#but I draw the line at conservation of mass. I REFUSE to believe someone would think it worked in real life.

[ace-and-ranty]

And are the Tumblr people who believed the infinite chocolate hack here in the room with us?

[dwestfieldblog]

A VERY REMOTE ENGLISH TEACHER

Where meditations, rants, reverie and absent seizures cross over... closer to one gun with one bullet, the rose of ruby and the cross of gold...uff, and MENTACIDE IN THE TIME OF MASQUES. Although I have never suffered from the guilty masochistic torture of ‘pleasure anxiety’, Bacchus hath indeed drowned more men than Neptune.  So I stopped drinking for 18 days to fool myself I was doing something positive and threw away enough things to be minimalist again. Arf. Beauty and/or function uber alles.  

Been treading water for three years and trying not to drown...big round of one hand clapping for the former poet. Meanwhile, in this temporary world and perception I have created of it, I am looking at a very possible exile one way or the other...my ‘plan’...a long phased withdrawal or hasty retreat. My wish is to stay, but once I leave, it might well be very hard to return.  Read as many metaphors as you want into that but in spite of my dislike of the conservatively minded Aristotle’s ‘either/or’ nonsense, there do indeed appear to be only two this time. And appear is the operative word. Appearances can be deceptive and emotions (unless raised and focused) cloud over what should be clear. Pain has a tendency to breed worry and fear too but let’s draw a veil over that for now eh? Suppress, suppress, release comes later...breathe deep and try not to cough, onward we go where the game gets rough...Just like Tom Thumbs Blues 65.  

Remember Roman Protasevich...As Lukasenko himself said...‘Belarus stood at the edge of an abyss and I helped it take a step forward’. Look good on your tombstone that will Al. Fecking outrageous the Indian PM only admitted in May that covid was transmitted in the air. He needs removing... as do two thirds of all the other world leaders East and West. Hello Bollsanaro. People are very easy to manipulate when they’re are scared or angry...and right now the world majority are both. But, ‘there is a crack in everything... that’s how the light gets in’... and ‘things could change’, doesn’t have to be for the worse. It can take decades to realise this as actual truth, but still nice to read and try internalise the following last week.’The odds actually favour the optimists, since dissipate structures are more likely to evolve into more information rich (intelligent?) forms than into primitive or chaotic forms.’ All my friends bar my best one are optimists..Hello you:-)

Ever onward deeper downward with Orban in Hungary and his mission of ‘Christian values’, which involves a familiar routine of arresting, beating and disappearing dissenters in the name of Christ and taking over the universities to replace professors with those who understand on which side their bread is buttered. Decent judges long gone. Nice fascist communism...and ex soldiers in France and the Czech republic warning of civil war...

And now spiraling we go into the black hole vortex of Disaster capitalism, ‘Let the bodies pile high’. There’s gold in them thar ills....ISLAND PARANOIA and PERFIDIOUS ALBION! A country which demands a contract, agrees, signs to it and then refuses to honour it. We look worse than ridiculous, we look deceitful. Gentlemen, your places please. Boris Johnson is a clumsy, inept, disgraceful charlatan, con merchant and LIAR. A blustering master bullshit artist, the only decent thing about his recent secret wedding is that now he legally has one less bastard child.  

Recently I read that British people are displaying signs of Stockholm syndrome...in that they dislike those who hold power over them and make the rules but during the time of pandemic, they are the ones who will release the saviour vaccine and get everything moving again. So rather than rocking the boat and daring to express dissent at the DIABOLICAL handling of the last 18 months, they have mostly kept quiet and voted for the same endlessly failing, corrupt and venal politicians who made a bad situation far worse. (That said, it bears repeating that there are a few million in the UK who didn’t quite understand that that the spread of a highly contagious airborne virus can be slowed by the wearing of masks/applying basic hygiene and even took offence at being told what should have made sense to any adult homo SAPIENS half capable of cogitating for themselves. Morons and scum. Same where you are?

By the way BBC...the colossal dearth of stories about the endless government failures in relation to Covid, death, corruption and the NHS...ever since they blackmailed you with threats of revoking the TV licence fee and got you to change Directors has been noted. Long may Have I Got News For You continue the satire and balance needed in a DEMOCRACY. Obey your public servants? Why, when they do not serve few but themselves? Power OF the people? Which ones...the mob? The same bleating pricks who follow populists?

