I am on vacation and probably won’t be posting until next week. Greg will probably post now and again to keep you all entertained. Until then, keep dodging the cars walking down the center line!
However, I, at least, am ill and have been off and on for a few days, so posting has not been a priority. Regular programming will resume… sometime. – JC
Greg and I are enjoying having a space to mouth off in, but honestly, we could probably use help to make this site more interesting.
First of all, we always appreciate your comments. I wish I had more time to respond to them, but I want you to know that I read each one and they make me think. I’m sure Greg feels the same way.
A “contest” for all your artists out there: We could use a logo. We already sort of have a theme, the walking the middle of the road theme, but a logo would be nice. This isn’t a real contest, as there’s no due date or anything like that, but if anyone out there is feeling artsy and wants to design a logo we could use on the site and even, if we eventually want to, on merchandise, that would be cool. You can contact us through the contact pages. Usually disclaimery stuff: we may or may not use what you send us, you are giving us the right to use it as we see fit, etc…
Also for you artsy types, we’d be glad to post politcal cartoons. A centrist theme makes sense, but isn’t required, and again, we reserve the right to approve posts. But if you have something you’ve been itching to get posted, or know someone who does, feel free to ask.
I know that we could use an editor. I write a lot, but I’m not the most careful with my spelling, punctuation, and grammer, and I happen to know that bothers some of my readers. If anyone would like to volunteer to be an editor and could commit to editing things quickly on a regular basis, we would like to hear from you. Quickly would probably be a 24 hour turnaround, but we could talk – and obviously, being a volunteer job, there would be flexibility inherent in the system (that is to say, we can all take time off, we just would want to communicate about such things).
Lastly, anyone out there who wants to write a guest column, we do not object out of hand the concept. Some things to keep in mind, however:
1. We prefer things with a centrist mind-set. Greg and I both veer, occasionally, in to leftist or rightwing dogma, but one reason both of us are here are to balance each other. That isn’t to say we wouldn’t post something that was to one extreme or the other, but we are more likely to post something that walks the middle ground.
2. Again, we reserve the right to decide what does and does not get published. We won’t edit your work without your permission (other than for obvious typos, spelling, etc) but we may reject a submission or ask if you can alter something, and then you can decide.
3. Pieces that have a flexibility in when they can be published are even better. That is to say, if we can hold on to your submission until a date when neither of us are able to publish, so that the site still has an update that day, that’s great. This isn’t to say that we won’t publish something that only makes sense if its published quickly in response to a news item, but more to say that one of our goals is to build a stock of items we can use to post content when we’re lacking some.
Greg and I thank you for reading our site, and we hope we keep you thinking, or at least entertained.
We’ve set up a Twitter account to let you know when we’ve posted a new article! Twitter users, just add centristpundits to your friends list to get an instant notification of new content!
Politics. More specifically, centrist and moderate politics.
The center of American politics may be hard to pin down at any given moment, but the extremes are not. The ultra-right and ultra-left, to a large degree, dominate political discussion. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that it is easy to sound passionate about an extreme view. Just take an idea and go off and running with it, and who cares about the consequences? It is easy to break an idea that has no shades of gray in to a sound bite – and sound bites are easy to repeat over and over again.
But most American’s don’t fall to one extreme or the other. They fall in to a vast middle ground, some leaning right, some leaning left, some dead center. Some even fall outside of the traditional left-right view of politics, perhaps falling in to different places depending on the issue.
Political discourse doesn’t seem to favor those who can’t self-identify to one extreme or the other. This site wants to change that. Sure, at the most basic, centristpundits.com is about two guys – one center-left and one center-right – who have political thoughts and want to get them off their chest, and who hope that in doing so you’ll be both entertained and that you’ll think about what they said, whether or not you agree.
Beyond that, however, there is a hope that all our readers can become political activists themselves. America is founded on the idea of participatory politics, of participatory Democracy. You absolutely have the right to sit there and do nothing about politics, and just let policy happen around you. But it is such a waste. If when you read our posts you are inspired to write a response, that’s participating. If you are inspired to write your political representatives, or your newspaper, or start an organization dedicated to following through on your vision of the proper path for America, that’s participating.
Politics is amazing because it is an experiment in thought. Sometimes, it can be poisoned – for example, if policy debate becomes about two extremes shouting at each other rather than two people who genuinely disagree trying to find a solution they both can live with. It is an experiment in thought, and so everyone can participate.
Centristpundits.com may seem, especially at first, like its telling you how two guys who walk towards the middle of the political spectrum feel about politics. But more importantly, it wants you to know how YOU feel about politics… and then find a way to share it.
