This is for BOTH left wing liberals and right wing conservatives! Now’s your chance to really show the SDMB how truly fair and balanced you are!
Conservatives: I challenge you all to tell us about some conservatives that have embarrassed you by making what you think are ignorant and ridiculous statements about the left. Then Tell me about a liberal that you agree with and respect and why you do.
Liberals: I challenge you all to give an example of some liberals who have embarrassed YOU by making what you think are ignorant and ridiculous statements about the right. Then tell us about a conservative that you agree with and respect and why.
When liberals make me cringe, it’s usually because they’re adopting a position somewhat close to mine but defending it by spouting debunked or incomplete information that’s unfair because they haven’t followed the issue sufficiently closely. Also, using generic fallacies such as strawmen arguments to make the point, and over-generalisations from the specific offenders to everyone.
The worst specific thing I’ve heard was someone who believed in a 9/11 conspiracy theory which was mildly distressing.
I think the woo-laden wing of the Democratic Party has embarrassed us all at times. But, outside of anti-vaxers and truthers, they aren’t that actively dangerous. The most rabid environmentalists have stalled nuclear power operations in the US for decades. That has been a serious disappointment to me.
While I may disagree at times with Oakminster’s points of view, he has impressed me as an ethical and intelligent advocate for his positions.
Ann Coulter delights in the passive-aggressive trick of demonizing the left with ridiculous hyperbole (see, e.g., “Demonic,”) and hides behind the claim that she’s just joshing. These kind of antics are embarrassing for conservatives, and disgusting no matter what your political stripe.
I’ll give you two liberals I respect: one from the SDMB and one from the real world. And that’s not even close to an exclusive list.
Richard Parker has a keen, analytical mind and a gift for laying out his principled position clearly and defending it well. If all liberals were as talented, the conservative cause would be in serious hurt. I wince when I have to try to rebut him.
Ed Bagely Jr seems at first glance like another Hollywood liberal when he talks about carbon footprinting and the need to conserve. Of course he means OTHER people, right? Nope – Bagely walks the walk, or more accurately rides the bike, wherever he can, lives in a smaller house that uses solar, composting, and all manner of green energy strategies. Quite impressive.
The late Ann Landers, liberal “advice” columnist managed for years to piss me off on a near-daily basis. First with her anti-male bias, second with her constant carping about how we ought to do away with the jury system and try criminal cases before panels of judges. Not only nonsense but dangerous nonsense.
And among conservatives, the late William F. Buckley jr. Had a mind…and a wit like the proverbial blue-steel razor. I always pitied the poor liberals that had to debate him. James michener, another dead liberal said “Bill Buckley managed to convince me that God is both a conservative and a Catholic”
When I was in college, I had one professor who could almost have been a caricature of the loony left-wing, hyper-liberal, pie-in-the-sky, near-Marxist, Ivory Tower hyper-feminist stereotype. I had another who was fairly obviously a Marxist, but who never actually said anything overt, only loosely implied his position.
I also had a right-wing creep or two. Most of my professors were comfortably moderate, and most of them were competent. In any population of 100, you’re bound to get a few flakes.
Simply because power sharing is arrived at by way of compromise is no reason to believe that truth can be derived the same way. There is no “compromise” between evolution and creationism, one is utter horseshit and the other is not. Similarly, the needs of the many are not balanced out by the privileges of the few. A party made up of syncophants and toadies for the ruling class and deranged hyper-religious Calvinist pissants is not a coalition, it is a grotesque mutation, half lizard, half pig. Feh!
In order for a civil centrism to be respected, it must first exist, and our present circumstances make that improbable, if not impossible. I see no compelling reason to pretend otherwise.
This. A genuine, rational, fact-based “fair and balanced” position is going to be by American standards overwhelmingly a left wing position, because the American Right is so full of outright falsehoods and unfairness. The “fair and balanced position” is not some mindless golden mean between the Right and Left of what passes for the American political spectrum; America isn’t a “balanced” nation, it’s an extreme right nation and heavily invested in outright false political dogmas.
Okay, if you insist. As a conservative, the Westborough “Baptist” Heathens are probably the most despicable slaps in the face to the conservative movement there is. But let’s avoid the obviously vile & idiotic protesting at military funerals. Before that ever started, they were obviously vile and idiotic by claiming that “God Hates Fags” when the fact of the matter is, (and yes I do believe in God) God and His Son Jesus command us to LOVE our neighbors as ourselves as well as loving our enemies. NOTE: If someone claims to be a Christian who believes in God then that person KNOWS that Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves; He did not say “love your neighbor as yourself unless your neighbor is gay.” Now I realize that as human beings many of us (myself included) often fall short of that command. However, to take it to that vile step of saying that God Himself “Hates Fags” borders on blasphemy in my opinion, and all these heathens do is give ammunition to anybody who says that the right is filled with hateful ignoramuses.
Believe it or not, I actually do admire Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. While I don’t necessarily agree with them on numerous issues, I do admire and respect them for being somewhat consistent. Here’s an example: Maher is often very critical of religion, particularly Christianity. However, he has no problem giving his disdain for Islam and Scientology as well. More often than not whenever I hear left wingers (especially atheistic left wingers) bash religion, they are very hesitant to criticize Islam or Scientology (e.g. Sarah Silverman herself even said that the reason she wouldn’t make fun of the Prophet Mohammed was because she didn’t want to get killed). Unlike Sarah Silverman, Bill Maher has NO PROBLEM saying what he thinks and consistently bashing all religion instead of just the select few that so many on the left like bashing (Roman Catholicism, Christian Evangelicals, and some occasions Orthodox Judaism).
But of course, that sort of thing is the only reason people care. They ranted about the evils of homosexuality long before picketing the funerals of military people; it was only when they started doing that that people cared. Their rabid hatred of gays is the right wing norm.
While I am for gay rights, women’s rights etc, ‘Social Justice Warriors’ on tumblr disgust me.
I don’t know of an American conservatives that I like, but I do happen to like Clive Palmer and and any other person that decided to speak out against Campbell Newman. It takes guts to voice your dislike of a bad leader, especially when you end up getting kicked out of your party for it.
Looking into the writings and quotes that were about Jesus, he was a liberal from the word go.To me he sounded like he considerd the Pharisees( that he seemed to despise) were neo- conservatives
.He made excuses for the adultress, told the rich young man to sell all he had and give it to the poor,and called the letter of the law Pharisees hypocrites, sons of Satan ,white washed tombs. Nearly a whole chapter of Matthew is filled with his dislike of the Pharisees. I mention this because most of the Republican base is the extreme right!
