Asymmetrical Information

Perhaps the key question is under what conditions the value "pluralism" also implies the value "moderation." Even if one thinks that plural values are assembled in purely random manners, the Law of Large Numbers will kick in to help out your claim. (You will still, however, get some extreme but non-typical cases where the randomized plural values push a person especially far from reason or moderation.) I think also that plural values, by their very plural nature, tend to be more moderate. There is a selection effect operating on those who reject pluralism.

The idea that someone who voted for Bush cannot be considered moderate seems rather reactionary and reductionist, no?

The "two way" political spectrum is, now more than ever, a poor way of placing people.

I completely agree with everything you say here, mainly because I fall in the same boat.

At the very least, we should stick with a 4 way political spectrum, as advocated by... random political quizzes on the internet.

As you describe them, Nat Hentoff would be economically liberal, and intermediate on social issues (I hesitate to use "moderate" to someone who strongly holds opinions, since political beliefs don't really "average out"). Dorothy Day would be socially conservative, economically liberal.

A true moderate is someone who isn't particularly up in arms about either side. Which is the original definition of the term. For example, being rather libertarian, I tend to be economically "conservative" and socially "liberal." I am not a moderate, because I am extreme in holding each set of beliefs. I am an extremist in a direction that isn't left or right. And I think this also applies to you, Ann Althouse and Glenn Reynolds.

I think the vast majority of people truly are moderates. But they aren't the people who write political blogs or write Op Ed columns, because those issues (while retaining beliefs about them) aren't important enough to evangelize or debate in public. We won't often hear their voice in this debate -- because that's the whole point of being a moderate.

As someone that has voted for Democrats and Republicans in races from judges to president, I think Ann and Jane are moderates. I'll also say this about the larege number of left-leaning centrists that voted for Bush: It's about National Security, Stupid. There are quite a few issues that I disagree with Bush on, but the war on terror trumps them all. Having studies quite a bit of military history over the years, I see the rise of Islamic Fascism as as threatening as European Fascism was in the 1930s. I don't see the Democrats having leaders that are willing to what is necessary to stop our enemies. Clinton didn't have the will to do it. Kerry and Gore explicitly rejected it. So for me, national security overrides my disdain for Bush's social programs and profligate spending.

And I probably will vote a split ticket in the upcoming election. (Kinky Friedman for Governor! Why the Hell Not?)

How would you classify someone like me who thinks the idea of establishing a client state in Iraq with US bases is a good idea but opposed the War because I was sure that the incompetent
Bush administration would screw it up just about like they have.

I use to think of myself as a realative apolitical moderate that has voted for members of both parties and liberaterians. But I would never support a single republican again in my life after this bunch of fools we now have in Washington.

First, can't we split the difference between "Ann Althouse is a moderate" and "Ann Althouse is a right wing hack"? In my judgement, she's a moderate conservative. At least, her blog persona- what she emphasizes and de-emphasizes- is that of a moderate conservative.

It's a question of tone. In my judgement, if someone is in the habit of putting up posts dripping with contempt for "the Right" or "the Left" for their terrible shortcomings, be they personal, ethical, intellectual, hygenic, etc., that person shouldn't be surprisd of the people he insults don't consider him a moderate.

Put a questionnaire about issues in front of Glenn Reynolds and me, and we'd agree on much more than we disagree on. However, it's hard for me to be impressed with Glenn Reynolds' moderation- even though he's pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-stem cells, with history of Democratic voting- because I can't read his site without feeling like I'm being kicked in the teeth for being a lying, anti-Semetic, Ward-Churchill-adoring, objectively pro-Saddam liberal plotting "on the other side". I don't take it personally when I read sharp criticism of Howard Dean, or Atrios, or Ted Kennedy, or whoever. But, probably foolishly, I do take it personally when I'm reading insults about "the left" or "liberals".

To point to someone on the left, take Oliver Willis. If you looked at a checklist of his actual policy preferences, he'd probably look reasonably moderate. (Seriously.) But his tone on his blog is highly immoderate, and I don't expect conservatives to read past it in order to tease out his policy preferences.

On this scale, Ann Althouse is a sort of mild Glenn Reynolds. I know that her actual policy preferences are pretty moderate, and her blog isn't wildly partisan. Hence, "moderate conservative". But she's clearly not in the middle. At the very least, she just doesn't talk to liberals with as much respect as she thinks she deserves from them.

I'm positive that I've been a hypocrite about this. But I try to remember that my dad is a Republican, and he reads my blog. If a phrase would be a personal insult to my Dad, and I'm thinking clearly, I'll try to leave it out.

Great post!

I think "moderate" has typically been being used in the "lacking partisan affiliation" sense, in which case both Reynolds and Althouse qualify. Politically, of course, Reynolds is a libertarian hawk, which puts him well outside the mainstream except on defense issues.

Personally I find it amusing when Reynolds gets labelled "a conservative", especially when adjectives like "hard", "radical", or "extremist" are added to the mix. What "conservative" position does he allegedly hold? Support for the war? How is that "conservative"? Just because lots of conservatives happen to support it?

For me, it seems whether someone is moderate (or, hell, right-wing) is based on whether they supported the war in Iraq.

If you supported the war in Iraq, bam. You're not moderate. You may even claim to be "libertarian" but you're objectively Pro-Bush. You make excuses for the screwups in Iraq, you explain that it's somehow "okay" that we killed 100,000 Iraqis to "free" them from Saddam, you then go on to deny this veritable Iraqi holocaust by quoting "Iraq Body Count" (What, they're worth quoting now?), and to top it off, you use the alleged number that died at the hands of Saddam to say that fewer died in the war when you know you can't measure that!!! It doesn't matter if you're pro-marijuana, pro-gay marriage, against the death penalty, and didn't vote for Bush.

