# Conservatives - who's an honest liberal? Libs - who's an honest conservative? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 8, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713 "2008-07-08T16:47:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/1 "2008-07-08T16:47:48Z")
Inspired by this thread: [John McCain is a lying sack of shit - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=474218) - Posts # 73-75 thus far. I’m not well known, but I am to the left, and I try very hard to stay balanced when I’m posting, and to not foam at the mouth even when I feel like I should. But I doubt I’m known as an honest liberal even if I am one (I’m honestly not sure if I would qualify) because I’m not known at all. WRT to conservatives, my closest pick would be **John Mace** , the biggest problem being that he’s really a right-of-center centrist rather than a full blown conservative. The rest, while having the occasional moment of stunning honesty, tend to be rather knee-jerkish, as do we liberals, I have to admit. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/2 "2008-07-08T16:55:10Z")
I have a feeling this will end in the Pit, but I’ll bite. I am a liberal. I would like to say that if I don’t list you it doesn’t necessarily mean I think you’re dishonest. I may have forgotten you, or I may not consider you/know you as a conservative; I’m hardly ever in GD. My “honest conservatives”: **Sam Stone, John Mace, Mr. Moto** (I think he’s a bit of a parrot but he’s polite and doesn’t make stuff up AFAIK), **Quartz , ivylass.** ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/3 "2008-07-08T16:59:28Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] I have a feeling this will end in the Pit [/QUOTE] Good heavens, I hope not! Please, folks, keep it civilized. Honest here doesn’t mean lying vs. not lying. It means what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - that you apply the same standards to both parties, both positions, both candidates. Also, not demonizing the opponent because they disagree with you - attributing the same degree of patriotism to both sides. ETA: or at least that’s what I took **Shodan** ’s meaning to be. Maybe I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/4 "2008-07-08T17:07:45Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] Good heavens, I hope not! [/QUOTE] Me too, but I can’t help but feel that someone will be left off someone else’s list and take exception to that. Plus we’ve got tons of liberals and comparatively few conservatives and I’m sure some of them will start feeling like this is a pile-on. I might have to rethink my list based on your definition of honesty, ie. applying the same standards to both sides. I’m going to watch how this develops first, though. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/5 "2008-07-08T17:12:04Z")
On the SDMB, or in the “real world”? I was gonna say Kevin Phillips – he seems to be a member of the reality-based community… ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/6 "2008-07-08T17:15:42Z")
Conservative checking in… **jjimm** has always been a noble, thinking, decent opponent. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/7 "2008-07-08T17:20:24Z")
**Bricker** has always struck me as firmly holding a conservative line while acknowledging the other side of the coin. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/8 "2008-07-08T17:21:25Z")
[QUOTE=plnnr] **Bricker** has always struck me as firmly holding a conservative line while acknowledging the other side of the coin. [/QUOTE] He also is willing to change his mind on particular subjects when convinced by solid logic. Gotta appreciate that. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/9 "2008-07-08T17:23:44Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01] He also is willing to change his mind on particular subjects when convinced by solid logic. Gotta appreciate that. [/QUOTE] Oh, yes. I’ll take **Bricker** , also. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/10 "2008-07-08T17:25:06Z")
[QUOTE=a35362] On the SDMB, or in the “real world”? I was gonna say Kevin Phillips – he seems to be a member of the reality-based community… [/QUOTE] I was thinking on the SDMB. In the real world, I’d say that Barry Goldwater was an honest conservative. In fact, most “elder statesmen” - that is, political figures who have retired from the political scene, tend to be pretty honest. (Bill Clinton doesn’t qualify because his wife was running and he was so intimately involved) John McCain was fairly honest until he started courting the extreme right a few years ago, and now it’s rather hard to judge what he really does believe in some areas. Interestingly, when he’s doing strictly political analysis, rather than policy analysis, Pat Buchanan is very honest and very realistic IME. I used to watch him on the McGlaughlin (or however you spell it) group, and although I didn’t care for his politics, his analysis was quite often dead on. Same thing today with MSNBC. ---
