I think you mistook me there, I'm not suggesting that independents who swing back and forth are rare, I'm suggesting we have more of them then is healthy.






Undecided is fine, there's not many things I'm decided on, I tend to view a lack of doubt as a dangerous symptom. If tomorrow they threw up a vote to see if we'd legalize drugs, I'm not sure how I'd vote. There's a big difference between saying 'both sides have their points, I don't know' and actually meaning it, and 'both sides are overly polarized, we need to find some middle ground'. Drugs being legal is either right or wrong, I don't want a middle ground to be found. Abortion is either right or wrong, I don't want a diplomatic solution to appease both sides. I can tolerate it going against my beliefs, I can accept that a peaceful non-solution was reached as a temporary truce, I'm not aiming for either as my goal, I can just accept it as a solution.




The problem being a desire for resolution with a minimum of bloodshed is the goal we mostly have in mind there, and I wouldn't want the decisions made by those with no knowledge. A desire for a resolution which avoids bloodshed is laudible, yet when done in ignorance is as likely to give a tyrant a victory as not, and in such a case a bloodless resolution is not the moral route. People are welcome to be ignorant, you can't know it all, but then they should be responsible enough to say 'I do not know enough on this, I will vote in a way that increases the odds that those with knowledge of the matter will win, lacking knowledge, I will not dillute their voice and will simply not vote on it'.




Well, this can even be taken a step further. I believe slavery and genocide to be wrong, and am willingly to explain why, how many people, if asked, can really defend that stance? Or have they simply taken it because 'everyone knows'? Such being the case, how do they differ from those centuries bakc who might have said 'everyone knows those (native group) are inferior to us'? Even if pressed, those who do come up with an answer, and a decent sounding one, basically tend to be reciting stuff they've never really pondered. Everyone knows the Earth is round, prior to photos 'I've seen pictures from space, I've no reason to think them doctored or the equipment flawed' few could have told you why and defended it. Even that, pictures, is a crappy reason. YOu've no reason to think them altered, but almost all of them are, clouds or darkside subtracted via time elapse and filters, lighting adjusted, etc. Everyone knows there are no unicorns, a patently absurd statement form anyone who believes in evolution and accepts the size of the universe, a horned horse is certainly no improbability in evolution, and fossil records are basically incapable of disproving something existed. But everyone knows they don't exist, they'd laugh at the suggestion.




I think you're probably giving them the benefit of the doubt, I usually do too, been in a vile temper the last couple days, lost my cat, and it's easy to let them slide because a lot of them tend to agree with you when you discuss things, they don't take much convincing. Everyone wants to be liked, and everyone wants to be seen as smart, and a lot of times they subconsciously slide in the direction that will generate that view of them. It tends to bug me because I've switched people over to one side or another of a debate so often and easily that I can just see them agreeing with me on something utterly absurd if I wanted to push them that way, heck a few months back in one of my blacker moods I convinced two people that we should pursue criminal investigations on candy makers because just like cigarette companies they targted adds at minors and the product is unhealthy.

I'm not anti-moderate or anti-neutral exactly, I just want to see people stop treating 'moderates' as though they automatically were more civilized or enlightened than people who have picked a side, either on a speciifc issue or by choosing to primarily support one part, when in most cases it's the exact opposite.