…FL…good quote. No idea…the answer should be good.

The socialist agenda is a lot like the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes. It sounds like a good idea. It has rather nice, soothing people shilling for it…a harsh word to use about a nice guy like McMahon, but I move along. It’d be nice to win…socialism would be nice if it worked.

The problem with that sweepstakes is the other eighteen gazillion folks who *ALSO* entered (no purchase necessary to win). The problem with socialism is also people…but, this time, it isn’t only numbesr (numbers of recalcitrant poor, numbers of unemployed ideologues after the “revolution”), but with the people themselves.

Socialism is like Christianity: it runs counter to human nature. One teaches us to obey God and love our neighbors…Calvin pointed out that the “loving your neighbor” was *harder* than the obeying all of God’s commandments perfectly. Socialism relies on the organizational skills, often times, of some of the *LEAST* organized people imaginable, as well as the good natures of those not among the nomenklatura. It’s a society run by coffee klatches…and damned argumentative coffee klatches.

Unlike socialism, though, Christianity has divine guidance, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the strength of the Author of the Universe behind it. It’s a done-deal. Christ’s won, Satan’s lost, and we’re just waiting for the field to be cleared and the goal posts to be burned. Socialism, on the other hand, has failed in almost every place it’s been tried, and those failures have sometimes been *spectacular*.

…so, socialism is not only counter-intuitive, it’s inefficient, impersonal, sterile, and inhuman (and not in a good way). The only thing going for it is a willing and energetic sales force…most of whom, if history is correct, will be the first casualties of any regimes they bring into being.

…you have to be careful about sales pitches…Enron and dot-com stock used to be safe bets, once upon a time….

Puritan1648 on November 9, 2006 at 5:20 PM

Remember, you need at least 51% to win a two party race. If what ever part of the political spectrum can’t appeal to at least that many, you will lose your race.

…and, I’ll remind you that you only need 2% of your target audience committed to win any revolution…they’ll bring 49% along with ‘em, most times.

…moderate can also be someone who doesn’t care to keep himself that well informed; and a centrist someone who can’t decide, either because he has no views of his own to start with or because he has issues with commitment.

Kos screwed the pooch — and, happy to say, will continue to do so — because the part of the non-negotiable spectrum he’s staked out is socially extreme, unproductive, and a proven loser.

The words “ideologue” and “extremist” have lost any meaning. Goldwater pointed out that extremism in the service of democracy was no sin, and lack of it no virtue. He was a loser, but his views weren’t. Those are the views of the majority, when it’s pointed out to them. Most of the electorate holds rather firmly to “their” issues, and there are a few issues which they share in common. Some things are non-negotiable.

The problem is this last election that those things weren’t addressed. It was “business as usual” running against “business as usual isn’t good enough, but we haven’t got any alternatives”. It was Kos’s worldview — fringe, impractical and annoyingly smart-alecky and cutesy — in the background, pretending to have some juice, but he was, as you point out, ineffective…because *HIS* base is not anywhere near the majority. They were selling rotten left-over Halloween punkins, and the electorate in Connecticut could see that.

…politics may be the art of the possible, but when the possiblities you’re shooting for don’t extend much beyond getting the job, you’re apt to find that the guys paying your paycheck quickly sour on your job performance…because, as often as not, folks caught in endless election cycles haven’t enough butt in their britches to perform once they arrive.

…for an example, I’ll see you a Kos, but raise you one Clinton…I have one more in reserve, by the way.

The “center” is an illusion. You need to find the *center* of the majority’s home ground and speak from there, in their native tongue…and you’d better not be putting it on, as when Hillary claims to be a Yankees fan. *THAT* center exists. Some fictional “center” between some fictional extremes does not.

*THAT* is what the Dems did…or appeared to do…the extent of their deceptions, appearing to be “one of the folks” will tell in time.

Find out where the people live, an’ you use that as a point of departure. *THAT* is possible.

This isn’t political science. I can’t graph it, and I wouldn’t get much of a grade. It’s pragmatism. There are no grades except pass and fail. If you blow it you fail. If you don’t, you’re still in the game.

Puritan1648 on November 9, 2006 at 5:51 PM

…well, we need to find ‘em first, Kevin.

I blathered all that to say this: you need to find out what the people want, how to serve them, and do *THAT*. There’s your center.

EFG mentioned Kos…Kos and his ideological bed-fellows speak in terms of “here’s what you *OUGHT* to think” (not “believe”, as that word seems to give ‘em the willies…although the do talk of “passion” a lot, which is a window to their souls). They make up *THEIR* minds, and folks seem to think that this stakes out one end of the spectrum…and put folks like me on the other end of the spectrum, draw a line between, and arranged folks along that line, with some imaginary point in the center, moderates arranged amongst and on either side of the center.

That notion is false.

Find out what the folks think. That is the “center”. Rather than a line, it’s a range of concentric circles out from there. The further you get away from what the folks believe, and will put up with — usually because you’ve decided for yourself what these benighted people “ought” to believe — the further from the center you are.

It isn’t a matter of linear position, it’s expanding the circle you can include among your supporters…or, rather, among the people to whom you owe *YOUR* support as a politician.

It’s a matter of inclusion, not position.

So many folks think of politics as some sort of a bunco game…”What line works with these marks?”…as opposed to speaking from in amongst them. The electorate isn’t a collection of sources of potential income or influence. They are the foundation of the duties to which you’ve been empowered…nothing more, nothing less….

Puritan1648 on November 9, 2006 at 8:16 PM

My basic point is that each minute issue has its own “center”, and the more we tie multiple issues together, the less likely it is that their intersection will form a majority.

…the tendency there is to atomize the problem…it goes from being a society to an amorphous, swirling blizzard of problems. I find that folks *tend* a particular way. They have sets of standards by which they measure the unknown when it comes up.

That’s been the problem: our friends on the Left have been casting doubt and aspersions on anyone even *having* standards. Look at all the grief and snarky backhanded comments Bush gets for being religious. He’s portrayed as a close-minded ideologue who thinks that he doesn’t have to think. What he *has* is a set of moral guidelines which helps him navigate from the known to the unknown by defining right and wrong. That sort of thing used to be common back 50 years ago. It’s been chipped at and chipped at, and nothing’s been put into its place except…well…*ME*.

It’s all “me, Me, ME!”, all “me”, all the time. Improve yourself, love yourself — Whitney Houston even sang the theme song for this — explore yourself, worship yourself. Don’t let anyone get in *your* way…forgetting that maybe the other guy’s got a “me” which is just as important to him as yours is to you.

The Left sells an atomized society, all nebulous and rootless, rudderless and squishy. Handle each problem as if it’s the first time it’s ever come up. They expect to constantly re-invent he wheel each time a wheel is needed.

It’s insanity.

Puritan1648 on November 10, 2006 at 12:12 AM