When I started this blog five years ago, I did so with a commitment to operate under the premise that, although a committed progressive, I would deal fairly with the other side of the debate. I have strived, however imperfectly, to do so. But, from time to time, it raises in my mind the question of whether there is any value in trying to steer the political debate toward some sort of "centrist" position, as Thomas Friedman is so fond of doing in his New York Times column.
It does so in part because, in my own personal evolution, I have not been a knee-jerk liberal by any means. In the 1970s, during New York's fiscal crisis, I saw the need to cut both spending and taxes as a way of putting both the State and the City on a sound financial footing--one that would ensure that the commitment of both to the disadvantaged could be maintained for decades to come. Around the same time, as I began to get more interested in Broadway and the professional theater in general, I was appalled by the union work rules that wasted time and money for producers, theater-owners, and audiences. Finally, this was the period when I began my evangelical walk of faith--and, in the process of doing so, began to wonder if the "anti-" side of the abortion argument didn't have a point or two. Should abortion be a form of birth control? Does that not ultimately harm the mothers who opt to have abortions, and perhaps also deprive the world of men and women who might help it enormously? Those are not easy questions with easy answers--and I still feel that way, even though I have ultimately come down on the side of letting the mothers answer those questions.
All of this was somewhat new to me, because I was born to and raised by a pair of New Deal Democrats whose commitment to their politics knew few, if any, exceptions. Like most children, I reflexively accepted their political views as my own, simply because they were my parents views. But, as I moved from high school to college to full-time employment, I began to form my own views. And, though my voting tendencies did not stray very far from those of my parents, I began to understand what I still believe today--that neither "side" holds a monopoly on the best solutions to our problems as a society and a nation. In fact, that was why Jimmy Carter was a good political fit for me, religiously and politically. Then and now, he seemed to understand, as JFK did, that the best solution is not always the Democratic or Republican solution.
But then came Reagan, and Bush, and Gingrich, and another Bush. And, along with them, came a conservative movement of pundits and fundraisers and special-interest groups. All together, they seemed to make no distinction between the conservative solution and the best solution. As a consequence, conservatism, over the past 35 years, has somehow come to be the only option for people looking to find meaning in the "center." And that fact, more than any other, is the main reason the center can no longer hold. Gun rights are but one of many issues where conservative stubbornness (and, sadly, liberal fussiness about seeming "unbiased") have dragged the center very far in the wrong direction, toward a world in which open-carry is the norm, and those who don't want guns in their lives don't have the right to exclude them anywhere.
Finding the center isn't always a question of half-a-loaf to each side, especially when each side isn't really getting half a loaf. Movement conservatism has adopted Trent Lott's math when it comes to splitting the proverbial difference--90% for the right, 10% for the left. That's the reason our political system seems to be out of balance--it is out of balance.
And that's why, if you want to get to the center, the real center, the only road to get there runs to the left. Not comfortable running on it? You'd better get comfortable, or you will find yourself one day living in an America where the eagle has only one wing--the one on the right. I worry about the potential for things to swing back too far the other way as well, just as I did in the 1970s. But we're not even close to that danger. Not yet. The danger is from the other direction. Heed it, and move to the left to avoid it. I'll thank you for it but, more importantly, so will your children. And grandchildren.
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