A fire-breathing centrist with a 12 point plan
Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 06:14PM 
The problem with centrists is that the center is always moving. If the country is moving further to the left, then the center is more to the left. If by centrism it's meant that a moderate approach with reasonable comprises is the best way to govern, then that has little to do with the center. Moderating extremes always sounds like a good idea, but then it helps to know the extremes under consideration. Sometimes, extreme measures are called for, like when a country is broke and heading for collapse.
Mark McKinnon at Daily Beast is fighting mad because some of us believe centrists are unprincipled and misguided, that they contribute to the growth of statism by compromising with it. The first point in Mad Mark's 12 point plan is indicative of the mindset. He accepts the premise of the left that campaign money is the problem, or even lobbying in and of itself. Democrats want to remove the money now because they are being outspent. But that's not the point either -- statism is the point. We don't need laws preventing people from spending their money as they wish in an election, or anytime for that matter, unless it's for the purpose of blowing somthing up or financing an attack on the country, but then the money is the least of the concerns. Statism allows government to provide favors to some at the expense of others -- as long as we have this political system, people who want advantages at the expense of others will find ways to purchase the advantages. There's no comprising solution here -- you end statism, limit government and then you don't worry about it, because the government has no favors to sell.
The rest of the points are sensible center-right tweaks to the system, but they are useless because the system remains intact, and even if Republicans could get a few tweaks to the system through, just like in the past, if the powerful State is left intact, propped up by a statist, interventionist government with a monopoly on coercion, then the State will shake off the little tweaks like a set of toy handcuffs.
What the centrists/moderates don't seem to understand is that we don't need reforms to the same system, we need an entirely new system -- we need a strictly limited government. Reformers and tweakers come and go, but Leviathan remains, marching on.
