Try harder.
Some ideas are simply wrong. It is absolutely not right to promote theocratic dictatorship in this country, and those who do need to be shunned. If they huff and puff and take their ball home, so much the better for the SDMB. It’s thoroughly bizarre that anybody thinks Shodan or Carol Stream add any value whatsoever to the board. While you argue that there would be no conservatives left if they signed off (and I think you misspelled “Quislings”, and yes, I do mean that), I might argue that if they left, more genuine conservatives might come out of the woodwork. For now, maybe they’re embarrassed to be seen as agreeing with any of the three posters you named; and even if they did speak up, they’d be quickly drowned out.
Look, it’s not like the US is running out of Republicans. The polls have been even for as long as I can recall, which means that about 50% of this country are either racist*, pro-tyranny or lacking an understanding of how dangerous a McSame presidency is to this country. If we want a truly open debate, we need to welcome the simply misguided–the people who just disagree with us on some number of issues and, for some reason, think that McSame offers something different from what we’ve had for the last eight years–and let the pro-tyranny crowd go play somewhere else.
We need not entertain every single political idea to be fair. Somebody on the far left could insist in spittle-flecked rants against all argument that everyone should forfeit all earnings over $5,000 a year to the government, and we would be right to smack them down and drive them away. No political view deserves automatic respect just for being a political opinion. If you ask me, we’ve been putting up with this shit for too long. We should be outraged and we should refuse to take any more.
- Surely, racists account for a small minority of people voting for McCain, but I have met a number of them myself, so you can’t tell me that they’re not there. As a grassroots fundraiser for the DNC, I met staunch Democrats who are voting for McCain because they can’t stand the thought of a black president. Anyway, I absolutely DO NOT intend to label any of the named posters as racist; they’ve shown no pattern of racial discrimination. I’m just trying to account for everyone who would actually vote for McCain.
Well, I’ll try…
You know, the invasion of Iraq wasn’t all that great an idea. Might even be regarded as, well, not very good. Lot of downside. And using the Justice Dept to further their own political ends, well, that isn’t entirely the best, ya know? Cheney rising in the night to feed on the flesh of the living, that could be a life style choice, I suppose, but still…
If they are polite and respectful, I’ll try to do the same. I won’t be the person to cast the first stone. But if they are jerkish trolls, well then, bring it on. And for the most part, the Republicans in public, the electeds and the radio people don’t deserve any respect. They insult me and then call me an angry lefty? Screw those shitheads.
Bricker is a bit more sophisticated. His beyotch page is a trolling masterpiece. He gets my respect for wasting the time of so many lefties with minimal effort, even if he did think better of it later. Those lefties should have spent their time organizing to do precinct walking and get out the vote effort. And he did it without any significant name calling (at least not first). Count me impressed, and I wish he was one of ours. But he isn’t and never will be.
You do realize his thnking “better of it later,” especially after he brought up closing the thread but didn’t, was just more trolling and attention-whoring, right? And he name-called from the beginning, right in the title.
Yes, it is a classic time waster agit-prop. I’m new here (about 6 mos lurking and posting) and I figured he was troll, but he is a higher class of troll. Bricker is to SMDB trolling what Sampiro is to SMBD writing. But there is no question about it that his level of sophistication about the whole thing, and general success means that he is too competent to be a Republican.
Remember where we are: near the end of the Worst Presidency Ever.
One of two things will happen in less than two months: Obama will be elected President, or McCain will be elected President.
If Obama’s elected, we’ll have a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress, and a whole new set of debates. I suppose occasionally we’ll need someone to defend the indefensible retrospectively, or defend a GOP filibuster of legislation that most of the country wants, or defend a Supreme Court decision of a sort that won’t happen again if a conservative Justice retires on Obama’s watch. But most of the time we’ll be arguing between rational alternatives, and there’ll be plenty of people on both sides.
If McCain’s elected, well, we’ll have bigger problems than keeping a few defenders of the indefensible posting here. Guess it’s time to give a few shekels to the Obama campaign.
I find it more that a bit rich that Scylla et al are castigating us for hate mongering and being snarky and insulting. He’s one of the worst offenders! Take responsibility for your own posts. If you’ve added a derisory comment at the end, delete it before posting. Snark makes snark. I agree with Second Stone–I’ll meet the tone of the thread. I no longer feel any compunction about letting my contempt show. When people (not individual posters, but pols and pundits) act reprehensibly, I note it. I will openly mock it and not apologize for it. But there is no reason for that to edge into personal attacks.
I think our problem here is that any one who doesn’t agree with the GOP position is immediately perceived to be in attack mode or oafishly ignorant. Or something. Yes, the liberal side has done much the same, but not as much and not as often. I don’t approve of Palin as a choice, not because Reps are “teh evil” but because her inexperience and lack of professionalism show; well, that and she supports positions I find disgusting such as abstinence education, the NRA and others. But when ONE liberal poster shoots off their mouth, somehow this becomes these poor benighted conservatives against the Big Bad Liberal World. It’s complete BS. It’s a microcosm of the national stage, where Reps scream “victim” all the while denigrating true life victims. It does make for interesting reading, though.
You know, somewhere out in the intertubes right now there’s a Republican message board having the same discussion about you - how you’re obviously wrong, you don’t have a clue, you’re stupid, and there’s nothing at all of merit in your positions.
And they’re just as wrong as you are for believing it.
