Ouch My Head Hurts!

Hello world!

Todays magic question is: Why can't the political center be attractive?

The Right has it's acidic radio personas, fundamentalist jingoism, department of dirty tricks, money talks business men and kill them all military machos.

The Left has it million whatever marches, socialistic government can fix it viewpoint, ivory tower idealism, bleeding heart and a "you owe me" attitude.

Both have an unwavering belief that they are irrefutably correct and that the other side is the spawn of Satan.

Both have a fervor and intensity that comes from the knowledge that they are political perfection. That logic and god have smiled on their cause, giving it an air of inevitability that can polarize a country.

But what emotional, sexy, certainty does the center have?
Answer: Nothing!

How do you rouse a nation to a viewpoint that starts with "Now lets consider both sides"
People want a nice clean answer and a shining cause. Not a lesson in perspective and logic. Asking a person to question their own motives and behaviors is a good way of ensuring you never get invited back to the party.

Asking a black person to argue the viewpoint that affirmative action is a failure means that you are a racist.

Ask a Fundamentalist Christian to explain how invading a foreign country and slaughtering women and children can be justified and you will receive a tirade of logical inconsistency and self-delusion.

In the end analysis people want certainty not a shaky middle ground that constantly requires them to shift their emotional burdens and worldviews. A person doesn't become a frothing liberal/conservative out of boredom. They do it out of fear and pain. And it is a fear and pain that is with them every day of their lives. It stands behind them like an evil spirit ready to drag them into the bowels of hell.

Could an average black person get or keep a job with out affirmative action? If you were black and were just one generation forward from a history of poverty and illiteracy would you want to take that chance? In a world of boiling hatred wouldn't you find the idea terrifying? How bad would the abuses of affirmative action have to become before you would give it up? Are you good enough to survive?

For a Fundamentalist Christian, who came to the church emotionally bleeding and near suicide, with your mind, life and soul in torment, how can you question any section of your beliefs? You're continued life, sanity and existence depend on your beliefs. You need that rock of faith to survive.

Neither these two political arch types are going to be easily lured from their emotional safe havens. They will cling to their beliefs through fiscal hurricanes and Armageddon itself. Even the most horrendous event imaginable will have no impact. They would rather die than ever consider that they might be wrong.

So I end with a variation of how I started:

How can the political center be made attractive?