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>From: "Jerry Mitchell" <jmitch12@tampabay.rr.com>
>To: <extropians@extropy.org>
>Subject: RE: Extremism
>Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 20:16:20 -0500
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>I should have never started this topic I see now. I have changed my mind and
>decided to pursue moderation in all issues in my life from here on, dump any
>firm principles I may have held. I will become for lack of a better term, an
>extremist for moderation! As outlined below here though (which brother
>Harvey so clearly points out), we see the "extremist" are trying to take
>their efforts in a direction! "We" on the other hand will do the same thing
>and simply designate the center point of any scale to be the "right"
>position and will strive toward that. Yes, the center may sound as arbitrary
>as the other choices (since we don't believe in principles anymore), but we
>have the power of the masses and the bell curve of beliefs on our side.
>Their may be more principled people out there, but we can use our numbers to
>justify our cause. We will exclude the fringe not because of the truth or
>the falseness of their ideas, but because they are fringe! I mean it worked
>for the National Socialist party in Germany right?
>
Your skull must not only be adamantine, but fathoms think. It has been explained to you ad nauseum ad infinitim that popularity and moderation are not mutually inclusive; the curve can be skewed (and was violently so in '30's and '40's Germany, where extermination entire races of people may have been popular, but could never be considered moderate, except by a nazi). The curve does not necessarily a bell; it may sometimes even resemble a barbell, with two extremist camps and few in the middle (see 'middle' east).
>
>>Harvey wrote:
>>
>> >My take on "extremism" is that extremists try to go as far as possible in
>one direction or the other. I think the real answer is always somewhere in
>the middle.
>>
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