Readers Write – The center needs to hold

The center needs to hold
Have you ever heard of a box plot? It is a visual display to help see the middle of any grouping by actually putting a box around the middle of the group. If we had 100 data points listed in order, the center box would include the points from 25 to 75. The points below 25 would be called one extreme and the points above 75 would be the opposite extreme.
If we could take all of our elected officials and line them up according to their political believes with the most conservative being on the right and the most liberal being on the left, we could make a political box plot. Since the box would include half of all politicians and would spread evenly on both sides of the middle person, it would seem that those representatives inside the box probably have a moderate point of view and this middle group should be the strongest governing group of all of our representatives. In today’s climate that would have to be a mixture of Republi¬cans, Democrats and independents. One recent action dem¬onstrating such cooperation was Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Chris Coons working to get food aid more quickly to refugees.
However, such cooperation is rare. Instead, the extremes are trying to have a greater influence. Since the extremes never have a majority it is unlikely that anything will be accomplished.
This is not to say that the extremes are not important. They are because they pull all of the rest to the right or to the left, but they are seldom strong enough to pull the number of votes needed to achieve their goals. They can be strong enough to influence the governing that is done. The changes may occur more slowly and to a lesser degree than what the extreme wants but the changes move in the direc¬tion of the stronger extreme. This helps move toward new and different ideas but at a slow enough pace to prevent running off a cliff.
Also, the same people may not always be in the extreme. Some may only be there for certain issues and then for other issues be in that governing middle. The whole point of this is if we want anything to get done at our local, state, or federal level, the politically moderate governing middle must start working together to make us a strong, vibrant and healthy nation again that can show leadership to meet the needs of today. Contact your representatives and tell them to work with the governing middle to get things done.
Carol Parete, Celina