Four eyed beanpole fop Rees Mogg, with his wonderful line that the benefits of Brexit will be seen ‘over the next fifty years’...well yes, that is why most people vote in democratic elections eh?...So they will be dead or ancient before the change they hoped for comes...and the politicians who lead them now, will have all long moved on to revolving door chairman of the board offshore limited liability company paradise. Bread today jam tomorrow fairytales. What I tell you three times is true.  

O, but the English do so love to be told what to do by dumb posh boys who treat them like dirt. Some are forelock tugging and some are self flagellating middle class upper class wannabes who will never get there but still feel proud they are not street level proles. Doby the house elf alien hamster Michael Gove found guilty of breaking the law. Nothing. Internal inquiries run by those connected to the money changing hands find nothing illegal. Corruption for all to see...and ignore. ‘Well, what can we do?’ The uselessly inept serial failure Dido Harding to be in charge of the National Health Service? (she of the collapsed Woolworths, Talk Talk and the 22 BILLION pound loss of the Covid Track and Trace program where non working consultants/insultants, were paid 1000 pounds a day). American style privatisation is coming where only the wealthy or criminal can afford to be repaired and well. Sick.  

Meanwhile, All our imported nurses out, and all the lobster red fat Spanish costa de la sol criminals back in. Great exchange, fair trade and forward thinking. The Kremlin are manipulating/supporting Scottish independence... I read years ago about their base in Edinburgh for Russia Today (the foul insert in The Daily Telegraph) and they were already encouraging it. Rees Smug has accelerated and supported their freedom with his snobbish utterances on countries in the UK other than England and their ‘foreign languages’. With every patronising, arrogant pronouncement, the Eton trifles fuel the fire in Scotland which has a long bitter history of being tortured, murdered and subjugated by their southern masters. Perhaps the chumocracy in Downing Street believe the Celts to be as easily cowed as the middle and working classes down south. Here’s hoping not. ‘Rebellious Scots to crush’? Not this time pal.

As for the future of Britain? A dystopian open prison where the lower social classes toil only at the pleasure of their masters. The higher caste getting richer and all others cast into a living Hell of debt, crime, and sickness. Serve until you die and be thankful we allow you to exist. Increasing in utter irrelevance to the world, other than as an example of how wrong a former democracy can go. This future started decades ago...its baobab roots truly deep now. Better education and critical thinking for the masses in the UK (or anywhere else) is highly unlikely now. Optimism huh? As long as I am not in England, I will still be able to tap into it, but once enclosed long term in the group mind there...trapped in a grey quagmire. Keep smiling...

Several weeks ago, I watched a video on YT of apparently English protestors running after the police in London, some attacking and throwing things, one pulling off the pandemic mask of an officer and all shouting abuse at the outnumbered cops who had to keep pulling back. As always, to get my caffeine rush of fury going, I read the comments and was surprised to see two or three from Chinese names. Almost all comments were against the government (fair enough) and dumb against the lock down, masks, vaccinations etc. Checking again, I saw the video had been posted by CGTN...a media company owned and run by the communist party in Beijing...and not one author of diatribes had mentioned this, nor speculated with a critical thought as to why such an organisation might enjoy turning people against their own democratically elected government (however mind rippingly foul and corrupt they are).

I copy pasted the Wikipedia paragraph about the company onto the page and hoped someone else would make the connection. I wouldn’t mind so much IF there were a credible and decent alternative other than the diseased populist poison for which the demonstrating goons chant. China really cares about the standard of democracy in Britain eh? Persuade your enemies to weaken themselves. Destroying countries by encouraging their ‘patriots’.

(That was written on the anniversary of Tienanmen Square...a few days later Xi Jinping gave a speech saying ‘...a lovable and respectable’ China must be presented to the world and must ‘expand its circle of friends’. Tell that to your teenage ‘dissidents’, Muslims, Falun Gong and Tibetans being tortured and brainwashed in prisons or being used for organ harvesting. Tell it to Hong Kong and Taiwan.) 

Unholy America...against abortion and the pill, sex education’s not Gods will and in the Name of Christ they kill...if truth be known, we’ve failed the test...but Jesus was a Socialist and Republican conservatives hate them. The founding fathers of America were Very clear about separation of church and state with damn good Reason. Another part time Christian, Mike Pompeo wants to be president. Q Onan deepstorm morons/Kremlin stool pigeons aka POLEZNYYE IDIOTY continue to push for Trump and his Big Lie...He with the brain where ‘In the left, nothing is right and in the right, nothing’s left.’ Arf.

