Pete George
Since: Jul 2011
Posts: 5
I never thought I would say I had empathy with Kermit but here I am. This sums up very well how I see my place in the political world. No surprise then that I'm with UnitedFuture.
This approach doesn't sit comfortably with the prevailing political debate, or at least with many prevailing debaters. I'm often accused of it all - “wishy-washy”, “standing for nothing”, "sitting on the fence".
Binary political pundits, those with left/right, right/wrong and black/white views get very frustrated and annoyed by a practical and considered approach. They view everything from an extreme position that can never be compromised. They voluntarily wear a political straightjacket.
The anti-Kermits don't understand how one can have an open starting position and weight up pros and cons before coming to a conclusion - pragmatic and often necessarily a compromise.
And they can't accept that the vast majority of people are much closer to Kermit than to their own left or right extreme.
Because it isn't an easily defined extreme liberal centrism can be a hard sell. And It doesn't get good media coverage because it doesn't provide sensation or eccentric characters promoting impossibles.
But it makes sense.
Bryan Mockridge
Since: Jun 2008
Posts: 1
Kermit's great talent is balancing competing demands (from Prima Donnas to groups with distinctly minority appeal) in order to involve everyone in successfully delivering the show.
In parallel, United Future looks for long term solutions for the whole of society, without the blinkers of the left or the right who demand benefits for favoured subgroups while ignoring deterimental effects on other components of the whole society. The extremes have simplistic short-term criteria (e.g. what is the immediate impact for solo parents on benefits, or for businesses heavily into exporting?), United Future considers the outcomes of policies over five, ten and twenty years, not just between now and the next election.
Since the average swinging voter has a two-year political memory, United Future is appealing to a minority who value balanced consideration that delivers long-term results (like public domain for the Seabed & Foreshore, and optional ages for starting National Superannuation). Such solutions are beyond the capability of those confined in ideological straight-jackets.