It's people like you. YES, YOU PERSONALLY who are responsible for the horrible mess this country is in.

I'd say that you're either with us or you're with the terrorists (Bush) if he didn't screw that up for everyone too.

Or something like that.

You've changed my mind. I've considered Ann Althouse very liberal. Her claims to be a moderate had turned me off enough to quit reading her regularly. I thought she "protest too much."
Your definition is quite poetic and in my opinion quite right.
Now I'll have to come up with some other justification not to read Ann. -grin-

I don't take it personally when I read sharp criticism of Howard Dean, or Atrios, or Ted Kennedy, or whoever. But, probably foolishly, I do take it personally when I'm reading insults about "the left" or "liberals".

Well, it's worth reviewing how that got started. Specifically, when it became clear that Glenn Reynolds was generally positive on the WoT goals, and in particular favored the Iraq war as a necessary evil, he was singled out for demonization by a broad and angry swath of lefties (basically, the same types that have almost shut out a centrist viewpoint from the Democratic party). There's the "Instacracker" thing of course, and on some lefty talkback fora his mere name churns up almost as much acetated bile as the mention of GWB's.

Arguably he IS a bit careless of late with the generalized rhetoric about "the left" and "liberals" -- and I generally try to avoid speaking in such generalities myself -- but this may be merely an unconscious twitch, forged by the willful antagonism of a very large number of people claiming to represent that segment. Even a relatively easy-going, thick-skinned type will be influenced by that kind of treatment, especially when it is so pointlessly foolish, yet doggedly persistent.

Contemplate, for example, what it must be like to cull through his publicly-known Inboxes each day. I know what that do to my attitude...

I reject the premise. A moderate is he who thinks two opposing propositions can be reconciled, whereas one is true and the other false. One must choose, and risk picking the wrong one. The moderate thinks there is a nice third way. This is false.

If you supported the war in Iraq, bam. You're not moderate

The overwhelming majority of the American public supported the war in Iraq, you realize? How can being a "moderate" require being well out of the mainstream of American politics?

Re "moderation," an extremely intelligent Lefty activist once (20+ years ago) tried to push me leftward and then rightward about the Vietnam War, and finally gave up in disgust, calling me an "extreme moderate." A title I'd assume with pride; there are worse beasts.

At the moment I'm a pro-Iraq-war, anti-Roe, pro-gay-marriage, environmentalist registered Democrat. Not really easy where I live; there aren't any Democratic candidates I can stand to vote for, apart from Feinstein.

The trouble with American politics now is that there's an assumption that s/he who believes A must also believe B, C, D and on down through the alphabet. If you support the Iraq war, think affirmative action in the racial-preferences sense is a bad idea, and think Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, apparently you are also in favor of wiretaps w/o warrants, continuing the income tax cuts, &c. These things have nothing to do with one another.

The overwhelming majority of the American public supported the war in Iraq, you realize? How can being a "moderate" require being well out of the mainstream of American politics?

Of course, the crazy leftist answer is that the majority of Americans were misinformed by the administration and were supporting the war under false premises. To wit, polling demonstrating that many Americans presumed clear links between Al Qaeda and Iraq, or the presence of WMDs by the bucket.*

And the narrative hasn't changed even though public opinion has; are people who still support the war (IN IRAQ) and its continuation (IN IRAQ) radicalized for having the same opinion they had three years ago, because public opinion has shifted around them?**

I've never made a habit of reading Instapundit, because I don't understand how people find it interesting (my reading of Atrios declined greatly once he started, essentially, blogging more and more like Reynolds-left). But: he may feel he has reason to be insulting to "the left," but he's still being insulting to "the left," and since this leftist (and most leftists) have never been insulting to him, I don't take kindly to it. I don't say nasty things to "the right" or "Republicans" just because I've been called, by specific examples, a Maoist/Stalinist anti-American traitor. FWIW, I hold the same criticism of leftist writers when I see them attacking "the right" rather than "the element of the right that believes x," or what have you. My brain turns off whenever people make sweeping statements about "the ____," it's stupidity, whether it comes from stupid people or not. As to the history of poor relations, I recall reading that I was no better than a fifth columnist for not placing my absolute trust in the Bush administration pretty early on (thanks, Mr. Sullivan!), so me and mine get to carry a grudge, too, although grudges are by and large stupid things.

*I'm not unsympathetic to the notion that the Bush administration generally thought there were plentiful WMDs waiting to be uncovered. But there were voices to the contrary at the time, and they were dismissed out of hand (and, it seems now, often forgotten). And regardless of whether the administration believed there were WMDs or not, I continue to believe that was not the reason we went to war, but was rather a convenient excuse for a much less popular mission.

**Not that the vast majority of Americans is currently anti-war; I don't pay much attention to polls to begin with, but public opinion is much more divided and much less purely aligned w/the administration than it was in the pre-war days.

Dan, my post was not to say that people who support the war cannot be moderate, but to give a small venting of my characterization of arguments I've been on the wrong side of.

I don't consider myself Republican, I consider myself "conservative" only in the "leave me the hell alone" sense of the word. I am a registered Democrat from a family of Yellow Dogs.

But I supported and support the War in Iraq.

