Sensible Centrists suck

[JDPriestly]

18. Please see my post No. 16.

Centrists are acquiescing to greedy abusers. I came of political age in the late 50s and 60s. If the centrists had enjoyed the power and support then that they enjoy now, we would still have segregated schools, no workplace rights for women, no Medicare. Nothing.

The civil rights and social progress we made during the 30s through the 60s was hard-fought by people with conviction who were willing to differentiate themselves and their compassionate beliefs from conservatives who wanted to continue the status quo and with those who were "centrists," who cared not at all about the rights of the poor, minorities or women but rather about being pleasing.

If you think that the views of centrists who equivocate on every issue and just want us all to get along deserve as much respect as those of people who support the rights of the dispossessed, I suggest you explain your view to the people who have lost their jobs, been foreclosed and are virtually out on the streets or living in cramped quarters with family members.

The bankers cheated. They lied and cheated. That they had fixed the laws so that they could lie and cheat legally is irrelevant. Remember, segregation was the law in states like Alabama and Mississippi until "leftist agitators" got the law changed.

Excited discussion about the issues, especially economic injustice, debt servitude for example, is what we need. If people think that "leftists" are wrong, they should say so and present cogent reasons for their own points of view. But ultimately, society suffers when we just toe a polite, centrist line and never look at injustice. Treating the ideas that further justice the same as those that deny it is a fool's paradise.