--- On Wed, 12/9/09, der Mouse <mo...@rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
> (In passing, it would help if you
> would avoid paragraph-length lines.)
Any sentence that you can't choke an elephant with isn't long enough.
> it does occur to me as plausible, at least, that what you describe
> is an aspect of the noisy extremists being the ones who get noticed
> - and mistaken for the entire sides.
Well, yes, it is certainly the noisy extreme that gets the attention. People
who have to do anything tend to be more realistic, GOP politicians aren't
usually burning piles of tires in their back yards and Dem politicians aren't
slashing tires on SUVs up and down the street. The bulk of the population, as
well, is in the middle, consisting of actual centrist Independents like me and
the reasonable center-leaning non-roots of each party.
But in the past the "mankind sucks" vocal fringe on the left had too much
control of issues and now the "gummit is coming fer yer guns" vocal fringe on
the right is effectively driving the entire Republican agenda. This issue has
this year particularly become the litmus of the political right: if you aren't
in favor of burning coal in a tin cup you must be a baby-Jesus-hating commie.
So, in large part you are correct: pure-partisan political roots don't elect
major politicians, the rational center does. But the roots do elect the
candidates and set the tone of the debate, and I remain at least cranky about -
if not entirely baffled by - this issue becoming politicized to the extent that
it does.
-chris
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