Where IS the Middle?

The Reaction -- by Michael J.W. Stickings: Liberalism unbound: Shifting the center of gravity in American politics:

"To me, moderation is a tone, a temperament, a virtue. Moderation eschews absolutism. It promotes independent thought and calm, reasoned discourse. It rejects knee-jerk partisanship and talking points masquerading as truth. Centrism is, well, an 'ism'. It seeks to be an ideology of sorts somewhere between what is generally considered to be left and right. But what does that even mean? What is left? What is right? And what, for that matter, is the center? Doesn't the center shift over time, back and forth like a pendulum?

Though the center of gravity in American politics does shift over time, I have long believed (and argued) that America is fundamentally a liberal society. Whatever the challenges to liberalism, whatever the ebb and flow of partisan politics, whatever the public perception of liberalism and what it means to be liberal, America is a country deeply rooted in the political thought of John Locke, the liberal political philosopher par excellence. To be sure, there are non-liberal and even anti-liberal elements alive and well in America. There always have been, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon. But it seems to me that the basic elements of liberalism -- individual rights, representative democracy, the universal truths elaborated in the Declaration of Independence -- cross partisan lines and dominate American life. President Bush's expansion of executive authority certainly threatens this commitment to liberty as enshrined in the Constitution, and that should worry us and rouse us in opposition, but even this threat hasn't undone liberalism."