Originally published by Communities @ Washington Times
November 30, 2010-As I predicted in a previous column, President Obama, having lost the House of Representatives and much of the Senate to Republicans, uses the word “bi-partisan” about as often as he breathes. You can also expect encore performances of his “Republicans are the Party of No” routine.
Still, Obama is no dummy. He knows he can get away with this nonsense because conventional water cooler wisdom keys in on the word moderate, as if such a term somehow embodies sacredness and hope for all sensible people. Yes, doing things in moderation always sounds good. Compromise may be a mark of maturity when children are learning to share their toys, or grown up adults are deciding which movie to rent, which ride to go on next at Disneyland, or what to serve for Thanksgiving Dinner. Nobody should be stubbornly insisting that a group always do things his or her way. But with broader social issues, cooperating with an opposite position is a little trickier. Indeed, depending on the subject or proposed law, compromise may be simply impossible for those who seek to embrace important standards with any degree of consistency. For example, if you believe abortion is the taking of a human life, how do you moderate that position? It does not mix with the notion that abortion is not the taking of a human life.
Should abolitionists have been more moderate in their desire to see slavery end? Should they have worked with southern Democrats in a “bi-partisan” fashion? What would they have come up with? Some kind of new law that gives slaves extra benefits without actually granting them their freedom?
I would also ask those who believe in a happy middle to define “far right.” Interestingly enough, the left’s definition of “far right” is ever changing. Most liberals, when they think of the far right, imagine some kind of Fascist teaching. And yet, it is the liberal who wants government to control virtually every sector of our lives. These days, those who believe in less government are viewed as dangerous, extreme fanatics. By that definition, our forefathers were every bit as out of the mainstream because they wrote a constitution calling for substantially limited government.
But let’s not go so far back in history: Twenty years ago, who could have believed the day would come when those who want to protect our own borders would be viewed as extreme whackos? Other countries believe in protecting their borders, even countries that chastise Americans for caring about theirs.
How about marriage? Twenty years ago, most liberals, regardless of their view of same sex marriage, would have laughed at the idea of calling people hateful, simply because they had the audacity to believe marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman. Old fashioned? Sure, that title might have been used, but not hateful.
You see, as the left moves farther left, our real genuine center by comparison is “farther right.” Those embarressed by such a designation, feeling continual obligation to embrace the left’s opinion of what is “too far right” leave the “former center” for the “newer center” discovering that the only way to stay evenly between an anchored location and the flowing left is to crawl a few spaces leftward themselves. One might ask where liberals obtained their authority to issue classifications such as “extreme right” without referring to themselves as “extreme left.” After all, if we hold to their definition, centrists are no longer centrists. They are instead, people who pat themselves on the back for being moderate, all the while failing to watch the undertow. They, themselves, are traveling unawares. Gradual and unnoticed as the change in landscape may be, we should stop for a moment and look how far down the beach we drifted. Chances are, our towels and umbrellas are nowhere in sight.
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