Introduction

Radicals on any issue have an two advantages:

• Passion
• Certainty

The Extremist is passionate about their issue -- abortion, gay marriage, rights for a particular racial group. Passion gives the radical element the drive to do something, tp participate in the political process, to stage rallys, to even wage war.

Certainty keeps the radical from hearing other points of view. It creates a wall around the radical which filters every other opinion often to the point of completely blocking out the opinion completely.

The moderate is less passionate and certain. They hear both sides of an issue and can see some good in either side. But because the moderate is less passionate, they are often not driven to action.

Now that the extremests are ready to take action, they have one other advantage. They don't have to be accurate. They can attack with whatever facts they care to espouse!

Action

The key to the success of extremests is that they are driven to action. They are certain in their beliefs and in thinking that anyone who doesn't agree with them needs to be stopped. They are passionate about their position and carry that forward into action.

It is this action that we must elicit from moderates. The key is to take a moderate--whose natural tendency is toward the more non-confrontational--and make them confrontational. We must drive moderates to that same action based on passion for their position as do the radicals.

There are some differences in the action, however. Moderates are less closed to other opinions (we listen). The action resulting from this type of accommodation will tend to be less radical and more open to compromise and modification.

Some of the action of moderates will insist that radicals on both sides move more toward the middle. Moderates have the advantage of holding a position which many people can agree with. They have the advantage of sheer numbers of adherents. We just need to get these numbers involved.