Over the last two decades, the dumb have been finding their voice and are now louder and prouder of their dumbass ignorance. 74 million in the US alone, their egos unable to retreat in the face of endless evidence to the contrary, they all double down. Like children sticking their fingers in their grimy ears sing songing ‘la la la can’t hear you’. 74 million versions of Eric Cartman, loud, proud and wrong. And uuff, Megan Markle,  Majorie Taylor Greene, walking Picasso collage (bad car driver) Caitlin Jenner and Ivana Trump in politics...not exactly holding a proud lantern for women eh? I’d like to buy them for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth. Not very PC?  

That was the point. Could easily been written about all of the men written about here too. Next examples follow...

Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones compete for who can be as mentally ill as trump. The Miami school where the husband and wife directors told teachers not to return if they had HAD their vaccine shots because their proximity to students was interfering with menstrual cycles and uuuufff...The sickness of utter mind buggering stupidity. I had my first shot, now waiting to turn reptilian when the 5G masts triangulate my position. Fnord. Covid appears to be killing more overweight meat eating males than females...perhaps testosterone is not useful for the coming Race of non binary mutant hermaphrodites...and look out for the end of the Y chromosome, coming to a temporary universe near you...in 4.6 million years. Yes, really.  

Glad Netanyahu is out at last, smug corruption is never a good look unless one is a rich criminal. Ha.  The Promised land of Israel...If I was in court for serial murder, breaking, entering and stealing and then defended my actions by saying that God had told me to do it, would the Judge; A. Call for a psychiatric report, B. Disregard the statement as unprovable and pass the appropriate sentence, C, say Ok mate, you’re free to go, good luck to you. ? Moses had a good schtick.

The law is only to punish the poor, do you feel as if you suffer from empathy? Once you know, you no longer need to believe. What does ‘reality’ seem to be? The more certain you are, the stupider you get and belief is the death of intelligence. The machine is running the engineers. What is the definition of rationality...the quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic. 

Nothing is, but thinking makes it so. Epicurus.  

EVERYTHING NOT COMPULSORY IS FORBIDDEN.

The glamour illusion of the mass of pointless hot influencers needs a constant renewing of the Banishing Ritual as much as all the pigslop bile coming from Fox News and Sky. Bloody long haired commie liberal faggot they cry against any not identical to them. Some days I have only flamethrowers of hatred for these idiots. Other days...not exactly self doubt, just questions...most of us seem to believe our opinions are more valid when there are emotions connected to them. Including me. Again, this seems like a very weak version of ‘truth’, unless disciplined, channeled and focused to a certain end.

Life appears to exist in order to become via chaos.

Most of us are working only not to be homeless, some because of the joy in our chosen work regardless of finances. Until ‘reality’ kicks in the door...the bondage gets tighter when you struggle. How much hardship is the individual willing to endure these days by choice? Surrounded by a universe of distraction and destruction, Maya mewling for our attention. Five years of Trump, rampant populism and Brexit doing a Hexagram 23 on democracy, compounded by the pandemic...all on top of ‘normal’ daily life. The ego feeds and the immune system breaks down. Hard to ignore without being on a mountain or in a parallel dimension and emotion free other than compassion. But BY GODDESS IT CAN AND WILL BE DONE. Ladies of Life Nin Khursag, Isis, Kali, Aradia...Love one, Love ALL. At very least have respect for thyself but be not thou proud of thine arrogance nor thy suffering.  

Or just Remember where you came from, what you were, seem to be and will become.

Heal, heal, more work to do, more love to give, more love to feel, Heal. Stay in drugs, eat your school and don’t do vegetables. Impose your own reality upon and through yourself, breathe, exhale, repeat, and continue, LOVE UNDER WILL. Experience and absorb but ‘It’s a house of tricks, ignore the world’’.

Stay well, be seeing you:-)

[thetrumpdebacle]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Ted Cruz ran a surprisingly effective presidential campaign in 2016. It sometimes sounds like he still is.

The Texan is seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate by pledging to repeal Barack Obama’s signature health care law, abolish the IRS and beat back federal overreach — even though the Trump administration has already diluted the health law, delivered sweeping tax cuts and code revisions and controls Washington along with a Republican-led Congress.

Unmentioned — almost as if he hadn’t noticed — is that the political world has been turned upside down around him. Indeed, Cruz, virtually alone among candidates here, barely refers to President Donald Trump and his paradigm-shifting repercussions since the election.

