Does "fringe" vs "moderate" imply a population distribution curve?

[wuushew]

I believe that the term fringe is another metaphor for describing a small segment of a larger population. Despite education it is human nature to avoid appearing the odd man out in social groups.

A fringe might be 1 out of 10 or one out of a 100. I suppose statistically anything less than 5% or more than 3 standard deviations from the mean might be considered a valid description of a statistically non-mainstream view.

But since leftist thought is by nature the one that represents the the largest number of people especially in economic matters how can a party of the left ever be out of step with the larger population?

Does Amerika attempt to balance political representation between to strains of supposedly equal ideologically or do voters wish numerically accurate representation?

Politicians appear to imply the former while saying the latter since anti-war sentiment is massively prevalent in the general voting population.


Is it all bullshit and semantics or can the term be pinned down without becoming derogitory?

[bluerum]

1. In the case of the recent Lamont victory over Lieberman in the Ct.

democratic primary, the "leftist fringe" was about 52% of the voting population.

:sarcasm:

on edit: sp and smiley!

[porphyrian]

2. It's simply framing.

Soundbite manipulation of public opinion, not at all based on real numbers.

[Phredicles]

3. Yeah: if you agree with the corporate establishment, you're

moderate, and if you don't, you're fringe.

[porphyrian]

4. Exactly. We need to reject the terminology and the premise.

We need to frame it ourselves. After all, ours is the majority opinion.