Huxleykrcc said:
Anyway, you're missing my point. I think to suggest that there are no centrists Washington is probabilistically silly, not to mention unsupported (I enjoyed your less-than-deft deflection of your own burden of proof, not to mention the attempt to establish some kind of Ethos by insinuating that you know bunches and bunches and political viewpoints. Which, maybe you do, but that's beside the point).
Yeah, I just LOVE unsupported attacks to my integrity. Here's a rule of thumb:
Next time you start talking about proving one's point, make sure to prove your point first instead of trying to diminish the point of view of others with banter, which is the only thing you have offered.
You keep making comments on how I don't substantiate my views, and you do the same, then you say I dodge, while doing the same. And no, naming an 832 page text book without quotations and pages does not count as proof. You might as well divert to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
I see where this is going.
Huxleykrcc said:
The fact is, it is MORE CENTRIST (not centrist, just MORE CENTRIST) than most of America, on both relevant spectra. Even conjecture suggests this: Any average must be between two extremes in a data set, and politicians purport to have an average view, because that will garner the most votes, and votes are the direct cause of election.
That's, colloquially speaking, bullcrap.
For starters, it assumes the premise that a politician will only reflect the views he actually has, which is total crap. There are too many examples to cite of politicians who reached their constituency by projecting a centrist image and then shifting to the left or right.
Second, it neglects history. The last 40 years alone show obvious ideological patterns in each party. Their voting records in the House and Senate support this. All text books in Political Studies written in the last 20 years reflect these tendencies.
Finally, not only stating that Washington is more centrist than the rest of the population not only is misleading, it is flat out wrong when we consider that more than 57% of the US population considers itself independent and centrist.
Huxleykrcc said:
Incidentally, I never claimed to be objective; if you'll read the end of my last post, you'll notice that I insinuated the opposite. Rather, I argue that it is possible, by codifying views independent of their experimental frequency in the actual population, to make an objective political spectrum. It's an oversimplified one, obviously, but all such spectrums are.
Yup, you didn't claim to be objective, you just acted as if your opinion was the gold standard while trying to demean me and my argument, presenting your own perceived views as superior, well researched and factual, when in reality they are just as riddled with speculation half truths as the best of them.
I'm done. It's obvious you are less interested in debating and completely focused in tooting your own horn. Too bad you're doing it from so high up on your damn horse, we can't hear it anyway.
