A Radical Defense of the Moderate

And an offense against the hoggish opportunist who hovers in the "center"

What’s that subhed? HOGGISH? Oh, my, what nasty names. Sorry-not-sorry; as part of my public shadow work—as I at last caress the delusional force of ego as I prepare to present my solution to the Politics Problem—I am giving myself permission to call people appropriate names, no matter how colorful they are.

If I seem a smidge hostile, it’s because, as a politics-hostile moderate, I often get confused with safe, hoggish opportunists.

I hear moderation getting blamed for the opportunist status quo even as I’m busy taking flak from, or being pointedly ignored by, the smugly dug-in camps of almost-as-opportunistic but more-childishly-fanatical politics nerds on the left and right.

Those lefty, rightie, hog-adjacents in their safe camps taking potshots at each other and at the lone voice of “hey maybe your dearly-held beliefs that the other half of humanity should be eradicated are mere biology amplified by online tribal dynamics” want to blame ME for the status quo? KISS MY LONELY ASS.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, in active defense of moderates:

Being a political moderate is the least rewarding, loneliest thing to be online, but it's becoming clear that it's the only decent thing to be.

For me, at least, since that’s how I’m wired.

I don't mean taking whatever position is closest to the center, either. I don’t mean being a safe opportunist, if I hadn’t made that quite clear.

This wishy-washy Machiavellianism that “moderates” are accused of is more of a pig thing. The left has clearly been the more mendacious and destructive team for a long time, which means a lot of the worst opportunist pigs are sneakily drifting from left to right, where their bullshit can hide out and glom on a bit longer. I’ve seen it up-close and personal.

That is not what a moderate is.

Moderation means trying to see current and past reality through the thinnest ideological veil one can muster.

Moderation means seeing that the Biden Administration was a far-left swing we didn’t need that caused a far-right swing we didn’t need. It seems you blame each other, and not the violence of the pendulum. You should blame your own egotistic desire to always be on the victorious team, and to hell with whether that’s what civilization needs this year; you need to believe the other team will always tend to cause the downfall of civilization, because that justifies your self-righteous bloodthirst.

Hm? Tell me where I’m wrong.

Maybe instead of trying to get rid of the other teams, we should think about being the healthiest, best-informed, and most helpful possible version of a leftie, a rightie, or a center-y that we can be.

As I’ve colorfully insisted before, the other political teams are a necessary part of humanity that we oughtn’t kill off. Who knows what skills we’ll need in the future?

Even if the Fermi Paradox never gets resolved because every time intelligent aliens check up on us they do their version of vomiting, you’re going to need the skills and knowledge that those silly naive leftists have garnered someday.

Or you’re going to need the skills and knowledge that those fascists who ACTUALLY BELIEVE you can be racist to a white person or a Jew (hyuk) have garnered. Someday.

Why else do you think we evolved like this? Why is there a yin and a yang, genius?Why do you think US elections have come down to trying to convince the moderates and/or cheating? You think it’s chance that no matter which dog the blue or red team runs, it always comes down to the wire?

This is how the US presidential elections work now; it’s a three-step process:

1. The Republicans pick the guy who makes them question their sexuality in a weird way, because they’re all a bit progressive, or at least libertine;

2. The Democrats pick the person who’s survived the others’ axes long enough to get to the top of the waiting list for My Chance—they already had their Gaysperimenting Phase (not that I’m saying Barack Obama is married to a man, you lunatics, but he IS suspiciously attractive—nor am I saying Trump is conventionally attractive, it’s just that people are weird); and

3. The moderates hold their nose and vote for the one who probably won’t bring about the apocalypse. Although it’s usually more to the maybe side of probably.

I don’t know if you could come up with anything more stupid if you purposefully designed it. But I’m probably goading some of you into trying.

Look, you genius strategists. I know this might sound ridiculous to your tribal mind, but if you seriously believe that muzzling all the men or the women is a bad idea, or that killing off a race is a bad idea, especially your own, or that generally being a dick over characteristics that are arbitrarily handed out to us by Nature isn’t fair, then maybe you want to entertain the notion that killing off all the lefties or righties, or creating a one-party state that seals them hermetically out of any decision-making power, is also probably bad.

Yes, the other team is desperately unhealthy and insane right now. But so are you.

I’ve made it clear that I hate you for making me be the hippie, but we are going to need everybody. And we’re going to need them in something of a mentally-healthy state, not a hateful froth, as much as I hate you. (I warned you, part of my shadow work is allowing myself an occasional scrap of the hypocrisy in which most people wallow shamelessly on a daily basis.)

Leftists are here to tell us what could be. Conservatives are here to caution us over what maybe ought to be kept. Centrists—we seem like a tiny minority, but that’s perhaps because it’s so unprofitable at the mo’—are here to see what’s actually happening now, and if you’ll allow us a voice once in a while, we make dandy referees.

We have NO idea what will neutralize Zog’s blaster, nor do you have any idea what will happen with AI in ten years’ time. Or ten months’. We are all needed.

But I guess it’s worth denigrating and calling for the eradication/disenfranchisement of the other half (roughly; see above) of humanity if you can get a million members of your tribe to click on your mindlessly hateful poast.

And I’m the wishy-washy, destructive opportunist. K.

Bonus: AI blooper reel

Because choosing an AI-generated image is, surprisingly, not unlike choosing a photograph to actually develop after you made your contact sheet out of the negatives back in the day:

Sorry, Civilization; this image will probably lead to your direct downfall, but I kind of love it when Grok wilfully misunderstands my prompts, so it’s in here now.

As nonsensical as it is, part of me wants to go ahead and run with this one as the main image

Eventually I will find the time to write a piece tailored to make this image make sense somehow

(I’m not sure this one was actually a misunderstanding)

How it began:

Slightly closer:

I hit peak image long ago, and kept on trucking:

Yes, this is how I see you. “Deal with it,” as those in the overarching majority like to smugly say.