While other Texas political hopefuls want to tap into Trump’s strong popularity with the Republican base, Cruz is sticking to his greatest policy hits, calculating that he has the stature to remain above the fray and can stick to the playbook that carried him from GOP primary also-ran to second place finisher in his first run for the White House. It’s an agenda that would transition smoothly to another possible presidential run after 2020.

“Freedom doesn’t defend itself,” Cruz declared, drawing applause from a crowd of 200-plus inside an automatic mailing firm’s headquarters in Austin, one of 12 cities where Cruz recently staged re-election kickoff rallies over three days.

The aloof approach especially suits Cruz, a strident tea party hero who delighted in infuriating both parties’ congressional powerbrokers before Trump arrived to unhinge them even more. He bitterly opposed Trump at the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, was booed for refusing to endorse him at the Republican National Convention but eventually fell in line.

While Trump has careened away from some traditional GOP beliefs by supporting free market-busting tariffs, racking up federal debt and shrugging off family values and morality standards, Cruz can claim to have been an unflinching conservative all along.

“Steering clear of Trump allows him to be more about Cruz,” said GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser, a former national tea party organizer who directed the 2014 re-election campaign of Texas’ senior senator, John Cornyn.

Cruz’s stance differs from some other high-profile conservatives thought to have future presidential aspirations. Rather than keep his distance, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse has been outspokenly critical of the president and his volatile tweet eruptions, and could tap into Republicans looking for a new direction post-Trump. Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley may emerge as top evangelists for Trump’s post-presidency legacy.

Of Cruz, “it’s early to say if what he’s doing will play into how he’s perceived as a national leader,” Steinhauser said.

Someone else Cruz often ignores while campaigning is Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is giving up his El Paso congressional seat to challenge Cruz. A bilingual, former punk rocker, O’Rourke garnered national attention for his energetic rallies and for frequently out-fundraising Cruz, even while shunning donations from outside political groups and special interests.

But O’Rourke failed to capture 40 percent of Democratic votes during Texas’ March 6 primary against two little-known opponents while Cruz took 85 percent of GOP ballots, suggesting a Texas-sized name recognition gap with the incumbent.

O’Rourke said Cruz can’t ignore the White House’s current occupant while promoting his own record: “He’s one of the primary enablers and abettors of this Trump administration.”

“I don’t know what his strategy is other than he’s running for president,” O’Rourke said.

Cruz has a new campaign slogan, “Tough as Texas,” and uses it to highlight the heroism of people who rushed to aid their neighbors after Hurricane Harvey, as well as two citizens who helped bring to a stop a mass shooting in the town of Sutherland Springs. But his campaign stickers only feature Cruz’s name and slogan, not mentioning 2018 or the office he’s running for. During a stop along the Texas-Mexico border, he was even introduced as “President Cruz.”

Cruz picked the venue for his Austin rally because he said it was an example of a small business hindered by Obama’s health care law. He also frequently calls conservative talk radio stations across Texas to agree with hosts fuming about Republicans failing to keep their conservative promises.

Richard Brook, a 58-year-old semi-retired entrepreneur who supported Cruz in 2016 and attended the Austin event, said being a solid conservative is even more important given Trump’s inconsistency.

“I don’t really want him to start changing his views now,” Brook said of Cruz.

Cruz doesn’t hesitate to borrow some Trump talking points, supporting a border crackdown and tax cuts. But he’s also not shy about making an independent case for himself.

“In Texas, we believe in low taxes, low regulation, low debt,” Cruz told the crowd in Austin. “We want Washington D.C. the heck off our backs.”

___

Follow Will Weissert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apwillweissert

via The Trump Debacle

[nicholemhearn]

Moderation II. Rules for Moderates

Is it possible to combine pragmatism and moderate political engagement with a grain of skepticism and a robust commitment to rational discourse and civility? I ask this question from the perspective of someone who believes in the power of moderation, but does not think that moderation is the only answer to our nation’s many problems.

A similar question was asked five decades ago in a different context by Saul Alinsky, whose teachings influenced entire generations of community activists.

At first sight, it might seem odd to invoke Alinsky’s name when thinking about moderation. Yet those who believe that what we need today is a form of pragmatic moderation might stand to gain a lot by reflecting on his pragmatic primer for realistic radicals, Rules for Radicals. There, he made a compelling case for a pragmatic and realistic form of social activism that starts from how the world is, not where we would like it to be. He was a no-nonsense reformer who sought to work within the system while ruthlessly denouncing corruption at all levels and calling for his fellow citizens to rethink the meaning of the American dream.

