Brian said:

You are confusing indecision with critical thinking. On the whole, if the left got everything they wanted or the right got everything they wanted, you would probably have a more efficient government either way.

Part of the incongruent madness is this assumption that the right or left has a definable “way”. Which right, one wonders, should get what they want? Would that be the Conservative Coalition? Or the more traditional conservative position of smaller government? And which left? The redistribution of wealth left? Or the more traditional liberal position of creative problem-solving?

Many – even most – of the moderates I know prefer a more conservative approach to government, including size, controls on federal power (you know, those pesky Constitutionally defined limits…), return to the clear separation of church and state, and more decision-making and policy-enacting at the state and local level. At the same time, these moderates see (and have long-since internalized) a social and human responsibility to fellow citizens who, for a variety of reasons, have less.

Undecided? Hardly. Uncritical thinkers? *Guffaw*

Both parties are really just marriages of convenience between multiple interest groups with agendas that don’t always fit. I think the disaffection alluded to here comes from people who don’t so much want to start a new party as develop network-based approach to political power. That is, one that’s less hierarchical and (seemingly) permanent and more based on temporary coalitions of complementary issues and appealing candidates.

The name for this party comes from the name of a party that President Lincoln temporarily formed during the election of 1864 for the purpose of bringing together Republicans and War Democrats.

The party would only focus on solely political issues, meaning that it wouldn’t even touch issues like gay marriage or abortion or whatever. As for the party’s stances on politcal issues, they would be formed from compromise between slightly left-of-center Democrats and slightly right-of-center Republicans.

It is my hope that if the Union party grows large enough, it can gain support from centrists like Senator John McCain or Senator Chris Dodd.

Anyway, I need someone to answer me this: How do I go about making the Union Party official? I understand there is a petition involved, but I’m not sure how the whole process works here in Florida. Thank you all for taking the time to read this message.

P.S. gerryf: You are absolutely right. Now more than ever, this country needs cooperation, and I hope that through the formation of the Union party, cooperation will come about.

This confuses being in the middle with being ambiguous/undecisive, and implies being left or right is an example of critical thinking (or I am sure Brian would think being left is a lack of critical thinking)–this kind of absolutism is an example of exactly what is wrong with the left and right.

Compromise is a dirty word for absolutists, but here’s a word that means more and is what the middle is about–cooperation. The problem with the left and right is their respective leaders have driven them so far apart with rhetorical nonsense that the idea of cooperation is impossibe, but cooperation is exactly what this country needs. Cooperation requires an ability to see beyond absolutism.

Belmont Club recently had a thread that touched on this same theme, as it pertains to the war in Iraq. One of the commentators there summed up the problem neatly in one sentence: “We became a nation that cannot abide moral ambiguity.”

You know what the difference between Fascism and Communism is? Communism killed more people.

The extreme ends of the political spectrum are one and the same. In that manner politics is like a circle. You have a “left side” and a “right side”, but at the top and bottom, the two look exceedingly alike. If you used the Y axis as a measure of authoritarianism, then at the top you have complete authority and at the bottom you have a muddled mess that may fall into anarchy.

We have experienced these sorts of “efficient governments” in the past century and they were called the CCCP and the Third Reich respectively.

However, mixing the two positions and taking the “virtue” of the middle ground, the compromise often lowers the overall effectiveness of the government. You can’t have a middle ground on abortion, either taking human life is wrong without justification or it isn’t. You can’t claim moral superiority by claiming that abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare”. Either abortions should be legal only for cases of true life endangerment or legal for all reasons. Once you get into “the middle ground” of deciding what abortions are and are not permissible, you lose the value of either side. Either Life trumps all, Freedom trumps all, or you let the Government decide, trumping both life and freedom simultaneously in favor of government mandate.

Compromise is not the only means to solve problems, not by a long shot. This “middle” seems to exist on creating false dichotomies, such as those presented in your last paragraph. This “middle” only seems to exist if you can characterize both the right and the left as “extreme” and then assume that all forms of extremism are bad.

Please, don’t give me a party of Lieberman’s and McCains. I’ve been following McCain in particular and the man can’t seem to make up his mind on anything, he resembles more and more a pandering snake-oil salesman with each passing day. He is not “moderate”, or “centrist”, he simply lacks principles and his beliefs cause numerous double-standards.