Good Heavens

A realist ... or is it Riehlist, I just don't know.

Militant moderate, unwilling to concede any longer the terms of debate to the strident ideologues on the fringe. If you are a Democrat or a Republican, you're an ideologue. If you're a "moderate" who votes a nearly straight party-ticket, you're still an ideologue, but you at least have the decency to be ashamed of your ideology. ...and you're lying in the meantime.

Comments

[Rick]

"Both sides of an issue are valid and necessary, and the quickest way to advertise yourself as a fool is to claim that one side is evil." Absolute genius!!!! See, here's a guy with more than 1/2 a brain. Kind of gives us a picture of what we'd have if we combined a half wit dem and a half wit republican. SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY THINKS!! It's true that those who claim to be moderates are usually liars. They are moderates as long as one side or the other stays true to their own core beliefs.

[Jerry]

Genius? Though this guy does seem sharp enough, it's hardly novel to have complex views that don't conform to commonly-held paradigms. Why does everyone I know like this think that they are something special. "Unlike everyone else, I'm independent-minded. I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I *think* about the issues." The truth is, I'd say that half the people I know are like this! Maybe it's the circles I move in, or maybe we're not giving ourselves enough credit.

But Dan Riehl shouldn't compare himself to Ross Williams. As much as he tries to rationalize it away, if you scratch Dan you will find a Republican just beneath the surface. For Dan it's all about identity, though, and not ideals. Deep, deep down at his core Dan is probably rather liberal. But you're not "tough" if you're a liberal, and it's hard to shed one's self of an identity they've created. It's like the life-long diehard sport's fan of a team -- it's all about your identity, and not about the real attributes of a the team you follow.

On the other hand, Dan seems to be a much nicer person than this Ross fellow. Ross comes across as a cantankerous curmudgeon. Dan seems like somebody who it would actually be cool to have a beer with. So no, Dan, you and this guy are birds of a different feather indeed.

[Dan]

So no, Dan, you and this guy are birds of a different feather indeed.

Well, for the record, I wasn't trying to over do any comparison. I saw the blog from his comments here and thought it worth linking. My conversion from Left to right, not a wholesale transition by any means, came about initially by my being attacked by the hard Left professors in college. I also have no great regard for a hard right that would attempt to thrust religion into the center of American politics - values, yes, even morals, to some degree - but not religion, per se.

My positions and my politics develop from intellect, not emotion, so, yes, they tend toward the conservative, but they also change - information and perspective being key.