Why is there hostility towards centrists on social media?

It's not reasonable to expect that a criticism of a radical opinion be completely removed from being critical of the person holding that opinion.

You're making assumptions about people who are not Left wing based upon your own personal biases, this is particularly evident in the issues you raise about immigration and LGBT issues.

These have no foundation in reality and you're insisting they be taken seriously unless a link to a peer reviewed academic paper titled "the views of CGI_Livia_Soprano have no basis in reality" is posted.

We all have opinions, you seem to believe everything you think is a fact, which aside from be indicative of narcissism isn't of any real value in a discussion where people take each others opinions on board as you really have no interest in listening to anyone.

You're making sweeping statements about what would be considered to be the majority of Irish society which have no basis in reality.

If what you were saying was correct none of the progressive changes that have been seen in Irish society in the recent past would have occurred.

In essence nothing you have said is worthy of being entertained but by all means fire ahead and tell us all how terrible we really are.

Where did I say that?

I was comparing the capitalist system we live in in the west to historic left wing systems like say the USSR or current regimes like communist China where the right of the individual are not respected and quality of life is demonstrably worse than in a capitalist system.

Capitalism is flawed but the left offers no workable alternative, that doesn't make capitalism a system of right wing or far right inclination it's much more centrist than anything but of course to your way of thinking that makes it right wing.

Inasmuch as they openly trade with capitalist countries?

Because the human rights abuses etc are all hallmarks of a good old fashioned traditional communist regime.

Is there a definition of a centrist beyond "does not identify with an ideological position"? And I think it includes the majority of people.

This is tangential but I often read threads and wonder "do people not realize that they are living in an age with the highest standard of living for the average person in the history of human existence?" Doesn't mean that there aren't huge problems but a bit of context wouldn't go astray.

I never said any of those things.

Let's just park it there, this is going nowhere fast.

There's a certain cohort of posters on here fairly laughably claiming to be centrist when their posting history suggests something very different.

Of course you are because it would feed into your persecution complex. I don’t have a made-up list because it’s utterly pointless. When I said eyebrow raisers that’s exactly what I meant - upon reading their own self-identification as centrists, their own definition of what they perceive to be centrist traits or values seems to be just a list of their views on various topics. It doesn’t matter that I think there’s something off about their self-identification. They’re not going to care one way or the other for how I, an anonymous individual to them, identifies them.

Centrists are also called Moderates. I don’t expect you’ll just take my word for it, you probably have your own ideas, but here the terms are as they relate to politics -

Note that I didn’t say anything about a person being of lesser value, regardless of their politics, I said their perspective is of lesser value, and it is, to someone who does not share their perspective.

I certainly can’t be accused of dismissing anyone who sees themselves as a centrist as right-wing, because being right-wing conservative myself, I don’t think the person accusing them of being right-wing knows what being right-wing means, and I’d say the same of anyone accusing self-identifying centrists of being left-wing liberals, etc. It’s simply a convenient way of labelling anyone who doesn’t share their opinions as being something which they perceive to be negative, or in your case, a badge of honour. Not giving someone the satisfaction, is not the same as dismissing them, it’s dismissing their opinions as being of no value.

I don’t have any beef with centrists other than it’s impossible to know where they stand on any given topic. But I’d say the same of anyone who it was impossible to know where they stand on any given topic. They may not necessarily be centrists, but they’re equally frustrating because it’s impossible to know what they stand for.

I would identify as centrist as I don't subscribe to any particular left / right idealology. For me, as a centrist, I would support having a strong welfare state where those in genuine need are adequately supported. I would support high disability payments for example. I also would support high jobseekers payments initially, payments that are tapered down over time to discourage people abusing the system. I would also support the establishment of a living wage that is index linked to protect low paid workers. Conversely, I would support some aspects of market deregulation. But I would temper that point in that I support regulation of essential industry such as energy provision. My position on immigration would be that we need to tighten our position on immigration in this country as we don't have the infrastructure to support the level of population growth that we're experiencing. We should end direct provision but to do so we need to be more efficient in processing asylum applications. And have a cap on the number of asylum seekers that we can accept per year. As for LGBT issues, my position on that is simple. Live and let live. Zero issue with LGBT people. The should be afforded equal rights to their hetero peers. And equal responsibilities. Simple. Those positions may make me right wing in your eyes but I believe them to be centrist.