Can you give a few examples of someone who is centrist and left of centre and the different opinions they would hold?
No because if you’re on the left you’re not a centrist.
But I think a lot of people who are widely considered to be left wing are in fact centrists. That’s because we’re seeing a consistent moving of the Overton window towards the right in a lot of the world. The Overton window is basically a measure of the nature of information that is piled out into the public space.
If very rich right wing people create a vast network of right wing think tanks and media to spread right wing propaganda and create millions of bots to amplify it, and buy up lots of existing media - and all of that has happened - well then the Overton window will shift quite dramatically to the right.
People hold different opinions on a range of topics but my point is that to be a centrist you have to hold certain basic principles that pretty much underpin a liberal, free society and that if you don’t adhere to all those principles you can’t be a centrist.
Like, you can’t claim without any evidence or reasoning whatsoever that Covid was a hoax or a mere flu or that the Covid vaccines are killing millions or billions, and be a centrist. Those views automatically mark you out as a whack job.
But you can still adhere to all those principles and not be a centrist.
On gay marriage, abortion or trans people competing in sports what would a) a left wing person b) a centrist c) a right wing person think
Yes I said that, where did I say you did?
Again I also said this although I don’t think it applies in totalitarian regimes really for obvious reasons.
In the U.S. it is actually at both ends of the spectrum.
It really isn’t. The left has no power in US politics. Whereas this is the third US presidential election in a row where the Republican candidate is basically a Nazi, and Republican candidates up to then had been getting progressively more right wing for the previous 50 years.
One of those times that candidate got to be president and it looks more likely he probably will again.
There has been no such equivalent lurch to the left. Democratic presidential candidates for the entirety of my lifetime have been milquetoast mildly right wing candidates who would fit in quite comfortably as Fine Gaelers or One Nation Tories.
Hang on - are you saying centrism isn’t about the - well - centre of political views?
Because I would have thought almost by definition that’s what it is.
I’m going to set you a challenge Sid if you’re up for it. See if you can go 24 hours without mentioning the word Nazi in a post. So that’s now until this time tomorrow without typing a post that contains the word Nazi.
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Sorry you don’t have a rashers. There are very different States with very different entitlements and more divergent social policies too.
Perhaps don’t immediately veer an interesting discussion onto Trump though.
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I think accepting same sex marriage and the right to abortion are mandatory positions to hold for a centrist. Same sex marriage has the same status as marriage between a man and a woman. It’s marriage. Anybody who seriously proposed abolishing marriage would be laughed out of it as a crank and a headbanger.
Abortion is a matter of a human’s right to control what happens with their own bodies. We wouldn’t deny men the right to control over their own bodies, so why do we do it with women?
The trans issue is much more complex and there a range of views on different aspects of it but what marks somebody out as being incompatible with being a centrist is the practice of treating trans people as basically a group to be bullied and ridiculed, and people who advocate for trans people’s well being as also to be bullied and ridiculed. Anybody who refuses to treat the entire umbrella of issues surrounding trans people with the utmost care and compassion cannot be a centrist.
Anybody who doesn’t treat these issues with the utmost care and compassion is engaging in mob behaviour.
So what was a “centrist” in Nazi Germany?
What’s a “centrist” in Russia right now?
Why do you hate free speech?
Trying to compare political debate between modern Western nations and authoritarian nations is frankly ridiculous.
It is a broader issue than that that as you know.
The centre was pulled that was over many years.
Can you give me one opinion that is ‘left wing’ rather than centrist?
You haven’t addressed the point.
The people youse lot are telling us are “the left” in the US, ie. Biden, Harris and the other power brokers in the Democratic party, are currently enabling genocide. Far from being “left”, they’re not even centrists and cannot be because they refuse to stand up on this issue. Enabling a genocide by definition disqualifies you from being a centrist.
That the Republicans are far worse and far more extreme again on this matter is by the by in regards to this point.
The people in the Democratic party and in general US society who oppose the genocide, ie. people who actually sign up to the core tenets that a centrist must accept, have no power. They are totally marginalised.
You seem like you want to go down the rabbit hole with people on various issues.
I am not saying any of these people are all to the AOC or Sanders spectrum, but what I am absolutely saying is that your comment is transparent BS. The fact that I’m even mentioning them should be an indicator of that…
I’m trying to get people’s views and explanations as to what a “centrist” in these places would be. In Communist Eastern Europe, there still existed centrists, it’s just that they were either imprisoned or stayed silent for their own safety. These places weren’t totalitarian societies before the totalitarians took control.
It’s called discussion.
AOC and Sanders seem reasonably centrist to me. They seem to accept all the core tenets of centrism I listed in the first post and I can’t think of any particularly “radical” ideas either has.
Advocating the transfer of all private property into state hands would be a left wing, non-centrist opinion.
The centre was perceived as being pulled to the left as regards abortion. But perception is one thing, reality is another. In my view what actually happened was people became more enlightened as to the real issues involved and the real hardships faced by women because women started fighting to get more of a voice (fancy that?) and policy ended up as being more enlightened.
This has now been reversed to a large degree in the US.
But then you could say that the centre was perceived as being pulled to the left over the issue of slavery.
And that would be to say that centrists once agreed with slavery being legal. That would also be to say that centrists advocated or advocate genocide or at the very least the complete whitewashing of genocide at certain points in history.
I don’t think those people were actual centrists. Ever.
Which of the core tenets of centrism I listed can one disagree with and still be classed as a centrist? My view is there are none.