Wednesday, September 07, 2016

The extremist bent...

Extremists always end up more in conflict with moderates on their own side than their fellow extremists on the other side. You see this with terror groups, guerrilla movements, even Corbynites in the British Labour party today.

Extremists’ goals fall into two categories. The essentially unachievable (the larger of the two) and the might-be-achievable-with-a-bit-of-compromise sort.

Moderates are habitually blamed for the non-achievement of the non-achievable goals, but the real source of conflict comes from extremist fear that moderates might actually be capable of achieving some of their more achievable goals.

So all forms of compromise are thoroughly stigmatised and in some cases extremists work hard to derail initiatives that might deliver some of the results they have claimed to hanker after.

In Spain for example, ETA intensified their terror campaign once non-violent nationalists had started working with the central socialist government to grant significant autonomy to the Basque region.

When Corbynites refer to neoliberalism, one might be forgiven for thinking they are referring to a a virulent strain of liberalism which has taken hold at the opposite end of the political spectrum, but in fact they are referring to all forms of classical liberalism, especially those that occupy the moderate zone of said spectrum.

Their intention is to vilify all forms of private initiative and indeed the very notion that social and economic progress can be trusted to anyone but politicians of their own ilk.


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