I don't like Bush, I hated John Ashcroft (I usually add a "mother-****ing" (without the asterisks) in between the "John" and the "Ashcroft"), I don't like Cheney, I don't like no-compete contracts, I don't like the war on drugs, I don't like Evangelical Christians, I don't like the death penalty, and I don't like the incredible amount of spending that this government's doing.

But I support the War in Iraq.

And, in the eyes of many "liberals", that makes me a conservative (and not a moderate). Now, I'm not as bad as a lot of conservatives... but that's damning me with faint praise.

It doesn't matter what my views are.
Supporting the Iraq War? Bam. I'm disqualified from being moderate.

I'd bet Jaybird (above) views himself as a moderate, which would squeeze most (two-thirds...three-quarters?) of America into the right half of the political spectrum. This misperception is a key barrier to the lefts understanding of the political landscape, and largely explains their inability to combat conservatives.
Typical militaristic wingnut analogy? Yeah, I'm conservative by temperament. But I'll bet I'm closer to the center than Jaybird.

Ah, Jaybird slipped a post in between his first (that I was responding to) and mine, and showed that I had misjudged him. Damn my hunt-and-peck typing speed.

It wouldn't surprise me if you were closer to the center than I am, SLB.

However, I am consistently surprised by the people who consider me to be conservative or a "Bush Booster" because I support the War in Iraq.

I'm arrogant enough to think that the democrats would consistently win elections if they appealed more to people like me... but, really, who doesn't think that?

If you only care about one issue and your views on that issue are extreme then I don't think you are a moderate even if your other positions might appear to be moderate.

Also I don't think anybody with a strong partisan attachment to either political party should be considered a moderate.

Everybody uses the same standard: I am a clear-thinking moderate. It's the rest of you that are wacky, out-of-the-mainstream nutjob moonbats/chickenhawks.

Everybody uses the same standard: I am a clear-thinking moderate. It's the rest of you that are wacky, out-of-the-mainstream nutjob moonbats/chickenhawks.

The corollary to which is: the more like a clear-thinking moderate you sound when talking to someone, the more likely they are to treat you as an ally.

If you tell someone, "I think Bush has made some serious mistakes in his conduct on the War on Terror, and we've missed opportunities to improve our standing in the international community", that's something virtually everyone can agree with. Liberals will tend to think that, while you might be a little further right than they are, you're a multilateralist who's obviously willing to hold the administration's feet to the fire -- so you must be a liberal. Conservatives will think that, while you're not a hardcore party loyalist, you're as devoted to winning the war as they are -- so you must be a conservative. There are some people who might not think you're on their side -- typically, the ones on the extreme right and left -- but they'll be the exceptions and not the rule.

If you tell someone "The criminal Bush and his despotic and incompetent cronies have slaughtered millions of innocent Muslims, destroyed American prestige abroad and shoveled the country's economy into the toilet at the behest of the plutocrats", they're not likely to think you're moderate about anything.

"But I really do think Bush is a criminal," you say. I know. That's politics. The essence of getting someone to agree with you is making them think that you are agreeing with them. If you're not willing to do that, you're not doing anything but preaching to the converted and alienating the unconverted.

My belief (funny word for me to use in this context, but never mind) is that true moderates steer clear not only of extremes, but more importantly they steer clear of ideological rigidity. A true moderate is more interested in what seems to actually work rather than on what satisfies a pre-conception held on purely theoretical (that is ideological) grounds.

Knowing nothing about Ms. Althouse except what is in your entry, it would appear she has at least moderate tendencies. Or perhaps, pragmatic ones. I've heard more than one normally "left wing" voter admit they voted for Bush both times. Why? Well, he seemed more clearly to have a plan. Kerry and the Democrats seemed to have a plan that mostly consisted of "not what Bush is doing". So it's entirely understandable that these folks felt the negative of a plan was not, in fact, a practical approach to the problems we faced.

For the record, I voted for Kerry despite this since I felt that the Bush "plan" was poorly thought out and likely to be even more poorly executed. But I could definitely understand why folks of a similar mind set came to a different conclusion. This is moderation.

Ideological rigidity on either side - not so much.

I'd classify Professor Althouse as pretty moderate. She was pretty genuinely undecided in the 2004 election -- although it was plain that she was disappointed in Kerry, she considered him up until the last month or so. She wasn't like Andrew Sullivan at least, who pretty obviously became irrevocably opposed to Bush in May 2004, but inexplicably pretended to be undecided for the rest of the election.

More important than being politically moderate, in my opinion, is being attitudinally moderate, which both Althouse and Reynolds have in spades.

he may feel he has reason to be insulting to "the left," but he's still being insulting to "the left," and since this leftist (and most leftists) have never been insulting to him, I don't take kindly to it

Could you please provide an example of him being insulting to the left, collectively? It may well have happened, but I honestly can't recall an example.

For example, he is often accused of claiming that everyone on the left, or everyone who is against the war, is "on the other side". But that's a crock; the people he has referred to as being "on the other side" are people like Robert Fisk and ANSWER (who really do have solid track records of being viciously anti-America and pro-totalitarian) plus "anti-war" protestors such as this guy, who advocate killing US troops. He has never, contrary to popular mythology, characterized the left or the anti-war movement as being enemies or traitors.

Also, while it may well be the case that you've been insulted by right-wingers without giving in to the temptation to say nasty things about the right, there is no possible way you get insulted with the frequency and volume that Glen Reynolds does. I rather doubt that you'd manage to be as polite as he is in the face of the amount of hateful invective he is personally subjected to on a daily basis. Even Gandhi would be tempted to start kicking verbal ass.

According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate.

"Moderates" voted for Kerry more than Bush. But, this really just means people are more likely to self-identify as conservative than liberal.

