which posters, outside of benconstine, are the most prototypical Moderate Heroes

[© tweed]

which posters, outside of benconstine, are the most prototypical Moderate Heroes?

[The Mikado]

Which reminds me:

One of my pet peeves is the confusion between the words "Moderate" and "Centrist," which have distinct meanings.  Do not, for example, call Hashemite a "Moderate Hero" due to his near-zero political compass numbers.

[Sir Coffeebeans]

Does Ben really flip-flop as much as people say?

[Eraserhead]

Hate to say it, but Lunar is one.

[Lunar]

I don't actually directly support the moderates in the NY Senate Race. I just support them strategically if it matters and I support me being right by guessing accurately who Paterson will pick.

[Eraserhead]

^^
Moderate Hero

[Lief 🗽]

Being a moderate hero, to my understanding of the phrase, has less to do with your political positions (many of Ben's are by no conceivable definition of the word "moderate" moderate at all), and more to do with your insistence, in much the same vein as many media and center-right talking heads and pundits, on appearing to be moderate, bipartisan, nonpartisan, etc., without regards to ideology. What is most important to the moderate hero is that he be perceived as moderate, by agreeing with everything that the establishment and vehemently attacking everything that the establishment hates.

Amusingly, this is the opposite of Bush, whose actions were done based on how he viewed the world and how he thought, with very little thought to how they would be viewed. However, with his bipartisan, "restoring honor and dignity to the White House" schtick, his 2000 election was a moderate hero's election.

So, it doesn't really matter whether or not you support a moderate or a centrist; what matters is that you support who the establishment supports, who the mainstream supports. The moderate hero is never revolutionary and rarely even evolutionary. The moderate hero's goal is to be accepted as "serious" by the ruling elite. Sometimes, of course, that means playing the part of a faux-populist, pretending to be the voice of the people. Rarely is a moderate hero the voice of the people, however, but instead what the elite or the establishment believes that the voice of the people is and, more importantly, should be.

In the real world, anyone who pretends to be a "centrist" or a "populist", while really towing the establishment line (your Evan Bayhs and Mark Warners) is a moderate hero. As for people on the forum? JSojourner, though I really love the guy, evidences moderate hero qualities sometimes, especially with regards to his predictions that McCain would win or Obama would only win narrowly. Mikado is a bit of a moderate hero. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any others, though there probably are some, and most of the centrists/moderates (people with 0,0 PM scores or close to it) on this forum are in one way or another not moderate heroes.

[Lunar]

^^
Moderate Hero

I was just called a "left wing lunatic" on the gun thread though

[Matt Damon™]

I am a humble man in search of the truth. Does that count?

[Eraserhead]

I am a humble man in search of the truth. Does that count?

No

[Torie]

Lief, your definition of a "moderate hero" is an establishment symp?  That seems a pretty idiosyncratic definition to me. To me a moderate hero is one who can fairly and perceptively evaluate all sides of an issue with a minimum of bias or favor, and reach reasoned judgments that make sense from a cost benefit standpoint. Sure his or her values that may tend to drive the weightings would tend to be centrist.

[Brittain33]

I don't mean anything pejorative by this, but GM3 seems as close to being a partisan for moderation as I can find, although that's based on older posts.

[Eraserhead]

^^
Moderate Hero

I was just called a "left wing lunatic" on the gun thread though

by whom?

[Lunar]

by the sanest, least-obsessive, and totally not creepy poster on the forum:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=91731.0

[Matt Damon™]

If Mint is unable to get on IM he shouldn't be posting.

[The Mikado]

by the sanest, least-obsessive, and totally not creepy poster on the forum:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=91731.0

OK, by CARL's standards, anyone to the left of Tom Tancredo is a left-wing lunatic.

[Smid]

I agree with Torie's definition of someone who can view the different sides of an argument to determine their beliefs, although I'd probably expand it to also include people who while holding strongly to their own beliefs will also acknowledge the validity of the opinions of others with whom they may disagree (at least on most issues - there may be opinions some examples of extreme beliefs, where the very acknowledgement of that belief would invalidate their own beliefs - typically things like opposing freedom of thought and opposing freedom of speech but also racism, since racism devalues humans which is the exact opposite of valuing the rights and beliefs of others and if a moderate believes in the rights of individuals than those who oppose those rights are the only type of person a true moderate cannot tolerate). Effectively moderates are therefore the diametric opposites of bigots.

Following on from this, in my opinion just as there can be bigotted centrists who scoff at those who disagree with them, there can be moderate socialists and moderate conservatives, even though their PM scores may be far from the centre. I think it's more about respecting the opinions of others, rather than the actual beliefs that someone holds.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Gabu was the original Moderate Hero. He didn't have a ridiculous and completely synthetic personality like constine but he did clearly try to shift his views away from being too extreme. This happpened more around 2005 than the end of his time here, but it clearly did. Rather he tried to position his views to fit his existing ideological persona rather than completely construct one like ben. But he did buy into the whole inherant value of centrism thing and tried to adhere to sticking close to the center as a result.

[Eraserhead]

Extremism, in defense of liberty, is no vice.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Alcon is actually a pretty big Moderate Hero too, especially in regards to religion.

I also don't believe he was ever planning on voting for McCain.

[Keystone Phil]

Alcon is a Moderate Hero to a hilarious degree.

[Boris]

Alcon is a Moderate Hero to a hilarious degree.

maybe it's just me, but I seemed to notice that there was a correlation between Alcon's presidential preference and how well said preference was doing in the polls.

[Keystone Phil]

Alcon is a Moderate Hero to a hilarious degree.

maybe it's just me, but I seemed to notice that there was a correlation between Alcon's presidential preference and how well said preference was doing in the polls.

Yeah, everyone noticed that. 

[Lief 🗽]

Because he's the voice of the American everyman, duh.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He never really gave much of a reason for supposedly voting for McCain either.

Religion though is mainly where his Moderate Heroism lies, see his vigorous defense of religions that would condemn him to hell from attacks by me, who would not condemn him to hell. Unsurprisingly, Benconstine was rather similar, he effectively believed at one point that the Catholic Church condemned all non-Catholics (or at least all non-Christians) to Hell and said he believed they did hold that baptism was absolutely essential for salvation (thus effectively condemning him to Hell), but defended them from my attacks.

That's Moderate Heroism people. If a religion says you're going to Hell, you shouldn't be showing them an iota of reverence or respect.