meloshouldgo wrote:RIP. A good person, a solid American and a real outstanding human being.
Hated his politics and his VP candidate with a passion, but I appreciate a person who standayo and fights for what he believes in. Dude was hardcore.

Respect.

Aside from his VP choice, what about his politics did you hate with a passion?

Panos wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:RIP. A good person, a solid American and a real outstanding human being.
Hated his politics and his VP candidate with a passion, but I appreciate a person who standayo and fights for what he believes in. Dude was hardcore.

Respect.

Aside from his VP choice, what about his politics did you hate with a passion?

He was a centrist, a neo-liberal, pro military conservative. I hate every one of those things. But I respect him for being an honest stand up person. He was authentic and drama free.

Panos wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

Panos wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:RIP. A good person, a solid American and a real outstanding human being.
Hated his politics and his VP candidate with a passion, but I appreciate a person who standayo and fights for what he believes in. Dude was hardcore.

Respect.

Aside from his VP choice, what about his politics did you hate with a passion?

He was a centrist, a neo-liberal, pro military conservative. I hate every one of those things. But I respect him for being an honest stand up person. He was authentic and drama free.

You hate him for being a centrist?

I don't hate him, I thought I made it clear I respected him. I hated his politics, yes.

Centrists tend to be neo liberals and in my opinion they are primarily responsible for destroying the middle class and polarization of wealth. The US had a ridiculously strong and affluent middle class in the 50s-60s under leadership of social Democrats. That has now been reduced to debt laden slavery under "leadership" of centrists from both sides. I have been saying this for a long time now, even on these boards.

McCain: I’m well-versed in economics; I was at the Reagan Revolution. (Jan 2008)

Panos wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

Panos wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

Panos wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:RIP. A good person, a solid American and a real outstanding human being.
Hated his politics and his VP candidate with a passion, but I appreciate a person who standayo and fights for what he believes in. Dude was hardcore.

Respect.

Aside from his VP choice, what about his politics did you hate with a passion?

He was a centrist, a neo-liberal, pro military conservative. I hate every one of those things. But I respect him for being an honest stand up person. He was authentic and drama free.

You hate him for being a centrist?

I don't hate him, I thought I made it clear I respected him. I hated his politics, yes.

Centrists tend to be neo liberals and in my opinion they are primarily responsible for destroying the middle class and polarization of wealth. The US had a ridiculously strong and affluent middle class in the 50s-60s under leadership of social Democrats. That has now been reduced to debt laden slavery under "leadership" of centrists from both sides. I have been saying this for a long time now, even on these boards.

McCain: im well-versed in economics; I was at the Reagan Revolution. (Jan 2008)

By my definition of a centrist, he could pick and choose from various policies and isn't married to the party dictated agenda. Someone willing to compromise with both sides to get reasonable things done, for the benefit of the country even if not for his party. (eg, John McCain)
Apparently, in your definition there is some centrist platform. Can you elaborate what these policies are that have destroyed the middle class that the "centrist agenda" has espoused?

Yes I can but not right now. Off the top of my head - Deregulation, repeal of Glass Stegall, The three idiots act (Graham, Leach, Bailey), NAFTA, Bush Tax cuts, lowering capital gains tax, increasing the tax burden on consumption, its an endless list.

First off I want to present the idea of Argument moderation and why the core tenet of Centrism is flawed: Just because there are two extreme or opposite positions, it does not always follow that the compromise position is correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

To define the impact of centrist policies we would have to agree on who are centrists and who are not - I think of Lyndon Johnson, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Bush, Clinton and Obama as all being centrists to different degrees. Centrism in America is right of center (meaning it falls to political right of midpoint between the two extremes)

Of the above the Republicans were definitely more right wing and the democrats were more closer to the middle, but as a result the policy struglle between the two groups ended going right of center.

Do centrists have an unified agenda, it's hard to say. Did their policies deliver a crushing blow to the middle class and destroy it's bargaining power from 70s on to modern times. Abso-fukking-lutely. To me the right wing and the centrists have both really played the same game just in two different ways appealing to different sets of emotions. Neither side wanted teh middle class to flourish, but one side was willing to chop them off at the knees, the other wanted a softer approach with more feel good stories woven in to create a sense of false contentment.

When in the 50s -60s the middle class had real affluence, they were not enslaved to their jobs and had teh power to negotiate, they also had real upward mobility. The ruling class of oligarchs found this to be disquieting and felt threatened that their power was slipping away. How this group funded, and controlled both sides of the political debate (Republicans and Centrist Democrats) over time to impose their will on the middle class is the true story of the requiem of the American Dream. I will try to provide a timeline of events and key policy changes (some that I have already mentoned above) but I can't find every centrist that voted on those - I do't have th etime or resources to put that type of research together.

TheGame wrote:This is the problem with our country. All of these labels. He's a centrist, he's a conservative, he's a liberal. Nobody is any one thing. I am a democrat but I agree with a few ideas that republicans propose. Some republicans could not careless about abortion, while some conservatives believe in gay rights. When we are always labeling each other that breeds tribalism and hate and closed mindedness. Like McCain said. We need to start off with the presumption that we all love this country and we all have different ideas of how to make it great. If we listen to each other, we can make this a better place. The main problem I see is you have Trump republicans who essentially see that the only problem in this country is that there are non-whites in it and so their agenda is maintaining white privilege and suppressing the minority the vote. That is stuff I cannot abide by and I will fight against that view with everything I have.

I don't disagree that labels are used a lot. I do think they serve a purpose. A label is a way to associate a large set of priorities or choices to any person. Where it breaks down is that certain people seem to think that every position in that set applies to every person who is associated with the label. That's not true, but that doesn't make labeling bad. If you don't use labels you have to separately define every single position taken by a person to describe his/her politics. No one has the time or energy to do that.

<edited the tucking fypos>

Thank you John McCain for all that you stood for and against.