[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
If I had seen the original thread, I would have linked to here: http://www.wideawakes.net/
I’m not a conservative so I can’t say it’s a great site from the conservative perspective, but I found it much less hysterical and lockstep than, say, Free Republic.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for that link, it looks interesting!
One other thing… that wasn’t a random sample, so it might have some selection bias in it. But I think it’s pretty accurate, since there wasn’t really any motivation for people of any particular political persuasion to either take or not take the test.
[QUOTE=Loach]
You use GQ as an example? The forum that has a warning about bringing politics to the forum right at the top? Give me a fucking break. No one is saying that this is a left leaning MB because Cecil set it up that way. It is a lefty board because the vast majority of posters who are vocal about political topics are lefty.
[/QUOTE]
So, what’s your complaint, exactly?
Feel free to foam at me all you want, but as I pointed out previously, my understanding was that this board was not originally set up specifically for political discussion. In fact my understanding is that both the GD and Pit forums were originally established in part because many people can’t seem to restrain themselves from injecting political advertising and sloganeering into factual discussions.
Since the so-called ‘lefty bias’ of this board, as you apparently agree, is nothing more than the personal choices of individual board members, and since the board management apparently neither encourages nor discourages these personal choices, I really fail to see what purpose all this complaining about leftward bias serves, unless you are, say, demanding the supression of political opinions that you happen to disagree with.
[QUOTE=El_Kabong]
Since the so-called ‘lefty bias’ of this board, as you apparently agree, is nothing more than the personal choices of individual board members, and since the board management apparently neither encourages nor discourages these personal choices, I really fail to see what purpose all this complaining about leftward bias serves, unless you are, say, demanding the supression of political opinions that you happen to disagree with.
[/QUOTE]
Was he complaining about lefty bias, or complaining about the denial that there is lefty bias? Big difference.
This board is left-leaning only in the sense that the membership as a whole leans more to the left, and therefore debates will be dominated by left-wing opinions. The moderation of the board is entirely fair and unbiased. There’s nothing about the structure of the board that would indicate a tilt either way - no lefty announcements, or pinned threads with left-wing commentary, or official requests to join left-wing causes, or anything like that.
It’s a free market in ideas. And the most left-wing portion of society today is made up of exactly the kind of people who tend to be active on the internet. So this is what you get.
To me, the biggest problem isn’t the quantity of left-wing posters, but the quantity of left-wing posters who are simply obnoxious jerks. They’re the ones that go around thread-shitting on conservatives, who post snide, condescending messages, who honestly think that to be a conservative automatically means you’re either stupid or a bastard. They just can’t control themselves.
The left in general is angrier today than is the right. And that’s understandable, since they’ve been largely out of power for a good long time. I remember lots of people on the right being off the rails towards the end of the Clinton administration, too. And they were much noisier around here then.
What this board needs is more left-tilting members like Kimstu and jshore - people willing to give respect to the other side and debate in a calm, fair manner. It needs less people like, well, some of the posters in this thread.
And it would be nice if formerly reasonable posters like elucidator dropped the snotty condescending drive-bys and behaved like adults.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
It might be interesting to compare this recent request of Quartz’s with the one he made looking for left-wing blogs. There were a bunch of suggestions, and not one snide comment. That indicates one of two things to me…either there aren’t many conservatives around here, or there are a lot, but they are the nicest, most polite conservatives on the Web. I’m guessing it’s the first.
[/QUOTE]
I’m going to disagree here and say it’s the second. The ratio of polite conservatives to conservative dickheads is as high as you’ll find anywhere. It’s the same with the liberals, but there’s more of a tendency for the membership at large to engage the few conservative dickheads than there is to engage the liberal ones.
It could be because they think the conservative dickheads are more amenable to logic, while the liberals are more difficult to reach. Some of this is a matter of self selection. Go back in time around 5 years ago and you’ll find there were a lot more conservative dickeheads, but it’s pretty uncomfortable here for people who refuse to look at facts, and the facts lately make it difficult to support a lot of the neocon philosophy.
I think the board is a lot more comfortable for paleo conservatives. Barry Goldwater would probably get along pretty well here. That’s a pretty good recommendation for any place, at least in my book.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Was he complaining about lefty bias, or complaining about the denial that there is lefty bias?
