Thursday, November 18, 2010

Just a wee thought I had at lunchtime today...

The best reason to do something in a democracy: it works, and it doesn't compromise our core values.

The worst reason to do something in a democracy: it doesn't work, but it does pander to our political base.

There must be a lot of room in between to figure out stuff we can all do together that make things better.

EDIT (11/21): corrected the second line above to more closely represent what I was trying to say.

2 comments:

  1. So true, John but, gosh there is a whole lot of terrain between...

    And, one of the lines that caught me most in an article recently about troubles at the online magazine, Slate, was a quote from a guy running a more hip, modern, fast online magazine. He said that "There's a limited audience for smart centrism. That's their biggest problem."

    The upside of that statement was that it caused me to go to Slate and read some articles there again. They were good. I'll go back. I'd just forgotten about them.

    Keep looking for the middle, honey.

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  2. Centrism itself is only smart in the places in which it works. Maybe what I'm really looking for here are smart pragmatists.

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