Opening Salvo

Okay, so my editor tells me to keep up my writing skills over the summer, I should start a blog.
Since the purpose for this thing, at least at the start, will be for me to hone my rhetorical skills to a razor edge, I'm going to write almost exclusively about topics that involve opinions, which means a focus on social and political phenomenon.

In real life, I'm not nearly this controversial.

So to kick this blog off right, I'm going to give you a rundown of my social perspective. As the title suggests, from a political perspective, I am a radical moderate. At first, the very term throws people off balance.

Yes, it is possible to be a radical moderate. I believe strongly that the primary problem that faces humanity as a whole, and America in particular, is a decided drift towards the extreme ends of every spectrum, socially, culturally, religously, and most obviously, politically.

As long as I have been politcally sentient, the American political scene has been a warzone between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have been dominated by extremists, and, most crucially, neither has been willing to compromise.

What does this lead to? STALEMATE. UTTER, TOTAL, COMPLETE INERTIA.

Seriously, name a SINGLE major piece of progressive legislation that has been passed recently...and by recently, I mean, in the past four or five sessions of Congress. Since nobody is willing to compromise, nothing gets done.

What ever happened to cooperation? What ever happened to compromise? Since when is it bad to be a moderate?

In the war that American politics has become, the word moderate has gotten bad connotations. To most people, a moderate is a person who rides the fence, unable to make up there mind.

Hence the title. As a radical moderate, I'm not apathetic. I'm an active advocate of a more centrist government and society, a society where people are willing to cooperate, to see the other side not as antagonistic foolishness but a valid, different point of view.

Just thought you'd like to know.