On Thu, December 18, 2008 4:35 pm, Chris Gehlker wrote: > I simply don't know what you are talking about here. If you could give > some specific examples of 'progressives' moving to the right in the > name of centrism maybe I could get it.
Let's see. Reproductive issues - the right is completely unyielding on this subject - they will not be satisfied until it's absolutely abolished. The left, in its desire to be middle of the road, has allowed a whole range of new restrictions on abortion rights in the past two decades, from bans on "partial birth abortions" to restrictions on funding humanitarian organizations which even mention abortion as an option, etc etc. As far as I see, only one side is compromising on these issues. Gay rights - the right is completely unyielding on the issue of gay marriage, and largely even on gay rights since the talking point is that it's a lifestyle choice, and therefore unqualified for minority protections; if the right were willing to compromise, then we'd already have at a minimum civil unions for homosexual couples. Instead, there's no such thing - but we have a majority of Democrats even voting against gay marriage, and failing to ask for any alternate solutions. As far as I see, only one side is compromising on these issues. Civil liberties protections in the war on terror - as far as I can recall, the left has consistently folded on all major civil liberties issues that have arisen during the "war on terror", and the right has had to give up almost nothing. Telco immunity; Guantanamo; PATRIOT Act; hmmm. As far as I see, only one side is compromising on these issues. I don't really want to debate these points - it just beggars belief that you wouldn't see how willing to move to the right the Dems have been over the years, and how almost completely uncompromising the GOP has managed to remain. That has been almost the unifying theme of American politics for at least the past 20 years or so, IMHO. Analysts often note this, in context of commenting on the platform discipline of the GOP, and the lack thereof on the other side - maybe this has changed in this election, though I've yet to see signs of that. _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
