I correspond with a fellow whom I’ve known for more than forty years. He’s a pleasant person with a good sense of humor and an easy-going personality. He’s also a chameleon.

By which I mean that he takes on the ideological coloration of his surroundings. He agrees with his companions of the moment. It’s therefore unsurprising that he proudly calls himself a “centrist.” Though he wouldn’t put it this way, his centrism involves compromises between good and evil — the necessary result of which is more evil.

“Centrist,” in his case, is just another word for “collaborator.”

A recent exchange will tell you all that you need to know about him. It began with an e-mail from a third party, in which this was quoted:

IF YOU HAD A HUNCH THE NEWS SYSTEM WAS SOMEWHAT RIGGED AND YOU COULDN’T PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT, THIS MIGHT HELP YOU SOLVE THE PUZZLE.

ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, National Security Adviser.

CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.

ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman is married to former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

ABC News and Univision reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to Katie Hogan, Obama’s Deputy Press Secretary.

ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama’s Special Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood.

CNN President Virginia Moseley is married to former Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.

Ya think there might be a little bias in the news?

The chameleon’s comment:

I share your concern about MSM bias, but am not as troubled by it. (I stopped watching the Big 3s’ evening news 50 years ago because I couldn’t get a straight view on the Vietnam War.)

My comment on his comment:

You may have stopped watching, and I did too, but millions haven’t. And too many of them are swallowing it whole, which is a big reason for the leftward drift of the country over the past 50 years. (JFK could pass for a conservative today.) So I’m very troubled by it.

His reply to me:

But at my absolute center is a belief in universal suffrage.
In a nation of 150m or so (potential) voters, tens of millions are going to be swayed by CBS or, egads, Fox. If it weren’t those sources, it would be something else like them.

I can’t fix that, and see trying as futile. That’s why I’m not troubled. (My lack of concern also stems from seeing the USA as fundamentally on the right track. The latest evidence for that is the rejection of Trump about to occur. And yes, we’ll get Hillary’s excesses in consequence — but Congress will put on the brakes. We survived the Carter presidency when I’d have preferred Ford.)

Let’s parse that.

But at my absolute center is a belief in universal suffrage. What’s sacred about universal suffrage? If suffrage should encompass everyone who’s looking for a free ride at the expense of others — which it does these days — it should certainly include children and barnyard animals. Why should suffrage of any kind be the vehicle for violating constitutional limits on the power of the central government? That’s what it has come to, inasmuch as voters since the days of TR (at least) have been enticed to elect presidents and members of Congress who have blatantly seized unconstitutional powers, with the aid of their appointed lackeys and the connivance of a supine Supreme Court.

In a nation of 150m or so (potential) voters, tens of millions are going to be swayed by CBS or, egads, Fox. If it weren’t those sources, it would be something else like them. True, and all the more reason to keep the power of the central government within constitutional limits.

I can’t fix that, and see trying as futile. That’s why I’m not troubled. You, and I, and every adult can strive to “fix it” in ways big and small. Voting is one way, though probably the least effective (as an individual act). Speaking and writing on the issues is another way. I blog in the hope that some of what I say will trickle into the public discourse.

My lack of concern also stems from seeing the USA as fundamentally on the right track. It’s on the right track only if you think that the decades-long, leftward movement toward a powerful, big-spending, paternalistic government is the right track. That may very well suit a lot of people, but it also doesn’t suit a lot of people. Even FDR never won more than 61 percent of the popular vote, and his numbers dwindled as time went on. But perhaps you’re a utilitarian who believes that the pleasure A obtains from poking B in the eye somehow offsets B’s pain. You may not believe that you believe it, but that’s the import of your worship of universal suffrage, which is nothing more than blind allegiance to the primitive kind of utilitarianism known as majority rule.

The latest evidence for that is the rejection of Trump about to occur. Trump hasn’t yet lost, and even if he does, that won’t be evidence of anything other than desperation on the part of the operatives of the regulatory-welfare state and their various constituencies. Rejection, in any case, would be far from unanimous, so rejection is the wrong word — unless you believe, as you seem to do, that there’s a master “social conscience” which encompasses all Americans.

And yes, we’ll get Hillary’s excesses in consequence — but Congress will put on the brakes. Not if the Dems gain control of the Senate (a tie will do it if HRC is elected), and the ensuing Supreme Court appointees continue to ratify unconstitutional governance.

We survived the Carter presidency when I’d have preferred Ford. There have been more disastrous presidencies than Carter’s, why not mention them? In any event “survival” only means that the nation hasn’t yet crashed and burned. It doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been irreparable damage. Mere survival is a low hurdle (witness the Soviet Union, which survived for 74 years). Nor is mere survival an appropriate standard for a nation with as much potential as this one — potential that has been suppressed by the growth of the central government. So much loss of liberty, so much waste. That’s why I’m troubled, even if I can do little or nothing about it.

In closing, your political philosophy is an amalgam of “all is for the best … in the best of all possible worlds,” “What, me worry?,” “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Befehl ist Befehl.”

I won’t send the reply because I’m too nice a guy. And because it would pointless to challenge anyone who’s so morally obtuse — but likeable.