What would be the rules for realistic and pragmatic moderates in our current political climate?  Here are a few suggestions, drawing upon my recent book, Faces of Moderation, and a previous intervention on the Penn Press blog.

Moderation is an eclectic, complex, and misunderstood virtue that challenges our political imagination (which is accustomed to stark contrasts and the classic left/right dichotomy). It should not be reduced to a simple trait of character, state of mind, or disposition. There is a moderation appropriate to citizens (working with each other to achieve common goals), one that applies to leaders (entrusted with steering the ship of the state), and one that applies to institutions and constitutions. Moreover, moderation can apply to ends or to means, and the two meanings must not be confounded. Similarly, even within revolutionary movements one can find moderate ideas and actors. That is why it is inappropriate to refer to moderation in the abstract, as most conventional definitions and images of moderation do. They often build a straw man that fails to capture the distinctiveness and unique nature of this virtue.

While they have been viewed as opportunistic or weak, in reality, moderates are principled and strong. While they do not believe that consistency (rigidly understood) is always a virtue, moderates are not rudderless in their choices, nor lukewarm in their commitments. They do have a moral and political compass, but choose to affirm it in a moderate way. Thus, moderation is neither indecisiveness nor a synonym of powerlessness. Finally, moderation is not a mere defense or endorsement of the status quo; in reality, moderation can often be a powerful instrument for change, even if there will always be impostors posing as moderates whose conservative agenda is anything but moderate.

Moderates defend the principles of an open society, civil dialogue, and constitutionalism. They have a primary commitment to creating and maintaining an inclusive community that comprises people with whom they disagree. Moderates are partisans of change and reform, but they also believe in balance and proportion; that is why they are concerned about rising inequality as much as about intolerance and ideological intransigence. In general, moderates are skeptical of simplicity and uniformity in political affairs and tend to favor complex political systems and hybrid solutions, including checks and balances, veto power, judicial review, subsidiarity, and federalism, among other things. Moderates favor “neutral power” (as a moderating power above all others), polycentricity, and competing centers of power rather than centralization. [1]

Moderation presupposes a skeptical political style. In general, moderates do not consider themselves authoritative voices or moral authorities entitled to talk down to their fellow citizens; they lack the assurance that would allow them to settle everything forever. They are aware of human fallibility, ignorance, and the role of uncertainty in political affairs. This is why moderates keep an open mind and try to feel and understand the opposite sides of life. In politics, they are skeptical of all those who confidently talk about purity, axes of evil, red lines, and litmus tests, or claim that they alone can fix things. Rather than insisting on purity of principle, moderates encourage all sides to make timely and reasonable concessions that can advance the public good, broadly defined.

Consequently, the universe as seen by moderates is not divided between the forces of good and the forces of evil. It is rather a world made of many shades of gray and lots of nuances, a world that is full of contradictions and tensions, many of which can never be fully resolved. Moderates refuse to simplify reality and know that most political issues have more than one side. Hence, they resist the temptation to define a single best way or offer a one-dimensional definition of the political good; instead, they carefully examine facts and are prepared to modify their beliefs when the facts themselves change. As a result, unlike extremists, moderates are reluctant to interpret political events and policy proposals in light of any single value or principle, whether equality, justice, diversity, or liberty. Instead, they claim the right to hesitate and weigh the pros and cons in order to choose the best possible course of action in each case, given the specific and ever-changing circumstances under which they operate.

Moderates can be found on all sides of the political spectrum, not just the center. They are aware, in the words of Burke, that the activity of governing is founded on compromise and barter: “We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights that we may enjoy others.” [2] Moderates are always ready to work across party lines to facilitate agreements for the common good and prevent the country from slipping into chaos. In so doing, they help preserve the fragile balance between diverse social forces and political interests. That is, they prefer to think politically rather than by the book, and they don’t go searching for perfection. Instead of asking whether the end justifies the means, pragmatic moderates prefer to ask, “Does this particular end justify this particular means”? [3]

Moderates believe in the power of dialogue and critical reflection, are committed to civility, and oppose violence. They keep the lines of dialogue open with their opponents even when dialogue becomes difficult or uncomfortable. In so doing, they serve as an example of civility and magnanimity to those who resort to hyperbole, deceptive soundbites, and invective. Moderates refrain from exaggerating disputes or differences. While they defend their ideas and values, they do not close off all space for others’ positions. Moderates do not fly from extreme to extreme, and if they change parties, they do not regard the party they left behind with animosity and scorn.

