Why moderates are so often bad news

[Douglas Carpenter]

127. the problem with the word moderate is - where do you put the goal post?

I suppose Mussolini was a moderate compared to Hitler. The current pundit class is claiming that moderates on the issues of Social Security and Medicare are those in the middle between the far right who wants to eliminate or privatize such programs or cut them drastically and what they call the far left who opposes cuts in any Social Security and Medicare. Why not declare that the moderate position lies between those who want to gradually increase the benefits of Social Security and Medicare over the next few years and those who want major increases immediately? What not adopt a real broad definition of moderate as the one who is in the middle between the extremes of old Soviet era total collectivism and the extremes of American style capitalism. Perhaps that would be a real moderate - someone who is in the middle between capitalism and socialism.