I think I'm turning Japanese... I really think so

[Anser]

I am known in my own local circles as that left wing guy you must be careful not to bring up politics with.

I'm respectful and do not resort to ad hominem attacks, but I refuse to let something close minded, bigoted, wrong headed or even just misinformed go without setting the person straight, usually quite forcibly. My wife has complained that seeing me "set stright" the average joe-the-fox-news-watcher is the intellectual equivalent of Bruce Lee kicking a baby around.

I've been and organizer and an activist (mostly during the run up to the war a few years back, and more recently for women's health, climate change, and socio-economic causes) for most of my adult life.

And yet, I feel something changing. I think I may be turning ... *gulp* ... centrist.

My DU compatriots, I come to you, with heart in hand and tongue in cheek, asking for help. I need to be cleansed before its too late. Is it a slippery sloe? Is the next step Limbaugh listenership *shudder*?

I've already began to admirer and empathize with corporate entities I once feared and revile. For example, Chik-fil-A always scared me with their fundy backing, but recently I went in there (I had a coupon I could not refuse) and I saw a family gathering place. They had free cups of cherrios for people to give their babies, a well tended play area, signes up for "a break for mommy" type events where they would provide child care free of charge, etc.

Has my extreme (never thought of it as extreme at all, only rational) left perspective and staunce defense of open mindedness been, ironically, closing my mind? Is Obama just that good that he's even cnvincing me that centrism isn't so terrible?

What's y'all's thoughts on this?



P.S. this is my first post to the lounge, I hope this is the right place for this kind of discussion.

[amitten]

1. I think that a real centrist is probably actually closest to the truth.

The whole Universe is based on balance. I think that being too far left can be as bad in some ways as being conservative. Just two different kinds of imbalance.

[TheMightyFavog]

4. I'm showing my geekdom here...

That sounds awfully like what used to be known in Dungeons & Dragons (back during the TSR days, when dinosaurs and Gary Gygax still roamed the earth) as "Druidic Neutral."

Kind of a cool way to approach life. Balance in all things.

[CJCRANE]

2. It's all relative. Everyone was left wing compared to Bushco

and your average "lefty" had to go far left to counterbalance their far right.

Now because Obama is somewhere near the middle suddenly you don't feel so left wing, and maybe don't need to act as a counter weight...

Does that make sense...?

:shrug:

[MajorChode]

3. Do you feel a burning desire to pray to a giant penis shrine?

[TZ]

5. meh...a relative of mine and a school buddy of his coined the term

"raging moderate". Personally, I probably know more moderates than liberals actually.:) Mind you, he calls me a knee jerk liberal..:P