No Man's Land.

There are billions of pages written each year by partisan ideologues. Tucked between their current take on the other side, is usually a rousting ‘pen is mightier’ call to arms. Heavy generals with names like Franken, and Hannity, Moore and Coulter, rally the troops with unflinching determination. Borders are fortified. Talking points are issued to the infantry, and the drums of political war are whipped into a furious rhythm. For those keeping score, that paragraph contained 9 metaphors. Suck it, Hemmingway.

And I’ve got more.

In the middle, in no-man’s-land, between the barbed wire and the firefight, lie the moderates. The centrists. Those, who in the words of the (depending on your political affiliation) sharp-tongued-liberal-devil -or- boy-saviour-sex-idol, John Stewart, are shouting: “Be reasonable, people!”. But they are never heard.

Moderates don’t have Generals. We don’t even have a standing army. We are political expats, defectors, and draft dodgers. Ours are those that watch from the no-man’s-land, reading every article, listening to the black, listening to the white, and come to the same observation - it’s all a big grey ball of mess.

This isn’t to say we aren’t committed. It’s also not to say we are indecisive. It’s only to say, there is currently no place for us. We are bastards & orphans. When a line is drawn between the partisan crazies - what side is worth taking? Unequivocally, neither.

Even if we wanted to take a side, they wouldn’t have us. Our unique ability to find truth and worth no matter on which side of the wire it lies, makes us an automatic enemy. Our willingness to defend that truth (even if it means defending the other side) in order to maintain an accurate discourse - is high treason.

So here we stand. The thinkers, the thought grapplers, the wrestlers of ideas, stuck between the partisan trenches, trying to moderate a political war through a rolled up newspaper to our mouths.