I was going to say. The Trib was always the Republican paper vs the Democratic Sun-Times. Even if you look at the Wikipedia page, under “political alignment” it says “conservatism.” It may have become more centrist over the intervening years, but it’s a paper whose editorial pages and political endorsements still tend to be conservative. I mean, it endorsed Gary Johnson for president in 2016. It is not a leftist publication.
Sure, the problem is everyone else is a left wing poster.
Pod Person Scream
So your last contribution is a grossly out of context quote from Obama? I think that’s regrettable.
I think the problem is that the more libertarianism is exposed to critical discourse, the worse it fares. If that’s your thing, it seems to me you’re defending the indefensible and want to blame groupthink for it. Sometimes the group is correct.
FYI: That green light is not an accurate indicator of status. It remains green as long as (1) the poster accessed a board feature/page, and (2) has not logged off. There is a timeout of ~20 minutes (my guess) after an access before the host system assumes the poster is no longer there.
No, Libertarians are most definitely not pro-choice. There are huge numbers of people who describe themselves as libertarian, and spout libertarian talking points, and even run for office on the LP ticket who oppose abortion rights. Even among the theoretically pro-choice libertarians, there are a lot who are practically anti-choice, who want to remove federal protections for abortion rights, especially Roe vs Wade, and leave it up to the states, which in practice means lots of abortion bans. Ron Paul, for example, is generally considered libertarian, but actively opposes abortion. Gary Johnson, LP presidential candidate in 2012 and 2016, sometimes claims to be pro-choice, but also has said abortion should be left to the states, and signed a ban on partial birth abortions and a law requiring parental consent to abortions while governor. Bob Barr, 2008 presidential candidate, supported a ban on partial birth abortions and ban on traveling across state lines to get an abortion. Harry Browne, the 1996 and 2000 presidential candidate, stated that he believes that life begins at conception, and that Roe vs Wade was a “judicial fraud” and that abortion laws should be up to the states.
Without reliable birth control and access to abortion, there is no such thing as free sex.
Well, I guess you won’t see my reply. SDMB is not primarily a political board so I’m puzzled that you are leaving over political differences. It is easy enough to stay away from political threads.
I am left-leaning myself but I read right-leaning sites to try to understand both sides of the discussion. I don’t think it’s useful (or fun) for me to have political discussions with a bunch of people who think like me. I don’t think I’ve ever changed anyone’s mind, and I can only think of one time where anyone changed mine, but we shouldn’t live in echo chambers. (I know SDMB tends to be lefty but that is not its mission, it’s just coincidentally correlates to its mission.)
Just think of libertarians as spoiled 13-year-olds who don’t like to share and think that everything in the world exists for their benefit, without thought as to where it comes from or who pays for it. Extremely selfish 13-year-olds. And if they are arguing with you on a computer net designed, developed and paid for by governments, they are monumental hypocrites as well. Point this out to them and watch them weasel. 
I think this board always leaned left. I also thing the population has shrunk mostly because Reddit absorbed most of the web message boards so younger people have less interest in joining this kind of thing so as members leave there are less replacements. The shrinking population can make the leaning get amplified.
I’m another of the hoard’s libertarians so I’m sad to see you go but I’ve got to admit that in November I’m going to vote straight ticket Dem because the repubs have turned into nut jobs and I’d rather a nut job who is going to raise taxes and waste my money then someone who exhibits a total lack of critical thinking skills by thinking that Trump is in any way supportable.
While its nice having people on this board who think that government should be pushed down to the most local level while still providing an equal playing field we really don’t need someone who runs away because they are told they support a moron.
BTW, you can if course fit into more than one group, but this recent post by Desert Nomad is an excellent example of the “whitey” type.
We’re sorry that this board is no longer a safe space to express bigotry, promote divisiveness and political obstructionism, and make specious and untrue statements with an expectation that you are entitled to not be challenged with fact.
Stranger
The fact that the board leans left is surely a consequence of the fact that reality has a well-known liberal bias. To me, the OP’s protestations sound like the common misconception that equal rights and freedom of expression somehow imply that everyone’s opinion is equal. Everyone has an equal right to express their opinion, and my sense of this board is certainly not that people are shouted down or “de-platformed” for unpopular views. But some opinions do not comport with reality, some opinions are inconsistent, and some just make you a shitty human being. You have a right to be heard, and a right for your arguments to be considered on their merits; but beyond that you really have no right to respect if you have shitty opinions. If you want more respect, get better opinions.
Within the spectrum of liberalism on the board, since the board skews older, it tends more toward traditional rights-based liberalism. Along with pushback against the modern right, I think there’s certainly also pushback against the more egregious excesses of modern left-wing identity politics (along with a certain amount of denial that extremist identity politics actually exists on the left to any significant degree). The ridiculous idea that there’s broad sympathy for left-wing extremism on this board just means (as Mr Dibble says) that you don’t have a clue about the spectrum of modern left-wing views.
Yeah, as many people have said, there’s no way to do this; just stop posting. I had a period of five years during which I didn’t post on or even read the SDMB, although to be fair that might have been because I needed to remove some sources of procrastination from my life (and finish my thesis, for one).
While the SDMB has always been quite left-wing, I’d say that it seems to have become extremely social-justicey in a way that I find grating. But then again, much of left-wing discourse has also become very identitarian and social-justicey, and also rather exclusionary. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe left-wing people are better or more open-minded or inclusive than right-wing people, though they certainly believe they are. I guess discourse on the SDMB follows the zeitgeist.
Surely I’m not the only one who keeps reading this thread title with the “goodbye, cruel world!” intonation?
There’s another thread which, when bumped, has a poster saying “And as for you, <poster 2>…” which I always read in the tones of an elderly person shaking his cane at some kid.
Flouncing indeed.
He’ll come crawling back sooner or later. They always do.
Believe it or not, sometimes the government funds things that actually DO work – for example: a thing or two that NASA has done, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, DARPA which funded the Arpanet and TCP/IP which became something we like to call the Internet. Sometimes a high failure rate is a hallmark of true leading-edge innovation, which is why governments are often the only entity willing to take the risk, or take the long-term view by funding pure research.
As for your comments about the board, one might be able to fathom your perspective as a rural Nevadan, but I’m incredibly curious where overseas you were living for 12 years, because if your rural Nevadan values cause you to see this board as far left, most of the rest of the world should make your head explode. And anyway, I see no particular problem with having political differences. I’m about to get together with a good friend that I haven’t seen in years who is so incredibly conservative that he’d probably be right at home in rural Nevada – or even Nebraska! It isn’t an issue. I tell him that he’s a fucking moron for some of the shit he believes, and he tells me the same, and then we have another drink and move on to something else. 
I’m from rural Nebraska, wolfpup. Then again, I wouldn’t go back, so I guess you have a point.
I don’t think you’d ever see a message like this from me on a message board unless I had some clearly-defined role (like a moderator or keeper of some group file). It’s more my style to fade in and fade out. Maybe people resent that; hard to tell.