Are We ‘The Moderate Voice’?

I enjoyed your stltoday essay.

Other than Mark Daniels, whose posts are infrequent, does TMV have any bloggers who consider themselves right-of-center?

That was a good essay, Pete. Civility is in very low supply in American political discourse at the moment.

A great example can be seen in a John Kass story in the Chicago Tribune...about an 8th grader in a liberal suburban school -- the child of a mixed (liberal-conservative) marriage - who decided to conduct an experiment on political tolerance.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/c...

Wearing an Obama Girl T-shirt was totally OK.
BUT wearing a McCain Girl T-Shirt elicted numerous declarations that she should die or be killed from her fellow students . . . and passive-aggressive threats from a teacher (who was later embarrassed when they learned it was an experiment).

"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.
Then it got worse.
"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

The girl, with her history teacher, spun it into a report and got extra credit for it. The irony, of course, is that her community is a liberal one that celebrates diversity as a core value . . . except for conservatives.

Reading the story, one can see analogies to the blogosphere.
Clearly, as Pete says . . . we might not agree, but hopefully one can be civil. . . and maybe learn something from different perspectives.

Joe Gandelman's TMV has long fascinated me for having this at the core of its mission (altho, as Manchester2 implies, it does seem to lean liberal in terms of content).

Pacatrue -- thanks.

Machester2 -- Jazz and Tony Campbell probably consider themselves right of center on many issues ... as do I.

Marlow -- great article, thanks for sharing. I'm bookmarking that one.

Pete, as someone left of center, I think it's fairly obvious that this blog tilts heavily left of center.

Consider this: Out of all the bloggers here, how many would be more easily classified (if you had to choose) as liberals and how many conservatives. Of those who would self identify as conservatives how many supported Obama and how many McCain?

Consider this as well: Can you even fathom for one minute the possibility of TMV having a blogger that displayed the same sort of style and attitude as Shaun but coming from the right? Even if you can (personally I can't), do you really think that he'd fit in like Shaun, or would it be daily thread-wars?

Well, what is right and what is left? Is it so terribly easy to classify now? I think some folks are a bit hasty in making that judgement. For example, I don't think comments related to pointing out the lessons of the failed GWB administration are necessarily left or right. And why are various revelations concerning lack of knowledge on the part of a certain VP pick necessarily a right or left thing? Don't we all want the best for this country, or does everything need to be framed in terms of ideology? I contend that at some level there is simply right and wrong. I tend to agree with Pete, on aggregate balance, the output is moderate, especially in comparison with other blogs. I would also add (and anyone who has been around various other political blogs knows this) that on balance TMV is one of the more civilized sites.

Ditto what JSpencer said. That was my point.

Lynx - At least Shaun and Pete don't delete dissenting comments. Hows thing going at your "moderate site" with the Dutch lad? Balloon Juice is an example of a former moderate site, TMV still does some moderation.

Rudi don't mistake some of your comments being deleted for a general practice of deleting dissent. Comments at PG are deleted in accordance to our comments guidelines, with less tolerance being given to repeat offendors. They are very likely deleted at this site too, whether you are aware of it or not. I won't get into the specifics and politics of how tolerant some people are of dissent because the purpose of this thread is not to start a blog-war. Suffice it to say that I believe you lack some of the relevant data in that regard.

This site leans center left, Poligazette leans center right. I don't see what is lost by recognizing that.

ps: I really ought to change my handle here to reflect my name there, but I wish there were a way of doing that without seeming to completely disappear and show up with a new name, does anyone know how I could do that?

This is a great question, and for the most part I think there is a lot more balance here than at some other sites I go to. But then again, a rant comes around spewing nothing but hatred and leaving no room for comment. Here's a great example:

http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/sarah-pali...

Let me ask this. How is a post like this considered to be moderate? I can understand people when they have misgivings about any politician; certainly I was no fan of Palin. But to just spit a bunch of venom like this...really, what kind of comment can one leave on such a post? For the whole election season it seemed everyone thought divisive tactics and gutter politics needed to go away. Yet when this divisiveness continues on now post election, only a few of us in the comment thread point it out. I can only imagine what the comment thread would look like should we substitute Obama's name for Palin's and leave the rest of the post as is.

Lynx - You said TMV swung "heavily left of center". While I'd agree with a small shift left, a heavy shift isn't true. In regards to your blog, what happened to Bal(t)imoron?

To change your name, T-Steel would have to do a search and replace in the CMS database, not a trivial task.

JChem -

You're absolutely right. I had the same reaction when I read that Stickings post, and purposely said nothing, so as not to dignify it with a response, which I suppose this brief comment by me now does.