Well, I feel no compunction about proudly agreeing with your assessment of your audience here, and being a part of it!

There is no left wing in this country comparable to our right wing, in either numbers, influence, or fanaticism. And nationalizing the health care system makes as much sense to me as nationalizing the police, defense, or the schools. It's a no-brainer. I don't like working in a shop where I have to buy my own tools.

As for ideology, I do not agree that morals, ethics, or ideology have anything to do with how a society is governed. Oh sure, moral principles are important, we shouldn't lie, cheat, steal, or hurt people, and neither should our elected leaders, but government is a form of administration, one should do what works and that most of us can agree with, and when the citizens don't agree, they should negotiate a compromise. When did god say I have to follow anyone elses principles? Whose principles? Yours? I don't think so.

Ideological principles are for those who want to organize society in a way they feel will work best for them, and screw everybody else.
The purpose of government isn't to give businessmen the "freedom and liberty" to do any damn thing they please, anything that they can sneak past free market forces. The purpose of government is to protect us from people who believe that. And I'm tired of those who can't make it in the free market blamimg all the so-called imaginary socialists for their own entrepreneurial ineptness.

I am not a socialist, I think free enterprise mostly works. But neither am I a free market fundamentalist, I believe collective business needs to be managed, just like every individual business needs to be managed. I do not reject socialism outright, we are, after all, social creatures, not parasites or solitary predators. But I would not want to live in a society where only socialist principles were allowed. And I certainly don't want to live in a society where I have to choose between socialism and capitalism and where I am told I am not morally or intellectually qualified to define which is which, or where to draw the line between the two.

That is how I define "moderate". Those who choose to define it differently are merely expressing their own self-serving and parochial opinion, not repeating the self-evident or the obvious.