**Author:** ![Waldo\_Jeffers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e99b99/32.png) [@Waldo\_Jeffers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waldo_Jeffers)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/11 "2008-07-08T17:25:57Z")
I’m glad I can get this in there while things are still nice. For the record, I am a liberal. I think the conservatives on this board for the most part are very honest. This board is one of the few places where honesty and intelligence beats ideology in most arguments. It seems to be not so much that there are dishonest lefties or righties here, but dishonest people on both sides when it comes to certain arguments. As an example, gun control debates seem to bring out the worst in everyone. I think the Canadian conservatives on this board are particularly good and deserve a mention. The Canadian politics thread from a couple of weeks ago had numerous examples of good reasons to like Stephen Harper. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/12 "2008-07-08T17:29:12Z")
I’m more libertarian than anything, I guess, but I self-identify as a liberal, so I’ll just say that **Bricker** is awesome. (“Honest,” I think, is the wrong word; I don’t think there are hardly any _dishonest_ political posters, left or right. There are plenty of posters with huge biases, though.) In the real world, I like David Brooks quite a bit (seems more of a moderate to me, but self-identifies as conservative, so I’ll take him at his word). ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/13 "2008-07-08T17:33:38Z")
[QUOTE=VarlosZ] “Honest,” I think, is the wrong word; I don’t think there are hardly any _dishonest_ political posters, left or right. There are plenty of posters with huge biases, though. [/QUOTE] Blame it on **Shodan**! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/14 "2008-07-08T17:49:10Z")
Most of them are, but I wanted to give another shout-out to **Sam Stone**. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/15 "2008-07-08T17:52:38Z")
**RedFury** has always been a straight shooter, only rarely going over the top. I’ll read pretty much anything he has to say. On the other side of the aisle, **Bricker** is top-shelf. He’s always well-reasoned, even if you don’t agree with him. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/16 "2008-07-08T18:21:23Z")
I guess what it comes down to for me is that, generally speaking, the closer to the middle someone is, the more likely they are to be “honest” - that is, to not _automatically_ approve of one party or disapprove of the other. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/17 "2008-07-08T18:28:40Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] I guess what it comes down to for me is that, generally speaking, the closer to the middle someone is, the more likely they are to be “honest” - that is, to not _automatically_ approve of one party or disapprove of the other. [/QUOTE] To my mind “honest” has a different meaning - namely, on an Internet board, it is a commentary on a poster’s _tactics_ (willing to acknowledge points vs. using straw-men and deliberate misunderstandings to tar the other side, for example; or to indulge in pile-ons of unpopular positions). While it is certainly true that extreme partisans are more prone to bad behaviour in this respect it is not necessarily so. What I think you are looking for is something like “unprejudiced” or “unbiased”. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/18 "2008-07-08T18:38:40Z")
[QUOTE=Malthus] To my mind “honest” has a different meaning - namely, on an Internet board, it is a commentary on a poster’s _tactics_ (willing to acknowledge points vs. using straw-men and deliberate misunderstandings to tar the other side, for example; or to indulge in pile-ons of unpopular positions). While it is certainly true that extreme partisans are more prone to bad behaviour in this respect it is not necessarily so. [/QUOTE] That’s a very good way of putting it and my intended definition certainly would include yours. However, I can’t speak for **Shodan**. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/19 "2008-07-08T19:16:38Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] WRT to conservatives, my closest pick would be **John Mace** , the biggest problem being that he’s really a right-of-center centrist rather than a full blown conservative. The rest, while having the occasional moment of stunning honesty, tend to be rather knee-jerkish, as do we liberals, I have to admit. [/QUOTE] Thanks, but I just don’t see myself as a conservative. I guess we libertarian-ish posters here will never shake that image. 🙂 For the record, I’m: Pro-choice Pro-SSM Anti-Death Penalty Anti-Iraq War Pro-Legalization of Pot Pro-Keeping Religion out of government Neither Pro nor Anti-Israel, but think we cater to them waaaay to much Just to name a few conservative hot button issues. Anyway, I’d say \*_Bricker is generally an honest conservative, or someone like **Airman Doors** , and someone like **Revenant Threshold** _ or \*\*mhendo \*\*on the left. I can think of lots of “honest” lefties on this board, but there are a lot more lefties to start with. Probably the most honest libertarian-ish poster that comes to mind is **Lemur886** (or whatever numerals he attaches to his name). \*by “honest”, I mean “not partisan”. \*\*I think he’s a Brit, but we shouldn’t hold that against him… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713/20 "2008-07-08T19:28:51Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I guess we libertarian-ish posters here will never shake that image. 🙂 [/QUOTE] **Lib** seems to have. Start a few prObama threads and see what happens 😃 I don’t think of **A\_D** as a conservative at all, except on gun control. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-whos-an-honest-liberal-libs-whos-an-honest-conservative/455713.md?page=2)