I was so excited…being a reader of the Straight Dope for many years, I finally discovered the message boards about 2.3 years ago. I have read hundreds of hours of debate and cultural interest and just smart stuff…it was the first time I’d seen such good debate since my mom died…
But you guys are so so far left, you see everything justtotheright as a crazy Buchanan love fest. I hate it, since I have opinions that disagree. When I first started coming around here, I was introduced to the “Bush Doctrine” where within 8 posts, someone would find a way to blame GHWB. No debate, no fact checking - just knee-jerk slams against the (then) president.
It’s too bad - I’ve been intimated from participating in many debates on this board, since I know my position will be unpopular and ridiculed.
I came to this board as a pretty hard-right financial/political and hard left social member of society - I read many things that opened my mind and heart. It pains me to see that so many of you seem unwilling to recognize your one-mindedness.
In any case, Og-speed…but keep in your heart and mind that your opinions may not be the be all to end all…there are more things in Heaven and Earth, etc., etc…
I’m a Canadian moderate, which I know makes me practically a communist in the eyes of Rush and Anne and all, and I’d like to see a reasoned rightish viewpoint.
I’m not a left-winger. I don’t think of myself as a right-winger either. I have ideas that fit with both sides but I don’t place myself in one camp or the other. I think if you actually read carefully you’ll find that many others here are in the same boat.
Liberals and conservatives care about different things. Generally speaking, what is important to you is largely unimportant to the right, and what is important to the right is unimportant to you. This is why each side finds the other’s thinking to be lacking in reason. One could go to any number of conservative boards and find that no one there thinks any liberal point of view is logical or reasoned. As a matter of fact this POV is Rush Limbaugh’s bread and butter.
Each side favors things that solve some problems and create others. Neither side is completely right and neither side is completely wrong. In fact, I’d say that the issue of who’s right and who’s wrong is split pretty much evenly. “Right” and “wrong” are human constructs anyway and they are subjectively defined. There is no true right or wrong - or reason or lack of reason - to either side other than what they claim to be the case.
Having said that, I have come to wish very strongly - despite the fact that such a solution would be completely unworkable - that the U.S. could somehow split in two and let each faction have their own country. Then we could rise or fall based on the true viability of our own ideology and not be continually annoyed by the nonsense being imposed upon us by other side.
And to the OP, hang in there. This is only a message board. No harm is going to come to you by participating from a rightish position, and there is one great benefit to being a rightie on this board: there is no limit to the things you can discuss or argue about. One needs never be bored if they are a rightie on the Straight Dope.
Think you’re painting with a mighty broad brush. The board leans left but there’s plenty of folks that don’t identify left or right, but just what they believe. My tax bracket should be republican, and I’d pretty willingly vote for anyone that actually is fiscally responsible, has a decent foreign policy and agrees to not impose on my life very much. And yes, I think that taxes should be flat but would agree to progressive taxes if that results in universal healthcare (and I think the *actual *regressive taxes we have is just not right
And there are a few self-defined right-wing thinkers* here, like Bricker, Scylla, and Sam Stone, who, while wrong**, are wonderful, valued posters and do their best to keep us honest in our thinking around here. Stick around, we need your varied viewpoints. You say you saw reasoned debates- presumably, that means debates that weren’t one-sided.
*I think that’s a fair characterization. Correct me if it’s not.
**Love you guys! Keep arguing! We’ll debate over a beer sometime if we both make it to the same Dopefest!
What’s right and left to you depends where you start from.
What do you call a politician who believes in:
a National Health System
rigid gun control (e.g. guns not allowed for home defence; unarmed beat police)
abortion
alternative sources of energy (e.g. wind + wave)
evolution
Round here, we call him David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party. The official **right-wing **opposition party.
(Every other popular party in Parliament is to the left of the Conservatives.)
So your solution to this conundrum is to make a post ridiculing the positions of others who at least had the guts to post what they think? A good debate isn’t about right and left, it’s about the merits of the argument and how well you can defend it from dissenting opinions.
I get that you are nervous about the possibility of a pile-on, but I don’t see what you think you are achieving with your OP.
No disrespect intended, but what on earth makes you think that you represent an objective marker on the political spectrum? Being far left of you doesn’t necessarily mean one is actually far left. Indeed, based on your OP it seems most people would be far left of you.
But the ridicule is half the fun! Seriously, it’s only a problem if you take it seriously and don’t give as good as you get
As someone well to the left, let me express my complete agreement in principle with the first two and last paragraphs of this post. And while I know SA is indulging in a little hyperbole in paragraph #3, I find that rational compromise on issues that are not stick-to-your-guns matterx of principle, combined with a willingness to see the other guy’s point of view, is a vastly underrated virtue.
Whiny shitheads like the OP crack me up. If you posted a thread in GD along the lines of " I feel a reduction in capitol gains tax and incentive for non dividend investment strategies would be beneficial here’s why…" you would get a reasonable debate. But what do we get from local conservodrones?
Bricker: Here is some nutjob who may have voted for a democrat at some point who did something stupid why haven’t any of you so called liberals pulled your hair out and ripped your clothes?
Shodan: [Drive-by one liner]Liberals are big poopyheads…
Clothahump: Liberals grunt grunt suxxors…
Starving Artist: [wall o text] things were better when the Beave was in charge…
All the rest: Liberals are stupid.
If all you want to do is say liberals suck you probably will get your ass handed to you but if you want to discuss conservative ideas other than “Liberals are stupid” you can certainly do it here.
We all draw a personal line defining Liberal and Conservative. I laugh when people talk about the liberal media. The mainstream press is just an extension of industry and the government. They get less responsible and weaker every year. They sit on stories until it is way too late. They all bought the Iraq war. They all bought the financial lies that Wall Street and the Banks offered ,while the financial system crumbled. I believe they knew better, but do not have the guts to stand up to the power in America.
I think our system will remain broken until we publicly finance elections. As long as the rich and powerful corporations are paying for elections they will distort our economy into their own personal piggy bank. Lobbyists are just drug pushers and the drug is money.
I find this board leaning well to the right.
Doesn’t make him wrong, though. Of course, he is wrong, as the SDMB does have a bit of a liberal tilt, but being a dumbass does not per se make him wrong.
I believe that you will get a reasonable, good faith debate on these boards no matter what your position. The trick is to recognize that this is a public forum, and not every response is going to be a reasoned, shiny pearl of wisdom. If you expect all responses to be legitimate debate, you will always be disappointed: the world at large is full of jerks, and this board is no exception.
So you need to be selective about who or what is worth responding to, and when not to bother. But typically there will be a few posters who either think you are wrong and have a genuine desire to communicate their point of view, or agree with you and are willing to reinforce your position, or who are interested in a constructive debate regardless of their own position (devil’s advocate types who enjoy the phrase “but what if?”). In the GD threads where these are the posters that are engaged the thread is extremely interesting.
You say you’ve ready many things that have opened your heart and minds. Well, it seems to me you must have seen examples of what I am talking about, otherwise this would not have happened. The key is not to be discouraged by the board equivalent of the crazy disheveled guy yelling to himself on the subway. These people will always exist when you are out in public.