But, this really just means people are more likely to self-identify as conservative than liberal

Or, perhaps, that the generally liberal nature of pop culture and the media leads many liberals to mistakenly believe that they possess politically moderate views.

What is it about the current political movement that demands we must march in lockstep with everything a party tells us? The irony here is that back in the 80's I believed the Democrats were the party of the free thinkers. Now, over 20 years later, all I see are the same glazed-eye zombies spewing forth whatever venomous rhetoric they are told. That was the exact picture I had of the Republicans back in the 80's.

Ironically, Bush has had quite a bit of criticism from conservatives and within his own party. I'm not sure I like this shattering of assumptions. Unfortunately, there are still those in the Republican camp that try and enforce a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil policy.

It's not that I want to be a "moderate" per se, I simply don't want to be told how to think. Unfortunately, neither major political party seems particularly welcoming to anyone who doesn't espouse their views without question.

Dan -

I was hypothetically piggybacking off of Mr. Barlow above; like I said, I don't read Instapundit because I don't understand the appeal. So I spent a few minutes with the search function and found some links (or, frequently, links to links). They're not all directly about "left=anti-american," but reading them I came away with the impression that Mr. Reynolds thought the anti-war movement was essentially anti-American, that "the left" is beholden to fashionable anti-Americanism, etc., etc. For the record, there's some stuff in there I agreed with - like, Natalie Portman is right, in the last link. But frankly, I came away thinking he was pretty quick to tar lots of Americans with the anti-American tag, many more than the few who I think might actually deserve it. I didn't feel like searching other bogeymen of mine, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he's too smart to fall into some other ridiculous tropes (like the guys who maintain that Democrats are totalitarian Stalinists).

And of course Glenn Reynolds gets more hate mail than I do. I don't get hate mail. I got the occassional hate comment, and witness a lot more. But he gets infinitely more - he has an audience, and I have a few friends I bitch at from time to time. That he takes more abuse of one kind makes what I find offensive in what he hands out more understandable, but no more "OK". It wouldn't be OK for me to do the inverse if I got more hatemail than anyone else in the world. Doesn't mean I wouldn't, but I'd deserve to be called on it. I guess I'm touchy on this stuff - I'd rather be called a baby-murdering idiotarian elitist morally depraved godless socialist than an anti-American. For one thing, the former charge is truer than the latter.

But like I said, I was just piggybacking off of Mr. Barlow, and presuming that Instapundit was similar in this fashion to other places.

Quarterician:

I read the links that you provided regarding Insta's inhospitibility to "the left". He's quoting people like noted far right wing ideologue Peter Beinart on how associating too closely with Michael Moore and MoveOn is a bad idea. Also that Celebrity anti-americanism is rather disgusting and sad.

When Gwynneth Paltrow (along with Geroge Clooney, etc, etc) talks about how she prefers the UK to the horrible US, she's expressing an anti-american statement. Sorry but it's true.

I'm proud to say that I'm a very extreme pragmatic lbertarian with benevolent imperialistic instincts. So of course my radar is different than yours, but the things that you link to don't even seem unkind.

One should remember that beyond the bad mailbox he has, people that he used to like, respect, and link fondly such as Oliver Willis and Matt Yglesias went after him very unpleasantly and personally. He has also mentioned how his father is a pretty hardcore lefty and how he was involved in anti-war protests as a kid.

As to not understanding the appeal... eh. No accounting for taste.

Quarterican, all that wonderful linking work falls apart rapidly when you consider what Reynolds is by training and present trade: a lawyer and a law professor. As such and based on a long reading of his work, I am fairly certain he is precise with words, probably more so than many of his interlocutors grasp -- especially someone who is not a regular reader, and then simply pings through the archives with keywords.

Meaning, someone reading through his posts hastily, or with a preexisting agenda, might read a lot more into a given statement than what the precision of the statement allows, because many people speak and interpret the speech of others colloquially, rather than precisely. Unfortunately, colloquial interpretation can be a minefield when communicating through an informal medium of limited context.

Examples: a qualifying phrase like "some of" or "many", or a compound designator such as "antiwar left", narrowly defines a category of referenced parties when used precisely, but often appears as a generality when understood colloquially.

Liberal, moderate, conservative, extremist, republican, democrat, reactionary, progressive, left, right.

Labels and names. Do they mean anything except in the context of the time they are used in?

Many of the old ideas of what the terms mean don't register anymore. If you stand for the spreading of democracy into places where only tyranny has existed before are you a liberal? Or a radical?

I think the idea that if you believe in concept A you must believe in concept B is garbage. I have a lot of beliefs that would get me banned from the VRWC, and others that have me an enemy the VLWC.

So it goes.

To me, there are some things that cannot be compromised, others that are open to negotiation, others that I could not care less about.

The one thing I believe that can not fall is the achievements of Western Civilization. Without that, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

Anony-mouse: I suspect you're exactly right. I'm a math person more than a laywer, but I often conduct similar discussions: say, "there exists a subset of the Left that is fundamentally radical, anti-liberal, and anti-American." Or the one that got me into a lot of trouble quite often: "There exists a belief system, distinct from the common and sensible belief that we should protect the environment, that is opposed to progress and technology and fundamentally opposed to humanity as a concept." But it takes a lot of effort to make sure that people understand I'm not characterizing the whole left, or all environmentalists, and someone who writes constantly like Glenn Reynolds is bound to slip up in that clarification on occasion.

GAAAAH. Wrote (too?) lengthy reply, forgot to enter personal info, closed window w/out noting that my comment had been rejected...

