The Moderate Voice - Latest Comments in The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

Re: The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

Rambie — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:12:02 -0000

DennisMN,

That's good to hear. I did a quick Google search but couldn't find the article, but I do remember it talking about the Utah chapter of Log Cabin Republicans. Perhaps it was a local spokes person and not a national one. Like there was a chance of stopping the amendment here in Utah (it passed by 60%+).

Re: The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

mikkel — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:45:57 -0000

Dennis, this is why I don't think centrist or moderate means much if it just means having a checklist of support that crosses both sides. To me the real campaign needs to be to get a groundswell of support for policies that embrace efficiency in government, practice real compromise, are the most rational (most reflective of our current understanding) and most self introspective.

Compromise normally means finding a solution that is a benefit to all the groups involved even if no one gets exactly what they want. In politics "compromise" normally means letting one partisan group get its wish if it lets the other one get theirs. This is why there are monstrosities like farming provisions attached to defense bills or whatever.

The people in this hypothetical group could be a lot more varied in ideology because the key isn't that they necessarily agree on what's best, it's that they agree to be open minded about weighing the evidence and -- when there is enough support -- work together on trying to make policies work even if you think that it will ultimately fail.

As for selfishness or not, I think that everyone has their own little things that they feel they have to support or oppose regardless of the rest of the platform. I'm not sure how to get around this.

Re: The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

RememberNovember — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:28:41 -0000

George Orwell put it best- "To say that art is not political is itself a political statement... With one person you have a monolog,two people you have a dialog,three you have politics."

Re: The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

Dennis Sanders — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:25:17 -0000

Rambie,

I don't know what news sources you were reading, but I can tell you that back in 2004 Log Cabin was involved in trying to defeat the gay marriage amendment in Congress. I worked with several of the heads of national group and they were hard at work in dealing with anti-gay moves in the GOP. Log Cabin did not endorse President Bush because of his support for the Marriage Amendment.

I do get tired of the supposed stories that say Log Cabin tends to acquiese to the hard right, when I can tell you that in my time, we have pushed back. Here in Minnesota, we worked hard when such gay marriage bans reared their heads.

Re: The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

Rambie — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:20:00 -0000

Tell us what you really think Continuum.

Re: The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

continuum — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:59:22 -0000

The Kapos at Auschwitz worked from the inside, too.

Re: The (True) Wisdom of Crowds

Rambie — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:42:36 -0000

I didn't see the LCR doing too much push-back in the last few elections. In fact I remember an article from the '04 election season where one of the heads of the Log Cabin Republicans said they didn't care about Gay Marriage nor all the anti-gay amendments on the ballots that year.

Until that article I liked to think that they were in the party to try and moderate it from the inside. After reading that article I took the impression away that they were just rolling over on gay issues and letting the HCR and other "leftist" groups to fight for it.

While the HCR is sometimes hysterical, they are least trying. I used to donate some money to both HCR and the log cabins but HCR has gotten too crazy and I still feel let down by the log cabins.