Why Moderates Can't Save Us From "Extremism"

Hey, it's John with the conversation that matters for March 2018. I wanted to talk a little bit today about the

Moderate solution. So I was reading a New York Times article and I've I've heard this many times usually from people on the left

But they'll say what we need are some moderates to listen to because the tone in Washington is just so extreme you have radicals on both sides the right and the left and we need some moderates to get in there and kind of Make everything better and this is not a solution

I'm gonna tell you why and I'll tell you what the solution is. I think so. It's not a solution because Who is a moderate?

What do you think of a moderate? What do you think? Well, number one, you could think of someone who doesn't have an opinion. They just want to go on eating their sandwich

They really don't care about tax reform. They're not going to help If they don't have an opinion on the left or the right and what their solutions are

They they they're not going to be listened to nor do they want to be listened to Another category another definition for a moderate might be someone who let's say believes

That there is a third way the right has an opinion the left and there's a third way or I'm gonna take aspects of the right and the left and Take take what's best from both worlds and create my own third solution

Well, what you've done is you've created if you listen to that voice a third potential for radicalism because now you have three people

Three solutions and each one can be just as radical as the other so cross that out.

Not a solution The third way and I think this is the way most people think of when they're saying that moderates are gonna save us

The third way you can think of a moderate is someone who just maybe they whisper more. They're nicer They're not vilifying and shouting crazy things at the other person

Well, if that's the case what you're talking about really isn't a moderate anymore It's just someone who's nice and can't someone on the left or the right just be nice and treat someone with respect with whom they disagree

Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's obvious, right? So someone who's a conservative or a liberal they can treat someone with kindness.

You don't need a moderate for that So moderate again a moderate person is not the solution for this

It's just treating each other with kindness. Now if that's really the root of all this we just need to treat each other with kindness

My question is what happened that we do not treat each other with kindness anymore Because usually the example that's given is it didn't used to be that way the political tone in Washington is worse than it's ever been

Tip O 'Neill and Ronald Reagan got along Well, if that's true and you want to go back to the 70s now what made

Tip O 'Neill and Ronald Reagan get along? What made people in previous generations

Love each other and love this country more and come together more on certain things than they do now Well, it has to be connected with the idea of respecting one another somehow now

I can think of something It's the elephant in the room Now if you have a solution you need to argue for it But I think there's something that a paradigm that fits this very well

This country United States of America used to be very influenced by Christianity. So Christians would

Treat each other with respect because they were taught from a young age They were given a philosophical basis for this men and women are made in the image of God They carry the image of God with them.

And if you respect respecting them as respecting God, it's it's required of us It's it's it's what separates us from the animal kingdom and authority figures are respected because authorities given by God Different you know mothers fathers

Children women in general there was a respect that went to women and those things are leaving us

I think the me too movement in many ways you can even see see the lack of respect for women. Well, okay

Well, who where why is there lack of respect for women? Where did chivalry go? It went with Christianity when we destroyed that we destroyed some of these other things.

So So to use the solution we need to get back to Christianity We need to get back to a philosophical basis for valuing someone else and then discussing things with them in a forceful way if you

Want but in a direct way, but also in a respectful way now the way now this way is not going to be palatable to those who think moderates are our

Savior because This brings us right back to conservatism those who want to conserve traditional

America would be those those would be the conservatives the traditionalist right and They are the ones that we're told are radical

So now we're we're we're right back to kind of where we're started where we started the solution now is in conserving a tradition and serving a biblical worldview of some kind and that's something that Liberals wouldn't be able to abide because it's too radically right -wing.

I Don't know what else to say. The solution though is not moderate moderation The solution is respect and you got to have a philosophical basis for respecting another human being so food for thought