Shorter (and more tired) Me:

I reread the specific links I provided. One was erroneous and shouldn't have been used - I was trying to weed out Reynolds' links to articles about European anti-Americanism, and included one by accident. Otherwise, I went over everything again and pretty much stand by my initial opinion. There's one point, in the "objectively pro-Saddam" post where he agrees with someone else that "many" antiwar protestors are anti-American, but "plenty" aren't. That gives him a lot of (imprecise!) slippage to work with. And it's sometimes, admittedly, difficult to parse what he means with his sparse comments on the sometimes lengthy passages he quotes. For example, a piece that began as an assault on fringe figures like Chomsky and Moore and Mailer turned into a pitying consideration of "so many teenagers" and then climaxed with the intellectual death of an entire generation, which has turned out to not be so moral after all. Which gets, from Glenn, "Yep." So was he assenting to the beginning of it - Chomsky hates America? - or the end of it? - an entire generation is morally and intellectually bankrupt (and which generation? Mailer's, Moore's, or the teenagers'? Pity that Victor Davis Hanson's command of English is less precise than Mr. Reynolds'.) He asserts that Ward Churchill is the face of the American left, accuses Ted Kennedy of borderline treachery, diagnoses escalating levels of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in the antiwar movement, and marvels at how it's "difficult" for "most people" to be antiwar without being anti-American. Also, anti-Americanism is "most" of what passes for Leftist thought these days. And, Hey, the point of my previous post was, essentially, that for me at any rate, calling me (albeit indirectly) anti-American was unkind...the unkindest cut of all, you might say. I take it more personally than any other insult you could toss my way without actually having met me. I think it's a pretty atrocious thing to call an American, actually, which is why I object to seeing it bandied about. Real treachery and real treason is incredibly horrible stuff, and "most" of the "antiwar left" that I know personally don't come within a light-year of it. Love of country does not preclude criticism of same, and to believe otherwise is beyond my comprehension. I'm not going for effect here, this is 1:20AM heart-on-sleeve stuff. So, yeah, I get pretty pissed off; what I tried to say initially was that neither my pissed-offness at those who call me and mine traitors (or whatever) nor Glenn's pissed-offness at those who call him a faux-libertarian glib hack who gleefully carries water for the Bush-war position in the most statist manner possible justifies lashing out at large groups of people which happen to contain the individuals who are responsible for said hurtful comments. Yeah, it's understandable - he gets, as was pointed out, infinitely more hatemail than I do (which is to say, any). But its understandability doesn't mean I think it's right; I'd be wrong to do the same, in my opinion, if I got the occasional nasty comment or more negative feedback than anyone in the history of glib punditry.

Now, he undoubtedly slips up in his precision sometimes, but by and large I don't think, especially in the latter comments I've quoted (which, incidentally, I believe tend to be earlier in time), he's making a distinction between "the left" and the people he writes about. And the comment about his precision with words is a little disingenuous - as a lawyer and law professor, Mr. Reynolds not only ought to be very aware and capable of using words to make fine slicing distinctions, but also skilled in and knowledgable of the ways of rhetoric and how words can be chosen to have effects other than their literal meaning. So I think its a wash whether "many" can reasonably be read to be "most". But he uses the "most on the left" a whole lot. And moreover, even when writing about the antiwar movement, which I suppose he could be intending to distinguish from "the left," "most" of them are anti-American. Which is, essentially, what I initially wanted to say was a crock of horse puckey. At best I think its a sad misunderstanding and at worst a dangerous lie, but I think in many places here Reynolds either (a) takes the most extreme, and even arguably anti-American positions articulated, and imputes them to many more people than I think can reasonably be considered to hold them, or (b) simply thinks that (certain sorts of) criticism of America, even being anti- specific American actions, is "anti-American". (BTW, the "anti-American" celebrity post quoted celebrity comments which were very anti-Bush, but no quotes that I thought could be read as anti-American. I have no idea what the specific words Gwyneth Paltrow used were in the quote by Hey, but they're not mentioned in that article. Maybe I'd think what she said was anti-American, maybe not.) (BTW 2, I don't read Instapundit because I don't like that style of blogging; it's a choice unaffected by his content. I prefer blogs where the authors tend to write longer pieces and explore their thoughts on a given subject, rather than lots of linking with mostly brief assent or disagreement.) (BTW 3, I agree that I'm not going to be as good a reader of Instapundit as someone who's been accustomed to his style and habits over several years, but unless there's some secret code I'm missing out on, I think the usage of "most", etc., is pretty clear.)

So is he a moderate? I'll continue to agree with Ted Barlow - he may in fact *be* a moderate in his positions, but I don't think his writing seems engages those to his left as a moderate. Which is his prerogative: he doesn't owe them anything, nor do they owe him anything, which is why I thought the initial post by Althouse that got this whole thing rolling was so (unintentionally) funny.

Good night,
one of "many" or even "most" on the "antiwar" "left".

I don't understand this need to classify people... I mean, what's the point? What do we get from it? It seems to me as if these classifications are primarily used to discredit arguments without addressing them. (ie: blogger is uber-mega conservative/liberal, hence motives aren't pure/idea is bad)... seems pretty cheap to me.

I find amusing the notion that Glenn would even want to be considered a "moderate." "Moderate" to me indicates someone who has no strong opinions about anything, or firm political principles. I doubt if he thinks that he is, any more than he (or I, for that matter) thinks of himself as a "conservative."