[/QUOTE]
Neither. Read the OP again. He never even mentions lefties or liberals, when condemning “partisan idiocy” . Remarkably even handed, I’d say.
Are you acting like this thread is the latest in an endless series of Righties crying discrimination? Because that’s full of shit, if you are. This thread is about moron Lefties having to jump in to a fairly innocent request with “Hoot! hoot! We are teh smart; toodle off to Free Republic if you wanna see how smart tighty-righties are.”
Anyway, when you know any conversation is going to be double loaded with Left of centre thinking, it can still get annoying for someone who wants to hear a more general discussion. What’s so difficult to understand about that? Not much to be done about it as that’s just how the population built up around here, but it’s there.
[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
Neither. Read the OP again. He never even mentions lefties or liberals, when condemning “partisan idiocy” . Remarkably even handed, I’d say.
[/QUOTE]
I was talking about Loach, not the OP.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Thanks for that link, it looks interesting!
[/QUOTE]
Report back, if you’re willing.
I thought it looked like it had a good mixture of ideas while being obviously very… you know, I don’t know what word to use. I’ll say “conservative” but I’m not sure that’s really the word I’m looking for. I was tempted to say “Republican.” Maybe I’ll leave it at that.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
Report back, if you’re willing.
[/QUOTE]
I will, when I get a chance to look it over.
I get you!
[QUOTE=CarnalK]
SentientMeat actually ran another thread with a sum-up of the finished scores and wolf_meister created a graph from the raw numbers.
Mostly libertarian with a decidedly Left bias. I’m sure all the lefties are just shocked to learn that they are in the majority, this place seems so centrist. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the links, it was cool to see where I stand compared to other Dopers. 
I’m a (2.88, -2.00), which sticks me in the lower right quadrant, which appears to be the second most populated of the chart.
The graph also confirms what I said in the thread this Pitting was about, that there are very few social conservatives active on the Dope.
[QUOTE=Dunawake]
Thanks for the links, it was cool to see where I stand compared to other Dopers.
I’m a (2.88, -2.00), which sticks me in the lower right quadrant, which appears to be the second most populated of the chart.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve been thinking of changing my username to (7, -3). 
Actually that’s an interesting idea…
[QUOTE=Blalron]
Oh, I see. Conservatives have jobs. It’s only liberals who have any spare time to go on messageboards!
There aren’t enough rolleye smileys in the world for that one.
[/quote]
Alright, so how many CEO’s do you think have the free time and an interest in posting to an internet message board? Now how many of those do you think are intelligent? And how many do you think are conservative?
[quote]
The tighty righties don’t have the intellectual curiousity to seek out other points of view. They like to be told what to think by their church, by Rush Limbaugh, by Fox News, and can’t be bothered to go to a venue where they actually have to logically defend their positions.
[QUOTE]
Intelligent conservatives don’t watch Fox News nor Rush Limbaugh. Like I said, for the most part they read things like the Economist and the Wallstreet Journal. And if you look, you’ll find that the Economist and Rush Limbaugh have very little in common.
I’m not saying that intelligent conservatives have jobs and that intelligent liberals don’t, I’m just saying that they’re not chatty, sociable people who seek out a social life on the internet. But if you talk to them, they’re definitely just as informed on the issues – they just have a different opinion of what is good and what is bad.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Was he complaining about lefty bias, or complaining about the denial that there is lefty bias? Big difference.
[/QUOTE]
Well, after having another look at that mess I wrote, I wouldn’t blame him for complaining about long, convoluted sentences.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
I’ve been thinking of changing my username to (7, -3).
Actually that’s an interesting idea…
[/QUOTE]
Well, I’m in good company (6.63, -3.33). Almost right on top of Milton Friedman, which I guess makes the test fairly accurate in my case, even though I thought the individual questions largely sucked.
[QUOTE=fluiddruid]
we’re a US-based board and the majority of Americans do not support George W. Bush, who (rightly or wrongly) is basically the prominent conservative American. It’s not surprising that there is a lot of outrage about the president and his administration. Sometimes this is translated into general disdain for conservative political views, which is not fair but is pretty understandable.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly, except that I’d say it’s quite fair because American conservatism has put so little daylight in between it and George Bush. I can only think of three issues where conservatives have risen up and opposed Bush: immigration, the Dubai ports deal, and the Harriet Miers nomination. The first two were about Bush being insufficiently nativist for the conservative base, and the last one seemed to be a general “how do we know she’s one of us” rant. IOW, when there’s been daylight between Bush and American conservatism, the latter has actually been worse than Bush, incredible as that may seem.
