Misguided moderates

The reason I've been hard on moderates is that the current political situation is not amenable to compromise when so much is at stake. I can't think of a single agenda item presented by the Democrats which calls for compromise and cooperation. Finance, energy, more stimulus, all these must be resisted if there's going to be any change. If we had a government which was protecting the private sector and pretty much doing its limited job, it wouldn't matter much if certain items of business passed with a good compromise which improved the items of business, but, with the government we have, we're talking major transformations of how our government relates to the private sector.

The reason for resistance is that both parties have to change and it appears that the Republicans are the ones who have the most members who understand this, although not near enough of them. It might require a third party to make any real changes. We're faced with an intrusive government which violates individual rights. I know there are some in the middle and the left who stand proudly against violation of "civil" rights, but this is an unnecessary reduction of rights which avoids property rights. Rights are rights of individuals -- there's no honor in fighting for "civil" rights and ignoring violation of individual rights in general.

As individual human beings we have natural rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, not just privacy or free speech or association, etc. Both the right and left need to understand what individual rights entail, so that the political right is not supporting property rights and ignoring rights violated by anti-terrorist measures, and the left is not supporting civil rights and ignoring laws which give the government power to control private enterprise. Our rights are not menu items for each party to pick and choose according to their ideology, they are rights which the public possess regardless of government or political parties -- they're our rights as individuals, not as members of a certain party or group.