I have pretty firmly held opinions, that could be considered "extreme" (a word that gets a bad rap--I go with Goldwater on that one) on a number of issues. The problem is, as a couple folks here have pointed out, those don't all fall neatly into either a "liberal" or "conservative" package--it's more chinese menu. But it's human nature to want to pigeonholing people, even when you get a different color of the litmus paper depending on what issue you're talking about.

Quarterican: Nice post. I think you're asking the impossible from Reynolds, though.

It's fairly obvious to most people that the extremist end of the Democratic party is strongly anti-American. It's also fairly obvious to most people that the moderate end of the Democratic party isn't anti-American at all.

However, figuring out the exact location of the dividing line between those two groups is fantastically difficult. For one thing, they shade into each other: "America's good" shades into "America's mistaken" which shades into "America's in the wrong" which shades into "America's bad". For another thing, the different types subscribe to many of the same opinions (Bush is incompetent, Iraq's a disaster, we should repeal the tax cuts, etc).

So, if you're in the habit of writing regularly about the anti-American left, then it's pretty much impossible *not* to annoy the pro-American left in the process.

All that said, though, Glenn does make quite an effort to engage with people who disagree with him civilly. Why not send him an email next time he writes something which you think characterises you unfairly? It's a lot more constructive to talk to someone you disagree with than to talk about them, and judging by the length of your above post you don't seem to have any lack of motivation on the subject. :)

"Political labels - communist, conservative, democrat, fascist, monarchist, republican, liberal, etc - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled, and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists, acting from the highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort." -Robert A. Heinlein

Kyeikki -

Well, if I've asked Glenn Reynolds to do the impossible, at least he's not the first. I understand what you're saying, and certainly lots of people are prone to do similar things with the right; I don't think it's fair to tar people with (colloquially defined) racism just because they're on the right and many people on the far right seem racist to me, because plenty don't/aren't. (Colloquially defined to distinguish virulent and undisguised racism from the pithy-yet-true sense in which "we're all racists" is often intended.) I think Reynolds is wrong, and depending on what exactly you perceive to be anti-American, or how much you think that holds sway on the left, I might think you're wrong too. Are there sad teenagers who nurture Chomskyite-America-had-it-coming sentiments? Sure, for a couple of years; I think most of them get over it, as did all the ones I know.

I'm not, actually, that interested in engaging Mr. Reynolds on these (or other issues); you've been sadly misled by my tendency to be a windbag, and my inclination to respond to people who tell me I'm wrong about something. What I said re: Reynolds in my first post in this thread was as much as I was interested in saying; I was more interested in my attempting to complicate the notion of "moderate" in relation to opinions on the war (like, when you write "moderate Democrats", did you mean moderate relative to the Democratic party, or relative to the American political spectrum?), but that's not what Dan responded to in my post. And despite my love of my own voice, I don't spent time stressing about not getting the kind of engagement I desire from co-posters; I either ignore it and move on, or dig in my heels and waste my time writing about things I don't really care about. If I'm going to read and occasionally argue with people I disagree with, I prefer doing it here, or at the Volokh Conspiracy, because I like the scenery better (although comments threads at VC have been getting pretty bilious over the last few weeks, and recently some people seem to have willfully misplaced their comprehension of the English language...but oh well).

Quarterican,

In my ultra-liberal town, there are a few genuine anti-war people, i.e., they demonstrated and protested Bush I, Clinton, and now Bush II. The vast remainder of leftists never protested Clinton's forays but vigorously protest Bush's. Even after 9/11. It is very hard NOT to think of these types as "anti-American", especially when their thinking is coupled with "It's all America's fault in the first place." Their America is so obviously not my America, and they are much more vicious about it than I am. Now, I am not saying that anti-Bush is anti-American, but if you are antiwar, just how do you propose to deal with the Islamic Fundamentalist ("Islamists") threat?

Refraining from making accusations of racism is usually a good policy on grounds of diplomacy as well as fairness. It's one of the fastest ways possible to alienate someone.

Not really sure what you mean when you say you want to "complicate" the notion of moderate, though. Jane's definitions seem good ones to me.

Quarterican, I still think you have identified a much broader problem, and positing it as Reynolds' linguistic usage problems isn't going to resolve it.

Namely, the more extreme left, with much of the Democratic party in willing tow, has built a rhetorical Maginot Line over the war issue. This has given us everything from the Kerry Election '04 shambles, to mainstream celebrities going overseas to blather about how worried they are to be in the States, to MoveOn and ANSWER antics, to ordinary people waxing vile at the mention of anything in the Bush Administration and engaging in idiodic wind-spitting matches over the meaning and legitimacy of the phrase "support our troops."

In terms of extremists, there are plenty of ninnies on both sides, but the public face of "the left" at present -- as embraced by many in identifiable political leadership positions thereof -- has been heavily characterized by these kind of things. Shoot the messenger if you must. And if you are in the broad spectrum of pragmatic centrist moderates, why be offended by that? A simple "yeah, some of those people are idiots, but my ideas are..." will get a lot more done than a blind emotional attachment to party or positional lines.

When someone like Michael Moore can hold a Washington D.C. premier of a "documentary" like F911, and be publicly embraced by the Senate Minority Leader, it can no longer be said that Moore is a fringe figure in Democratic Party. When a figure like Moore can be seated with a former President at a national convention ( and please, spare the rhetoric about it being a meaningless coincidence; if a similar figure associated with the Republicans was seated next to the first Bush president at a Republican convention, it would be just as notable), it can no longer be said that such a figure is out of the party's mainstream.