So of course this board leans left. Because conservatism means “Bush, or something even worse,” the country is leaning a bit more left than it was just a few years back, and it shouldn’t be surprising that those who’ve been paying closest attention have been leading the way.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
The left in general is angrier today than is the right. And that’s understandable, since they’ve been largely out of power for a good long time. I remember lots of people on the right being off the rails towards the end of the Clinton administration, too. And they were much noisier around here then.
[/quote]
Consider Bush’s track record.
There’s Iraq, in multiple dimensions: the lying us into war, the killed and wounded American troops, the way we’ve treated the wounded when they’ve gotten back, the holy havoc we’ve loosed on Iraq itself, and the strategic incoherence and year-to-year lack of consistency of our Iraq policy.
There’s his overall “birth pangs of a new Middle East” Middle East policy.
There’s his decision to let Afghanistan coast on its own so he could fuck up Iraq. So not only have we messed up Iraq, but we’re losing the war we should’ve won in Afghanistan.
And it doesn’t seem to matter to him that the guy behind the deaths of 3000 Americans six years ago is still on the loose.
There’s his warrantless wiretapping.
His holding people indefinitely without hearings.
His arrogating unprecedented powers to the Executive.
His condoning of a policy of partisan law enforcement.
His condoning of an inadequate preparation and immediate response to Katrina, and a totally botched reconstruction in the medium term.
His thumbing his nose at Congress’ first attempts at oversight in over four years.
His unwillingness to do anything substantive about global warming, the number one threat of our era.
And that’s just off the top of my head. Compared to this, Watergate - the biggest American political scandal of the 20th century - was a triviality.
The left should be angry. Hell, we should be climbing the White House fence in a massive human wave that overwhelms the Secret Service’s ability to respond, running across the lawn by the thousands, breaking into the White House, and dragging Bush out for a show trial, followed by his spending the rest of his lifetime in a re-education camp, not that it would do any good.
We’re really pretty calm, all things considered.
Yet the right is just as angry, if not more so, despite their recent run of political success. There’s a reason why Coulter’s books sell. And why right-wing blogs that advocate execution of journalists are popular. The Right is mad as hell. As best as I can figure out, the reason is that, having gotten practically everything they’ve wanted in the way of policy, they haven’t won some Final Victory over the left on the political front that would have left American liberalism totally discredited for a generation or more. (That’s my WAG, anyway. But the anger is indisputable.)
So screw this “angry left” meme. It’s already been overdone by whichever dumbass WaPo reporter had that phrase kicking around in his head, then found a lefty blog to do a story on that proved his point, if one example can be called a proof.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Well, I’m in good company (6.63, -3.33). Almost right on top of Milton Friedman, which I guess makes the test fairly accurate in my case, even though I thought the individual questions largely sucked.
[/QUOTE]
Oddly, you and I scored almost identically.
Yes, I noticed the MF location, too. I thought the test was pertty hokey until I saw it put me there. I don’t know how they came up with his score, though.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Yet the right is just as angry, if not more so, despite their recent run of political success. There’s a reason why Coulter’s books sell. And why right-wing blogs that advocate execution of journalists are popular. The Right is mad as hell. As best as I can figure out, the reason is that, having gotten practically everything they’ve wanted in the way of policy, they haven’t won some Final Victory over the left on the political front that would have left American liberalism totally discredited for a generation or more. (That’s my WAG, anyway. But the anger is indisputable.)
So screw this “angry left” meme. It’s already been overdone by whichever dumbass WaPo reporter had that phrase kicking around in his head, then found a lefty blog to do a story on that proved his point, if one example can be called a proof.
[/QUOTE]
Calm down, Francis. 
Anybody who has been paying attention will notice that there is lots of anger on both sides.
[QUOTE=CarnalK]
SentientMeat actually ran another thread with a sum-up of the finished scores and wolf_meister created a graph from the raw numbers.
Mostly libertarian with a decidedly Left bias. I’m sure all the lefties are just shocked to learn that they are in the majority, this place seems so centrist. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
The whole of the American political scene looks right-wing from where I happen to (geographically, not politically) stand. What am I supposed to think?