dlowan wrote:I think you are confusing two meanings of moderate.
My own sense is that things are so far to the right in our two countries that moderate used, in this instance, in the sense of meaning neither conspicuously left nor right politically, as this is defined outside the US, is currently a position that represents movement from the current status quo.
Hey - for all I know, you are only moderately plain.
Perhaps I am simply not accepting your definition of
moderate, but then I'm not certain that I follow your argument.
What is the status quo in our countries? That
things are so far to the right, or
that things are either conspicuously left or right?
In any case, movement from the status quo is hardly a characteristic of moderation.
I'm not as well versed in Australian politics as, undoubtedly, you are, but in the US, most polls show a fairly even split between opinions that one might describe as left or right. It seems to me that the US is leaning to the right, but hardly in such a way that might support the claim that
things are so far to the right.
It's interesting. Liberals are quick to tell us that the country remains predominantly liberal, and that if not for one or two crooked polling places in Ohio, John Kerry would be in the White House. At the same time, they shriek like so many Cassandras about how the nation is one step away from fascism. I'm puzzled as to how these two views can be reconciled.