Michael Moore is part of the McGovernite wing of the Democratic Party, which has dominated the foreign policy thought of the party on and off for several decades now. There was a brief respite after the end of the Cold War, when there didn't appear to be any real threats to American security, but as soon as one emerged, the reflexive "The United States is largely the source of all international tensions" or the "The United States is so flawed it cannot be constructive in building a better world" tropes came to dominate the Democratic Party once again.

This is the Democratic mainstream, and as much I dislike the Republican Party, on all matter of issues, until the McGovernite wing is relegated to the fringe of the Democratic Party, I can't support them at the presidential level, even as I do occasionally prefer Democratic legislators or governors to their Republican counterparts.

To be more specific, I think the number one foreign policy priority of a hyper-power like the United States should be to prevent a global slaughter as was witnessed in the middle of the last century. I think idiots like Moore believe that the best way to achieve this is for the United States to stop being a hyper-power. I think such mainstream pols within the party like John Kerry are largely in agreement with
this misguided notion, as is evidenced by Kerry's behavior in the Senate during the early Reagan years. Such people are so misguided in regards to human nature and the pursuit of power that they are not to be trusted with positions of great responsibility.

OK. First off, I simply don't have time to actually defend the antiwar movement against charges of anti-Americanism (more on this in a moment), lay out my vision of American foreign policy in sufficient detail that I not do myself a disservice, or lead the Democratic Party to electoral victory. If I had the time - or, frankly, inclination - to do any of these things, I'd have a blog (or a PAC, or a militia), to which I'd refer you. I've tried blogging (not so much the PAC or the milita), and never found the energy.

However, in the recent comments re: the antiwar left being anti-American, I think people are perhaps conflating what Reynolds himself might think of as "subjective" and "objective" anti-Americanism. He thought enough of this distinction to spend time with it in his "objectively pro-Saddam" piece. While he took potshots at people he considered to be "cozying up" to Hussein, he instead wants to clarify that by "objectively" he means "they don't intent to be pro-Saddam, but their actions have the effect of being pro-Saddam." Objectively anti-American, in this usage, would be (from the subjective perspective of a given individual) "X doesn't mean America harm by advocating Y, but Y will in fact harm America." If this is what we're talking about, I'll take my hat and go home, because there's no denying that OTHER PEOPLE think what I think is harmful for America. Shit, I think tax breaks for SUVs are bad for America. I didn't realize I got to call advocates of this policy anti-American!

That doesn't address *everyone*, but I think it goes toward Rex, Will Allen's second post, and maybe even general sentiment.

Loose ends: (1)Avoiding accusations of racism is indeed good policy; agreed. (2)I don't like this particular spitting match, but - if Michael Moore is my responsibility, Ann Coulter is yours. (3)I *don't* think of myself as a centrist or moderate, because I'm pretty clearly not. My opinion on essentially any issue you could name is in some way or other left of center, and when my attitudes aren't to be found in the Democratic Party (as on, say, gun control) they're not to be found in the Republican Party either, but rather in some curious ether, I know not whence it came. I'm quite lefty, and would be fairly considered as such regardless of my attitude towards the war. (4) Yes, the antiwar movement became a rhetorical Maginot line for much of the left (well chosen metaphor, kudos), but large segments of the constituents of political parties do this *all the time*. Abortion, for example, is pretty clearly such a barrier for both the far right and the far left. People out on the far ends of these spectra, for better or for worse, care about a lot of this stuff to a potentially unhealthy degree (myself included), and become extremely passionate about their belief in their own rectitude, and will not brook dissent from those who claim to share their values. We're not, in other words, moderates. (5) I should have been clearer by what I meant re: "complicating" the term moderate - I thought Jane's post was quite good, and I was more specifically addressing Dan's claim that the moderate position was the pro-war position, and saying, among other things, "what about right now, then, when the poll numbers look quite different and more complex?"

I think that covers what I had to say.

Quarterican, lemme know when official Republican Washington D.C. tosses a huge reception for Coulter, and she gets a big hug from Bill Frist while cameras are rolling. Lemme know when Coulter sits with a Republican former president during the Republican National Convention. The analogy is inapt.

Also, I do not employ the term "anti-American". I think it suffices, and is more accurate, to simply state that people like John Kerry are seriously deluded as to how the world works.

(This idea prompted by several of Quarterican's posts.)

To me, identifying as a moderate suggests that you see some truth or value to positions on both sides, which implies some capacity to respect people on either side of you. I'm not saying that only moderates can respect the views of those with whom they disagree, but I find it hard to believe that someone is moderate if they tend to marginalize, caricature, and not take seriously what those on the other side of the metaphorical aisle are saying. (And plainly there are some times when moderation is no virtue.) If someone is patently trying to score points for one team (to switch metaphors), I think they're less interested in moderation and more interested in being thought of as a moderate.

I don't read Glenn Reynolds often, but it definitely strikes me that he knows which team he's playing on, regardless of what he may think about certain policy issues. I don't read Althouse's blog much, either -- hey, life is too short -- but I get something of that vibe too, to a lesser extent. YMMV.

But frankly, I came away thinking he was pretty quick to tar lots of Americans with the anti-American tag, many more than the few who I think might actually deserve it.

You might have come away thinking it, but he doesn't say it. You accused him of regularly insulting the entire "left", and you've yet to provide any examples of him doing it. In every case above he was being harshly critical only of sub-groups within the left.

Just out of curiosity, Quaterician, are you anti-all-war or only anti this one?

It's Althouse's defense of Bush vs. Gore that convinced me she is no "moderate".

