How To Signal your Moderate Bona Fides

There are many ways we moderates can display how politically enlightened and wise we are without the added effort of actually being wise and enlightened. With a few wags of a finger and flicks of our dismissive wrists, any middle-of-the-road moderate can pretend his fear of divisiveness and debate is itself a political position.

That’s why we are essentially the concern trolls of politics. We are more worried about the state of political discourse, the division, than the very real issues underlying them. When it came to battle for civil rights and against segregation, for instance, we moderates preferred peace and order instead of any struggle towards justice and freedom—because, well, struggle is bad. As the extremist MLK lamented in his famous Letters from A Birmingham Jail:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice;”

But, hey, look who’s talking now? We were smart enough to know how risky it is to stick your head out, alone, against all odds. He might be alive had his position not been so extreme.

Rather than get out of the way of those having the debate, however, we prefer to stand in the middle of it, exercising our moderate voices in order to stifle everyone else’s. No, it isn't that standing on the fulcrum ensures the balance of the whole, but it is sure to be the highest perch from which everyone else might notice us. We remind them (with some added finger-wagging just to be sure) that divisiveness and polarization are bad and sure to ruin the country. We keep reminding them of their extremism, like Douglas did to Lincoln, because we would much rather avoid the possibility of tumult than fighting against true injustice and oppression. If that means making a deal with the devil for a little peace, so be it. At least we’re still alive.

Know and use this phrase often: “Both sides are just as bad the other”. This is our get-out-of-debating free card. Such a phrase is a false equivalency, definitely, but it reminds everyone else that we are not beholden to any one side, even if one party is right and another is wrong. Keep us out of it…but, then again, keep us close enough to remind everyone that we are above and better than all of them. One could never compromise between truth and falsity, sure, but we’ll damn sure try if it makes us look reasonable. So long as denouncing both sides absolves us from the taint of any tribalism, we’re gravy, even if we’re practically begging for a third party, another tribe, every chance we get.

But most of all, there is no better way to signal one’s moderate bona fides than to take part in a debate in order to prove one is above it.

a reply to: NiNjABackflip

How about not being terrorist by mailing bombs

a reply to: NiNjABackflip

I laughed. Not that I don't believe that it's possible to be a moderate on many things that aren't as important as civil rights or that we're not plagued by low info extremism — but goddamn, it's annoying when somebody injects themselves into a heated debate to make sure everyone knows how above participating in that debate they are.

a reply to: JasonBillung

Or not calling out political opponents for violence?

a reply to: JasonBillung

Or not calling out the Media for beatings?

Or not calling out women for sexual assualt?

Or , really, not being a right wing push who mails bombs.

Of not being a liar. I mean such a liar that not even your supporters supply your lies?

I am stopping, but with this POS i could go on all night..

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: NiNjABackflip

I laughed. Not that I don't believe that it's possible to be a moderate on many things that aren't as important as civil rights or that we're not plagued by low info extremism — but goddamn, it's annoying when somebody injects themselves into a heated debate to make sure everyone knows how above participating in that debate they are.

Hey thanks.

It's concern trolling, right? Until I started spending more time online I had no clue it was an actual thing. Let people debate, damnit.

a reply to: JasonBillung

I am stopping, but with this POS i could go on all night..

Let me guess...Trump?

a reply to: JasonBillung

ALL night? could you put it ALL in one window?

a reply to: AnrkE

ALL night? could you put it ALL in one window?

Notice that for a moderate its all about convicting someone off thought and speech crimes. Can't have anyone with elevated touchy feelies.

a reply to: NiNjABackflip

Eh, I debate people all the time. And I'll take a stance and debate people of the opposing stance.

I just have some beliefs that are on the left side and some on the right. Neither side does it for me.

You find it annoying that people won't pick a side and stick with it.

I find it annoying when someone is so partisan they'll flip flop to defend a politician.

Plenty of people on the left and right can admit when a politician is doing something wrong on their side. But the pundits who just say whatever it takes to defend their side for the sake of "winning" aren't debating... They're trolling.

All ideologies have a mixed bag, including the left, right, independents.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

And all Of these guys are defending right wing terrorist bombings, like the cowards that bombers are.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

What I find annoying is the concern trolling, actually. The "both sides are bad" argument is especially annoying. I have nothing against those who can not decide on a side, but those who refuse to on principle and lament those who do.

How many times have you said "both sides are bad" today?

originally posted by: JasonBillung
a reply to: CriticalStinker

And all Of these guys are defending right wing terrorist bombings, like the cowards that bombers are.

No mote. No more to the violent bomb wielding Right wing terrorist who are anti American traitors to racism and Russian Kremlin rule. .say no to Republican Russia Rule of the USA..

The criminal right wing terrorists who support Russian communists and arabs rapists of your women are now mailing bombs to Americans, and you support this?

originally posted by: AnrkE
a reply to: JasonBillung

ALL night? could you put it ALL in one window?

If maybe you helped? And a few thousand others?