You need to step out of the echo chamber sometimes and listen to the other side with respect. Not just for ammo to refute them, but to seriously understand their point of view.
To do that, you have to start from a position that A) they aren’t stupid, and B) they aren’t evil, and C) that they honestly want the best outcome for the country, just like you do. If you can do that, you have a chance to be enlightened a little.
Do you know why I hang out on this message board, despite the constant sneering jibes and angry attacks I suffer for just making my opinion known? Because it beats the hell out of hanging out in an echo chamber, being slapped on the back by fellow travelers. You learn nothing that way.
If you can’t air your ideas in front of a critical audience and defend them, perhaps they need a little work. If you want to tighten your thinking and expose your own logical flaws, don’t give your thoughts to people inclined to give you an atta-boy - give your thoughts to the people disposed to picking them apart and telling you why you’re wrong.
There seems to be an attitude on this board of late that the conservatives who are here are the enemy, that they’re annoying gadflies who must be mocked and driven away so the right-thinking people can get back to telling each other how smart they are. That attitude comes from intellectual weakness. If you can’t tolerate, with good grace, respect, and humility, people who oppose what you have to say and are willing to defend the opposing point of view, then perhaps your opinions are not as solidly grounded as you believe they are.
I believe the increase in partisanship we’ve seen in the internet era has to do with the Balkanization of political dialog. We all used to start by getting our information from the same sources, and we’d diverge in opinion from there. Now, we all have our own biased sources. We all used to have to debate in the same public sphere, where you had to show tolerance for the opinions of others (and hear the opinions of others). That at least forced a little healthy introspection. But now the righties run off to Free Republic and watch Fox News, and the Lefties run off to Kos and watch Keith Olbermann, and they all close themselves into their little echo chambers and work themselves into a froth.
The SDMB was always a board in the middle - a last bastion of independent debate where both sides could duke it out and find out what makes each other tick. That was an extremely valuable ground to hold - one that’s increasingly rare. It’s also one that has the best chance to promote the philosophy of this board, which is to fight ignorance.
Unfortunately, that role is almost gone. The right has been slowly pushed away from this board for several years, and the left’s growing demographic strength and increasingly hostile attitude is accelerating the pace. Soon, it will be yet another tiresome echo chamber of the left, with everyone repeating the same arguments uncritically to each other and patting themselves on the back for being so obviously right and smart that opposing viewpoints need not even be considered.
And that’s a damned shame.
Look, I know we’re all friends here and all, but leave me out of any group that would slap a label like Obama-ites on themselves. Think for yourselves, damn.
EDIT: Forgot to add:
This is just delusion, unless you grew up outside the US or you’re joking.
How about starting by being respectful to your fellow Democrats? :dubious:
At this point, the last thing I want if for Obamists to hold back. Let them put it all out there. We need to know them.
Just a glance at “new posts” and counting the political threads and sorting them by subject and bias tells me what I feel I really need to know before voting this fall.
Please, DO NOT “be nice.” Let it all out. Tell us how you really think and feel.
All of the people who say they aren’t voting for Obama because they don’t like his supporters are very obviously just looking for an excuse. They weren’t going to pull the lever for the uppity guy anyway. That said, this week, with the Palin annunciations, has been particularly heated but I think the board and real life will go back to “simmer with occasional boil” on its own.
We prefer being called the Obamajadin. It emphasizes the Muslim connection more that Obamists.
That said, anybody who chooses an elected official based on how his supporters in a message board act rather than upon party platforms and likely policy outcomes not only does not deserve the right to vote but has absolutely nothing to add to political dialogue other than their absence. There has never been a politician of either party or any third party who didn’t have assholes and saints in unequal numbers among their followers.
I see no reason to be respectful to the complete idiot Democrats any more than I do the complete idiot Republicans. Just because someone is a Democrat or leftist doesn’t get them a free pass from me for being a moron.
Still unclear on the concept, I see.
What concept? Backing up idiots just because they happen to be of the same party? When Republicans do it, you have a hissy fit.
If I’m misunderstanding you, feel free to correct me.
Well, as you say, it’s just a message board. You shouldn’t take anything I or anyone else says here seriously, either.
No, no, STOP…you’re doing it all wrong!!! After you light the bowl you’re supposed to hand each of the eight hoses to a different person, not just stuff all eight into your mouth and and suck on them all by yourself.
Sheeze. This does explain a lot, though.
A big cause of the problem is neither side wants to admit the weaknesses of their chosen side, and when someone you disagree with won’t admit to what you feel is obviously true, it feels like dishonesty of the worst sort.
I don’t see any of the Republicans admitting that maybe Palin is lacking relevant experience, that she has made some questionable decisions during her career, and that her faith-based governing can be divisive. Nobody on the Right is admitting that McCain has changed a lot of his positions to match those of the Bush administration in the last 8 years, or that he can seem dangerously aggressive in his foreign policy (although, appearing scarily warlike has served the Democratic party well in the past, see the Cuban Missile Crisis).
Likewise, I don’t see any Democrats admitting that Obama IS light on experience, that he too has changed his position on important issues for political expediency, that he does seem out-of-touch with small-town America, and that he is far closer to being a typical politician than a “Washington Outsider”. Biden is a perfect example of a career politician and he has built his long career on kissing the butt of corporate America to enrich his home state.
When we don’t admit the faults of our own side, we look like either blind fanatics or idiots who can only repeat the talking points of our party’s pundits, even though we all have a lot more subtlety than that.