Moderates do not avoid partisanship, conflict, or controversy. Nor do they seek an easy and superficial overlapping consensus among different groups. As the Italian political philosopher Norberto Bobbio once put it, the task of the moderate is to sow the seeds of doubt about common ideas, challenge received myths, and dogmas. [4] For moderates recognize that an open society cannot function without struggle and contestation. A frictionless world is an abstract one; in the real world, movement or change cannot occur “without that abrasive friction of conflict.” [5] Moderates know that the institutions of an open society can, at best, create an imperfect form of harmony in dissonance, and can never aspire to achieve a full agreement on the meaning of the good society. That is why moderates try to make the most of the tensions, conflicts, and contradictions that make up the real world. The most they can aspire to is a decent form of “reasonable inconsistency,” in the words of an exemplary moderate, the late Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski. [6]

Moderation is a difficult, rare, and sometimes risky virtue. It takes patience, discernment, and courage to stick to moderation when everyone around you demands a radical course of action and sees the world through Manichaean lenses. Moderation presupposes forming alliances and working with people who see the world through different eyes than you. It is no coincidence that Albert Camus spoke about “the extenuating intransigence of moderation” and commented on the moderates’ rebelliousness. Being a moderate resembles walking a tightrope: this demands not only intuition, foresight, judgment, and flexibility, but also a great deal of courage and thick skin. Moderates cannot let any particular challenging belief or opponent hurt them. Like a tightrope walker, they must keep their eyes fixed on the target ahead of them.

Appearances notwithstanding, there is always a market for moderation, even in tough times. Democratic regimes cannot properly function without compromise, bargaining, and moderation; this can be a winning card if played wisely. Although it may not be sufficient to create a mass movement, moderation has the great advantage of being an optimistic virtue tailored to human nature, one that aims neither too high nor too low. Because it is neither a fixed ideology nor a party platform, moderation enables different people from many walks of life to take effective action in defense of freedom, toleration, pluralism, limited power, and the rule of law. For example, the Charter ’77 was a moderate dissident movement based on the what one of its leaders, the former Czech President Vaclav Havel, called the “power of the powerless.” [7] At the heart of the Solidarity movement in Poland were the moderate concepts of self-limiting revolution and evolutionism [8]. Both movements effectively challenged the power of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and signaled the beginning of the end of Soviet rule there.

  Lessons Learned from the Rules

Can there be a party of moderates, one might ask?

At first sight, moderates form, as it were, a party without a banner; to speak of a real party of moderates may therefore seem counterintuitive. Yet those who wonder whether moderation can offer a governing platform might want to study the case of the Moderates Party in Sweden (Moderata Samlingspartiet). Founded in 1904, the party took its current name in 1969 and has been part of various coalitions in government. In 1991, its leader, Carl Bildt, became the country’s Prime Minister, a feat repeated in 2006 by Fredryk Reinfeldt (he was reelected in 2010, when the party won 30 percent of all votes, and governed until 2014). The Moderates Party has traditionally defended liberal-conservative policies meant to promote small and efficient government, low taxes and inflation, and small budget deficits.  

For anyone who wants to live in a decent society, moderation remains an indispensable virtue. Moderates are our unsung heroes. They perform a vital role in our society, even if it often goes unacknowledged. In a world in which partisan bias has become so strong that it acts as a kind of prism for selecting (or distorting) only those facts that suit one’s preferences, moderates seek to oppose the exaggerations of all groups and parties. Without them, as John Adams once wrote, “every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.” [9]  

Aurelian Craiutu is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. His Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes was released by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2016.

NOTES

 I borrow the term “neutral power” from Benjamin Constant’s Principles of Politics (1815) and the concept of polycentricity from the writings of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, founders of the Bloomington School. See http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3763/vostr004.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

The quotation is from Burke’s famous speech on conciliation with America published in Edmund Burke, Pre-Revolutionary Writings, ed. Ian Harris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 247.

Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (New York: Vintage, 1981; first ed. 1971)., p. 24.

 Norberto Bobbio, A Political Life, trans. Allan Cameron (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), p. 79.

 Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 21.

Leszek Kołakowski, “In Praise of Inconsistency,” in his Toward a Marxist Humanism: Essays on the Left Today, trans. Jane Zielonko Peel (New York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 216.

This is the title of Vaclav Havel’s famous essay on this topic published in 1977.

I have commented on these concepts in Faces of Moderation, pp. 195-203.

      9. The Political Writings of John Adams, ed. George A. Peek (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954), p. 89.

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from nicholemhearn digest https://niskanencenter.org/blog/moderation-ii-rules-moderates/