I’ve been described by my friends as a tree hugging Liberal (meant as a term of endearment) and I believed that I was pretty accepting of other people’s views.
Then I started attempting to debate with someone with Conservative views, and the conservative views just boggles my mind. I just don’t see how anyone can live their lives by those sets of “rules”. I try to shift the gears in my brain to put myself in their place, but I can’t do it. Am I so overly Liberal that I have contradicted myself into not accepting Conservative views?
Maybe it is that particular person whom I was debating with that is an ignorant fool and made Conservative views worse than they seem. It really just boggles my mind.
Or maybe the person you were talking to has good reasons for his views, and they may seem ignorant to you because of your own preconceptions. To be fair, your views may have seemed idiotic to him. That doesn’t prove either of you are actually idiots; just that there is no single way for a human being to form a personal philosophy, and not all personal philosophies are compatable.
I’ll bet if you described some of the views of your conservative conversant, you’ll find plenty of people here who share them, and can’t understand your reasons for rejecting them. C’est la vie.
Why don’t you tell us what you two were discussing and what each of you offered as your opinions? Maybe one of you really was a moron. Who better to tell you than us?
Well, to be fair, it’s not the economic policies of the Conservatives that boggle my mind, but the social policies. The main one would be gay marriage. That is the one issue that boggles my mind. It just won’t go through into my brain how anyone can oppose it. Yes, I know their reasons of tradition, “morals” and such, but still, my brain won’t comprehend.
As to the ignorant fool I referred to, I have to say, his debating style is very different from those I have seen on this board. He uses ad hominems, (Jean Chretien loves kiddie porn!), is unable to provide cites (see previous example), begs the questions quite a bit (I am right because I am Conservative, you are wrong because you are Liberal), and quite often uses the term “Liberal” as a form of slanting.
To take your advice, Bryan Ekers and try to see it his way on how I am debating, I can only say that I am not as passionate about the issues as he is. In fact, I am able to remain quite calm in my posting while he rages on left and right.
I do wish I could link to cite it properly, but you know the rules of no board wars and all…
Or the conservative may just happen to be an idiot. Especially if he’s saying things like “Jean Christien loves kiddie porn!”
Look. I love my mom dearly, but last night over dinner she told me that her biggest fear about the upcoming election was that Bush would engineer a terrorist attack against the US in order to shore up support for himself. I strongly disagreed, saying that even if he were that murderous, there’s no way such a conspiracy could remain secret, and that he’d go down in history as one of the most evil rulers ever.
“Well, he should!” chimed in my stepfather. :smack:
I mentioned Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mussolini, and a few other leaders that might be just a smidge more evil than Bush, said I could think of half a dozen world leaders right now that left Bush in the dust, evilwise. He was not at all convinced.
Some people are great people, but their political positions aren’t exactly thought through very carefully; they lack nuance. I wonder if your conservative friend is one of those.
One of the things I love the most about these boards is being exposed to folks who intelligently espouse conservative positions. Sure, there are idiots around here on all points on the political map; but there are also some very smart, eloquent people, again from all positions.
Don’t judge an argument by its worst proponents: judge it by its best.
My grandpa once said that Clinton was more evil than Hitler.
Not because of his policies, mind you, but because he had an affair.
Apparently killing millions of people is a-OK, as long as you don’t sneak around on your wife. I mean, let’s not forget what’s really important.
Some people are fuckwits about stuff like that. He grew up in Left Asscrack, Oklahoma, and was never really exposed to minorities or other religions. My mom could never admit to him that she dated a Jew for a long time. He would usually drop a bomb at least once per trip… like how he saw a black man and a white woman (“hang 'em both”) or Asian drivers (“damn orientals”).
He’s a good man, just a one with deeply flawed beliefs about the outside world. This is why education is important. It’s not really hate. It’s just ignorance.
I have the same problem with some conservatives in my family; why I even have a relative who it turns out voted for Bush twice in 2000. In Florida! Filling out an absentee ballot for someone who no longer had the cognitive ability to vote for themselves, you see. (And nothing wrong with it because said individual “usually voted for Republicans, back when she could”.) Boy when I heard that one, I really almost kicked his ass.
Buy a few copies of the liberal screed of your choice (one by Franken or Moore or Molly Ivins etc.), and hand them out as gifts to such people. Granted most of them don’t read (chicken/egg?), but you can’t be responsible for the world.
Friend of mine? He is not! We just run across each other from time to time on this other message board.
But now, I think I can safely conclude that this guy is truly a moron. After going back to try one more time to understand where he is coming from, I decided that I just can’t do it. I can’t understand how anyone can be so close minded, so in turn I close my mind to their lack of understanding. I requested that we do one of those “let’s agree to disagree” and “there is no point in going on any further because there is nothing that hasn’t been said before so we probably should not reply to each other anymore” and he responds with a “I’m replying to you! Nyah nyah nyah! What are you going to do now??”
I’m not taking potshots at liberals. I’m taking potshots at the left (and at the right). The post I responded to is a perfect example of polarizing, suggesting as it does that conservatives can’t read. Did you interpret that as a call to reconciliation and unity?
Because that’s not what I think. What I said was that sometimes — sometimes — it isn’t knowledge, but arrogance. Knowledge is no panacea. Many of history’s most horrible villains were quite intelligent. In fact, few were not.
