Okay - we can take another tack on this entirely.
It is my stipulation that most 4-legged animals are cats. To prove this, I went down to the local cat shelter, and 100 percent of the four-legged creatures there were cats. Now, there may be small enclaves of four-legged dogs elsewhere, but I can point out dozens of other cat shelters that are full of four-legged cats, pretty much proving my point.
It’s a great question. In almost every area life is better in states that are more liberal: education, health, wealth, divorce rate, etc., but conservatives want to continue the policies that have left them behind. Children who receive sex education delay sexual activity longer than those who don’t, yet conservatives oppose it. Every other industrialized country in the world has UHC, spends less on healthcare and has better results, yet conservatives fight against it. There does not seem to be any rational reasoning behind conservative thought.
Actually it does. Other countries spend much less than the US does on healthcare and have better results. But that’s a fact, so will not stand a chance against uninformed opinion.
Are you kidding? You don’t have to look very hard. There is no shortage of posters that will state flat-out that they’re socialists. I don’t have the time to do a good search, but I dug up at least BrainGlutton and HappyLenderveder at the least. In this poll, 11% report themselves as “extremely liberal”.
Because if there are hundreds of health care threads out there, then there must be hundreds of thousands of “conservatives are stupid” threads out there. In the Pit, it’s “Conservatives are assholes!” In GD, it’s “Conservatives: Jerks or just plain stupid?” In GQ, it’s “Why are conservatives so evil?” In IMHO, it’s “Is this finally the end of the GOP?”
So how about we make this thread about how liberals are naive weaklings without a shred of personal responsibility or discipline that repeatedly fail to be productive members of society, eh? How about we do that?
I like this place. I really do. But no matter how hard I try sometimes to right the ship, it just keeps taking on the waters of liberalism. I’m not ready to hop a lifeboat yet, though.
You’re still wrong. The existence of a consensus on an issue is a matter of opinion, not fact. There is no objective test that can be used to determine whether economists agree that stimulus is necessary (or any of the other items in your list) because of all the judgments that must be made (ie, who is an economist, what exact
Ly is the issue, and what exactly does any particular economist think of that issue).
And the larger point you are now demonstrationg that you misunderstand is whether a consensus is important.
You’re still wrong. The existence of a consensus on an issue is a matter of opinion, not fact. There is no objective test that can be used to determine whether economists agree that stimulus is necessary (or any of the other items in your list) because of all the judgments that must be made (ie, who is an economist, what exact
Ly is the issue, and what exactly does any particular economist think of that issue).
And the larger point you are now demonstrationg that you misunderstand is whether a consensus is important.
Nope. “Spending less” involves allocating costs to activities, which is a matter of opinion. Determining whether one thing is “better” than another is obviously a matter of opinion.
The biggere point here is this: why do liberals (at least on the SDMB) seemingly always want to elevate their opinions to facts? Why can’t they just argue on a policy level (ie, that the country should do x because it would be better for y reasons)? Why do they have to use such specious reasoning to try to paint their opponents as “denyig facts”?
If there is one thing this thread is doing well, it’s providing plenty of examples that stupidity isn’t limited to any one segment of the ideological spectrum.
Oh just SHUT UP about it already. We know – liberals have been destroying the U.S. since the sixties. All right? We get it.
Now come back when you have something new to say.
You really are functionally retarded on this issue, aren’t you? I don’t know what else I can do to try to educate you about handpicking co-incident examples and how that is not at all the same as correlation. Nor does it help to support your original assertion.
How is this handpicking - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can’t be considered to be a liberal who is coincidentally anti-vax. He is one of the leaders of the anti-vax movement, such as it is.
I would say it’s more like their reactions are your fault too.
Look, once upon a time in this country people dressed in suits and ties and dresses and behaved with a certain civil decorum when out in public. That is what made discussion on shows like Buckley’s possible. Nowadays it’s every man for himself, and without the constraining effect of civil societal mores people are much more free to act like assholes. And so they do. So many, in fact, that assholism has become commonplace and the result is that it drives people to political extremes. So yes, it is very much the fault of liberals that so many conservatives behave the way they do these days. A sinking tide lowers all ships and all that.
At last!
How come you guys get to play “conservatives are teh stupid” over and over and over again, all day long, week in and week out, month after month, but I only get to refute it once? Hardly seems fair somehow…
Global Climate change is a scientific theory that is accepted by the vast, vast majority of scientists who work in the field of climate science. It is supported by a tremendously large amount of observed evidence, from a wide variety of disciplines.
Socialism is a political system that is used successfully in a range of countries, particularly in Europe. These countries seem to be doing OK economically - there is no danger of imminent collapse. The term “socialism” is currently used in the United Sense in a purely pejorative sense, often by those who have little grasp of its true meaning.
These two things are not comparable. Denial of global climate change flies in the fact of scientific consensus. There is no consensus about the viability of socialist ideals. Indeed, there are many “socialist” programs in the United States that seem to have fairly wide support (Medicare, Social Security)
I think you’re probably right. I tend to view the difference between liberals and conservatives as primarily a social one, and to view fiscal conservatives who are socially liberal as little different from liberals as a whole, except that when it come to economic matters they’re a little more constrained.
Evolution is not a “right” or “left” issue. Fiscal policy, foreign policy, matters of what importance to place on things, those are matters of “right” and “left.” Evolution is simply a list of facts.
Ignorance is not a point of view.
I was talking about the debate between liberal ideas and conservative ideas in general, as per Lobohan’s comments from the OP:
You’re right…but it’s hardly our fault that you can’t tell the difference between “refute” and “confirm”.
So is Brittany Speers.
You made the claim that there’s a link between a liberal orientation and being anti-vax. Your efforts to support that claim have regressed from citing the level of vaccinations in three selected communities to pointing to the opinions of one person. I know that you very often like to think in terms of tu quoque style arguments, but this is fucking ridiculous.
In case you really are this feeble: just because one person with a given quality or characteristic believes something, it doesn’t mean that all, or even most, people with that same quality or characteristic will also believe that same thing.
I won’t defend the anti-evolution nuts, but hows about a little person responsibility on the FIL’s part? He’s an educated man, with an Engineering degree, belonging to a religion that is perfectly OK with evolution. He has no excuse for falling for right-wing clap trap about evolution.