Moderation: Thinking citizens often hold mixture of opinions

This editorial piggybacks on yesterday's, in which we defended our support of the conservative state transgender law while at the same time holding a mixed opinion of our conservative president-elect.

We sometimes wonder if independent thinking in this country has gone completely out of style. For someone to hold different opinions on different issues means they are seemingly automatically considered either a waffler or a hypocrite. It is either all Republican or all Democrat, all right or all left, and no room in between.

We believe it is natural and right for a person to hold a mixture of opinions on the issues that modern life presents us with. It is quite possible to hold views that are a mix of conservative and non-conservative and yet be an honest observer of the political scene in this city, this county, this state and this nation.

Thinking citizens are each unique in their perspectives, sometimes looking at one issue from a conservative point of view while seeing another through a more liberal lens.

This is where we find ourselves on most occasions, somewhere in the middle. Yes, we tend toward the conservative. But we also hold more moderate views on some issues. We think that is healthy. It is called being a moderate, and in today's polarized political world it seems to be becoming more and more rare.

Published in Editorials on January 6, 2017 9:49 AM