthetic. Dumb people and normies (same thing) love this affectation. In their eyes, it’s reasonable, it’s evidence that they are careful, conscientious people. We know better. The “reasonable” stance is the one they deep down believe will keep the maximum amount of goodwill for them from both sides.
What the moderates don’t know at any level is that they are absolute fools and both extremes of the political spectrum hate them. Our outright political opponents are just that, outright political opponents. They are enemy combatants in uniform. The lines are drawn. We don’t get along but can respect each other. But the moderate is a sneak and politically dishonorable. They are always there to stab us in the back. They are always in the rear messing with our supply lines. They are always throwing stymieing all efforts to make a new point, to draw a distinction, to screw up any real political discourse with their moderate takes.
Being horrific as they are, the most positive possible attitude towards the moderate is to treat them like pawns, manipulating them by moving the overton window around.
Their takes are boring, stupid, and wrong. They are wrong because they are Hegelians. They are always try to find the middle way between the left an the right, the Hegelian whipsaw, because to them, the middle is the correct. They have no notion of the good, the beautiful, or the true, just the middle.
Most moderate responses take one of two forms.
1. You’re not being nice.
They are right about this. I’m likely not being nice. I’m mean and strident when it comes to fighting those who are wrong and advocating for what is right. When an issue is important, the issue is more important than being nice. I care zero for being nice in the realm of politics. I care about winning and getting my way. I’ll only be nice if it serves the end. For the normie, it is an end.
2. “I know a tall girl.”
The normie can’t allow anyone to make a generalization, which is how we think about everything. I say “men are taller than women.” “I know a tall woman,” the normie ejaculates! This kind of midwit talk kills important conversation. The midwit normie believes he is defending and pleasing the tall woman he knows. He did neither, but he did make everyone else in the room hate him.
I recently wrote a bit about my opposition to adoption outside of family and friends. I’m agin’ it. A moderate responded, “[I] Know plenty of people who’ve adopted and it has worked out fine. May not be the thing to do for most, but it can be a very good thing.” This kind of response does precisely nothing to help pro-adoptionists, or to harm my points (which I will write about later perhaps.) Again, this type of comment only serves to make everyone hate him.
If, in the face of the hot, unreasonable, and immoderate political issues of the day, you are a moderate you are part of the problem and are likely my enemy. In fact, let’s make that one of Hambrick’s litmus tests…………………………..
QED. If you are moderate and reasonable, you are part of the problem and are an enemy.
Scott, I think you’re inherently conflating a moderate attitude to a pushover attitude. I think it’s a plausible guess that the moderate may be a pushover, because let’s face it, most are, but not always. Sometimes the moderate position is simply the best position in some political decisions, because the end of the good, beautiful and true is best served by the synthesis of both ends of the political issue. So we come to both/and conclusions rather than either/or. This of course does not apply to things like abortion, which are inherently evil. But rather, may apply to firearms regulation, alcohol regulation, taxation, etc. things that are morally neutral or good but can be easily abused.
Written like a true moderate.