We’ve seen a lot of insightful reflection about what the recent elections say about the prospects for liberty and the efforts of many Americans to fight for endangered liberties.
One lesson I hope we’re on the way to unlearning is how allegedly “praiseworthy” it is to evade any clear-cut defense of fundamental political principle. How allegedly “critical” it is to compromise not only on the details of a program that does advance one principles, but also on the basic principles themselves.
In a recent communiqué, Representative Ed Emery rejects the notion that “moderates” lost, sometimes spectacularly, because voters “weren’t thinking.” No, “Moderates lost because voters woke up to the truth that lukewarm does not protect personal liberties; it compromises them [and] protects the status quo.…”
But not even the status quo is protected by huddling in the middle of the road. The premier beneficiaries of the worship of the muddled middle are those who do advocate certain fundamental (and poisonous) ideological principles but who succeed in posing as practitioners of “moderation.” Today, the radical left calls itself “the center” and screams bloody murder about “extremism” when anybody offers cogent objections to their socialist agenda. “Compromise,” to them, means only tweaking the speed at which we hurtle ever closer to full government control over our lives.
Let’s not submit to this intimidation, this fraudulent debate-framing.
Let’s demand a fair and open clash of basic political principles.
That’s a battle we’ll win.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.