Let's recap:

First I said this: he may feel he has reason to be insulting to "the left," but he's still being insulting to "the left." I should have made clearer that this was intended as a hypothetical and not an assertion; I was of the impression that this was an accurate statement, but not having read Reynolds in some time, I didn't intend to - and should not have - spoken as if this were fact. It was a hypothetical based on the testimony of other people in this comment thread, a response to the "well, it's ok if he's insulting because he's insulted" defense of someone else's accusation of insult. But but but: then I responded to criticism of that post, more strenuously than I had any obligation to, since I didn't even mean anything by it to begin with. And I modified, slightly, my position. He writes that most of the antiwar left is anti-American. This seems a reasonable conclusion based on his writings taken together, but he says it right here: "What I find interesting is how difficult it is for most people to be antiwar without being anti-American." Plus, Dan, the quote you use is from my second, more accurate post, wherein I argue the notion that he says, oh, what I've just quoted him as saying. Repeat: "most" of "the antiwar movement" (which contained my "lots of Americans") has trouble not being anti-American, as well as, of course, anti-Americanism being "most" of what passes for intellectual thought on the left. But what you say I falsely accuse him of is something I never accused him of, if we're going to be this precise with our words. It comes, if anywhere, from my first post, where I accused him of insulting "the left", not, as you would have it, "the entire left". They're different concepts. He writes, in my opinion insultingly, of "the left" often, and is glad to criticize the "the left" for not satisfying his desired requirement of rejection aimed at the specific sub-leftist-elements you reference, and claim are the only ones he's insulted; the things he writes about "the left" don't seem to be identical with what he has to say about the "antiwar left", but it's not all sunshine and roses for members of the former. Of course, maybe you don't consider being told that most of what passes for thought on my side of the aisle is anti-American an insult, but like I said, I'm touchy about being told I don't love my country.

Rex: I'm not anti-all-war. For example, I supported and support the decision to invade Afghanistan. If it wasn't curiosity but was intended as a prelude to further questioning, feel free to email me - just add @gmail.com to my handle - since I don't think this is the proper place.

I'm ducking out, y'all. I didn't want to talk about this, I think this was an uninteresting hijack of the thread, which is unfortunate because it was an interesting post and there were interesting comments, if I could do it over again I wouldn't have included the relevant paragraph in my first post, I continue to think Glenn Reynolds does what I've said he does (in my more recent and specific posts), I think he shouldn't, I don't think it makes him a bad person that he does, I'm not interested in defending the state of leftism because I offhandedly commented on Instapundit's potshots at it, sorry for taking up the bandwith, thanks for the conversation, feel free to sneak in "the last word" if you must, see you later, I'm done.

My definition of moderation, for what it's worth. I agree with this group of people on some topics, that group of people on others, hold a few independent and unpopular views, and wish that extremists on both sides would learn to sum up quickly.

For whatever it's worth, I'm almost certain that the majority of self-described moderates did indeed vote for Kerry, and Bush won because a larger number of people identify themselves as conservatives than as liberals. So I'm not entirely sure it's fair to say the center voted for Bush only because he got over half the vote. I'm sure an argument can be made the other way but I think my interpretation generally makes more sense.

"'Moderate' means "of the centre, not at the extremes', and though I know it pains you, my little pink chickadees, the centre voted for Bush last time around."

The popular vote was reported as 50.7% Bush/48.2% Kerry.

I'd agree that voting for Kerry is not mathematically demonstrably a vote for centrism, but how do the numbers demonstrate that a vote for Bush was, exactly?

I wouldn't dream of pasting a label on Ann Althouse, and I wouldn't care to engage in defining "moderate."

But you say that "She clearly does not hate his policies as much as my more liberal commenters do."

Fair enough. And how do your more conservative commenters stack up on hating Kerry policies? Or if we want to go straight to personality/party hatred, rather than imagine that everyone votes primarily on policy issues, is it actually demonstrable, or just a matter of subjective opinion, that, say "Bush hatred" is more common than "Kerry hatred" or "Clinton hatred" or "Gore hatred"? (Not terms you've used here, to be sure, so if you wish to keep it to policy issues, fair enough, though I'm rather skeptical the overwhelming majority of blog commenters, or voters, liberal or conservative, focus on policy over person and party.)

Of course, the true fact of the matter is that I'm moderate; everyone far enough to the right and left of me are extremists. Naturally.

I'd agree that voting for Kerry is not mathematically demonstrably a vote for centrism, but how do the numbers demonstrate that a vote for Bush was, exactly?

Well, it demonstrates that the median voter picked Bush. Saying "the center voted for Bush" is stretching it a bit -- a slight majority of the center voted for Bush, with the rest picking Kerry.

The figures on how many self-identified conservatives/moderates/liberals voted for Bush versus Kerry demonstrate, more than anything else, that a lot of moderates think they're conservative and a lot of liberals think they're moderate. :)

He writes that most of the antiwar left is anti-American. This seems a reasonable conclusion based on his writings taken together, but he says it right here: "What I find interesting is how difficult it is for most people to be antiwar without being anti-American."

Yes, but he said that in August of 2002. In August of 2002 the antiwar left was a tiny minority in the political scene, and was strongly dominated by viciously anti-American groups like ANSWER. Simply put, when he said it, it was true.

You're trying to make it sound like he *currently* claims that most anti-war people are anti-American. But your quotes are all three years out of context. At the time he made them, the anti-war movement was dominated by a nasty set of characters; it wasn't until much later that mainstream liberals began to turn against the war, and the anti-war movement came to be dominated by leaders of the Democratic party rather than by leaders of the left-wing lunatic fringe.

Comments are Closed.