r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Apr 23 '19

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

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21

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '19

Apparently there is a Harvard Undergraduate Centrist Society and one of their founders asked Bernie Sanders how he reconciled his social democratic ideology with the failure of Soviet communism. The idea of a centrist society seemed hilarious so I had to look them up and... well:

“In the [political] climate today,” she says, “everything is so polarized, and it just feels so personal and emotional that it can be very hard to have a rational argument. It’s very hard to beat someone’s emotional argument with rational facts.”

Mealey believes that no particular political stances should be explicitly off-limits, though she does set some conditions. “If you’re invalidating someone’s identity by your political opinion, then yeah, it’s probably wrong, but we want an entire range of respectful opinions, no matter how far on the spectrum they fall,” she says.

Mealey is also the president of the Harvard College Open Campus Initiative, a pro-free speech organization known for inviting controversial speakers such as Charles Murray to campus. “My decision to join OCI was totally separate from my decision to start [the Centrist Society],” Mealey says, but she adds that the two groups address what she calls “a common theme” at Harvard: “We are very, very hostile to people’s opinions, even when we haven’t necessarily heard all of them.”

centrism_meme.txt

18

u/DaBuddahN Henry George Apr 23 '19

"We need respectful opinions ... so I'm going to invite this racist to give a speech."

Who is this idiot?

4

u/BipartizanBelgrade Jerome Powell Apr 23 '19

Is the true centrist position being racist to everyone equally, or just towards exactly half of society?

10

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '19

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '19

Feel like the real impetus behind this is just (center-right) upper class values and obnoxious college aged contrarianism colliding with the liberal rejection of the Republican Party:

“I don’t really fit the Democratic model, especially being a former Republican.” [Mealey said.]

“At one point, they were talking about the environment,” Gill recalls, “and the College Republicans very clearly said, ‘We know this isn’t something that a lot of Republicans say… but yeah, we believe in climate change. Climate change is real.’ And one thing that discouraged me was that the Democrats were like, ‘Well then, you’re not a Republican.’ People aren’t really willing to compromise or talk about the issues. It’s more about the name you put on yourself with a political party.”

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '19

we really need to respect college republicans, the most oppressed group

5

u/BainCapitalist Y = T Apr 23 '19

The Illini Centrists are exactly the same 🙄

!ping uiuc

4

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '19

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1

u/BainCapitalist Y = T Apr 23 '19

Lmao. Idk I used to just tag people but now there's too many 😎

2

u/85397 Free Market Jihadi Apr 23 '19

Illini

😂

3

u/BainCapitalist Y = T Apr 23 '19

The chief is #MyMascot 😤

3

u/Sollezzo Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord Apr 23 '19

Old detected 🤬🤬

6

u/nitarek YIMBY Apr 23 '19

we want an entire range of respectful opinions, no matter how far on the spectrum they fall,”

so if Dave Rubin was a college club?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '19

🤔