Why are people who call themselves "centrists" always far-right-wingers?

[UdoKier]

I was at a kid's birthday party yeaterday (here in SF) and we met a couple - guy white, lady Japanese - and she tells us they just moved here 2 years ago after 20 years in Plano, TX and Orange County, TX. She says she's a centrist and that SF is way "too liberal" for her. (anyone who lives here knows that it's not really all that liberal as its' cracked up to be - Kerry won by a bigger margin in Broward County, FL) so right away, I figure she's probably a right-winger, so I say that I'm left of center for the US or for San Francisco, but that since the US is the most far-right-wing country of all the industrialized countries that I consider MYSELF to be a centrist. Like, this is the only country where an idea as ludicrous as privatizing social security would even be on the table - it certainly would NOT be an option in her home country of Japan, I told her.

She started spouting some dittohead nonsense about how social security will not be there when we retire (it won't if people like Bush are in charge!)and that she wants to be incharge of her own money to invest as she pleases.

I tell her that, um, hello- it's not an "investment" and it's not welfare - it's an INSURANCE program, and that it will be solvent for the duration. She seemed rather perturbed, so we changed the subject, and she started complaining about how dirty and full of homeless people SF is. I told them if it bothered them, maybe the middle of downtown wasn't the bet neighborhood to live in....


I will give her some points for having her own opinion (albeit an opinion that sounded like parroted RW radio talking points) - so many native Japanese women automatically defer to the opinion of the man they are talking to.

But why is it that people who describe themselves as "centrists" are always rightwingers (especially when they come from places like Plano) And why do so many people buy into this bunk about a social security "crisis" so easily?

Like how the hell is it that the TOTALLY SOLVENT Social Security trust fund is in "crisis", but the UTTERLY BANKRUPT general fund is just fine, and calls for more tax cuts for the wealthy?


Have I mentioned today how much I hate these people?

[Blue_Roses]

1. These people who think

they will be able to "invest their own money" are going to be in for a big disappointment when the truth of this hits them. The "investments" are only to large corporations not individual accounts. This is where many are deluded into thinking they will have control over their assets, but they won't. Another rwing talking point to lead in the direction of big corporations.

[Lengsel]

2. Dude

Dude, she's from Plano. Nuff said. I live in Texas and don't ever want to stop in that place.

[UdoKier]

5. Yep. I'm familiar with Plano and Las Colinas.

And as a native Texan, I have to say that if the rancid state of Texas has an asshole, it is the DFW "metroplex". and the very noxious center of that asshole would have to be Plano.

There are a few islands of decency in Texas but I prefer SF.

Yeah, she went on and on about how Texans have "backbone" (?) and are sooo nice. Whatever - I grew up there, and most of the people I saw were obese and sit watching sports on tv constantly instead of actually getting out and doing something themselves. And I've never seen Texans as especially tough - just especially deluded about the specialness of their own state.

[Dhalgren]

3. Because right-wingers have been programmed to lie.

It is in the very nature of their being. Since the advent of the "Southern Strategy", back in the sixties, right-wingers lie even when the truth would suit better. By basing their entire political existence on lying about what they believe (i.e. civil rights, equality, etc.) they feel compelled to lie about almost everything. The Nazis where much the same way...

[aden_nak]

4. "We're the center!" is echo chamber fodder.

It always has been. The truth is that most people don't WANT to be one extreme or the other, because even the general public knows that extreme viewpoints are often biased. But the Right Wing Echo Chamber has chanted the mantra of "centrist" so much, that many people who are right-leaning but don't want to really admit it call themselves the "center". It works even better when they can compare themselves to cracked out fundie-style extremists and say, "Well, I am more to the left than Limbaugh, so I must be in the center."

[wishlist]

6. That way they can label centrist Dems as angry extremist left wing fringe

RWingers in the media succeeded at painting moderate Dems like Kerry and Edwards as out of touch liberals supported by the 'angry' left and the RW has kept up this rhetoric since the election on media outlets like Fox and Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair's Mark Hyman has had a torrent of editorials on their TV stations labeling moderate Dems as extremists in their unending propaganda.

[HawkerHurricane]

7. All part of defining terms...

If you call Bushco and his right wing radicals 'centrist' or 'just right of center', it shifts the true 'centrists' or 'just left of center' types to the far left...

Remember: if providing medicare for the elderly is a far left wackjob idea, then universal healthcare is so far out there as to be impossible.

If allowing a abortion in the first month to save the life of the mother is a far left wackjob idea, then being pro-choice is to be insane.

If treating 'peoples of color' like humans is a far left wackjob idea, treating them like your equal is unneeded.

Anyone can play this game, eh?