# Liberal left used to be the tough guys **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 23, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778 "2016-11-23T00:55:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/22 "2016-11-23T05:37:41Z")
Two words: identity politics. It’s like, instead of coming together, it’s like, if you don’t have SOME form of minority cred or whatever, you can’t speak for the little guy. Or something. It’s almost like segregation, but people are CHOOSING segregation now. It’s despressing. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/23 "2016-11-23T05:49:11Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > It probably wasn’t like this, but this is how I remember it in my hazy montage of the 90s. > Liberals, atheists, progressives, whateverthefuck…They were the cool kids. I wanted to be like them. > > I was a corny christian as a kid. The type to love christmas ever so much, mum! Then, as a rebellious teen, I threw off white jesus and embraced Egyptian (don’t ask) gods and black gods and, quite frankly, a ton of misinformation, but it was better than that jesus nonsense. > > But then something big happened! I discovered a group of people who didn’t believe in god at all! They believed in evidence, and if you didn’t have enough to support your claim, motherfucker, FUCK YOU! They believed in reading and knowledge and facts and they would BUST YO ASS in a debate and laugh at your steaming entrails while polishing their claws. Because fuck you if you insist on being willfully ignorant. > > They believed in taking no shorts, pullin’ no punches, giving it straight up with no chaser. Science is still true, whether you like it or not, son! > > George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor. > > I wanted in on this. I remember arguing with some people of a little liberal ass group and getting WAXED! It was an argument about homosexuality, and I got schooled and had my whole world view quake as I learned I had no logical and rational reason for judging anyone’s sexuality. Ah, yess, that shot of heroin was what I am ever chasing! New info to bust through your whole outlook! > > Yeah, boy, I wanted to run with these cool kids. > > But the thing I thought was dopest about them…they understood that even in areas where conservatives and christians had the upper hands…we could still hit em where it hurts. In the feels. Because it didn’t take any government power or systems of oppression to fuck up somebody’s emotions. You could do that with NO REAL POWER AT ALL, assuming your “victim” gave you that power willingly. It’s genius. > > It was like, “Yeah, you elite rich boys have your entire boot in our asses, but we are still having a good time, and laughing at you and you cry babies can’t fucking deal with it.” > > I mean, we didn’t kid ourselves. The rich elite still run the show. But we have our freedom of expression and quick wit and fuck it, we just are the cool kids. We could hurt their feelings and make them miserable and they cried and cried about it. It was awesome. Because deep down, we knew. We always knew that if it ever came right down to it…If the elite ever fell and the people got a fair shot in this damn society…we would do it through exchanging ideas. And we would need all the language we got. We could never do it through editing ourselves. > > WHEN DID THIS CHANGE?? > > I feel like the right (alt-right?) STOLE our shit!!! Now they are strutting around like THEY are the cool kids who understand that it isn’t smart to quash language and ideas under the guise of being “sensitive”. > > It’s like I blinked and turned around and the liberal left had all this crying victim shit happening. And I don’t mean the government jackboots on our necks. I’m all about crying at that shit. No, I mean, crying because Milo whoethehellever called us some names. WHO GIVES A FUCK? Why are we letting him fucking win with that shit? > > Look. I am open to the idea that I’m all the off and lost in how I am looking at this. Because I’ve been so ENTIRELY wrong about so very much that nothing shocks me anymore. But this seems to be a huge shift in how we were the smart ones who knew how to not let silly shit get us going to now we are the easy targets that they just float a meme about and we all start wailing that they won’t stop being mean. > > If none of this makes any sense, it’s because I’ve been in a handful of facebook groups long enough to make me worry about an echo chamber. So disregard if you don’t relate to where I’m coming from. > > But if you DO feel me…do you agree at all? Good post. The answer is political correctness happened. And political correctness is not about being nice. It’s about controlling language and by extension thought. It’s totalitarian and oppressive. Whining about language and symbols is the new tactic of the left. Why do you think even advocating free speech is sometimes attacked as bigoted, privileged, racist etc by the left? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/24 "2016-11-23T05:55:14Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Honey CHILE I ran to facebook to get away from yall. > > Turns out, maybe I’m really running from my damn self. Don’t that always be the way? What part of the South are you from? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/25 "2016-11-23T05:59:43Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Many on the left traded ideals for empathy (unless you happen to be blue collar republican, then the ideals were traded for hate). > > \ > > The first is that, after a while, people who disagree with a small part of the policies put forth are instantly attacked. Not fully behind abortion? Have some moral qualms about it? Woman hater! Think border security is important and illegal immigration is not ok? Racist! > > And so on. > > So those people either drop out or vote for someone who isn’t calling them deplorable. Interesting how you seem to be unaware of the connection between those two excerpts. > [@Sebquirin](#): > > Progressive ideas aren’t supposed to be cool, or appealing at all. They just need to exist, and to provide a moral infrastructure for legal and social mechanisms by which the oppressed and distressed can fight back without having to have a truck or a gun or big muscles. Suppose your ideas allow you to attack your opponents in ways that, if you are attacked in the exact same way, you will condemn. Then you have ZERO moral infrastructure or whatever fine-sounding BS you expound. That’s why Trump was elected. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/26 "2016-11-23T08:04:18Z")
Wait…WHY was Trump elected, now? ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/27 "2016-11-23T08:34:29Z")
To the OP, I think you are conflating values of intellectual honesty, forthrightness, strength of character and rationality with political orientations. There are left leaning people who hold those values and there are right leaning people who also hold those values. The same goes for intolerance to dissent, authoritarianism and the manipulation of empathy for political purposes, it’s not a Left thing, it’s not a Right thing, it’s a Human thing and people who think are above such things by choosing a side are only fooling themselves. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/28 "2016-11-23T08:34:53Z")
I blame Political Correctness. When it first reared its head, where we over-corrected respect and consideration for others into a ridiculous extreme, it was immediately the subject of ridicule. Then it fell into an equilibrium and stopped being a buzzword for a while, and we kind of continued on with our lives with a new sensitivity. Meanwhile, bubbling under, the other extreme was still resentful of this “respect” and “consideration” which they sneered at with disgust. And the overly-sensitive, the helicopter parents, the hippy dippy “nice” people, were nothing but a floppy cotton-wool basket of weakness, with no backbone, whose principles were without strong foundations or direction. Complacency. There’s a middle ground. I would like to think that’s where I am. I have principles, I try to back them up with strong motivations and facts. I have consideration and respect for others, though not blindly, as I reconsider my stance when new points of view are presented to me. The extreme ends should be the rare outliers, not the majority. We have a divisive world right now, and it’s the extreme ends that are dominating. It’s the strong and angry versus the meek and ineffectual. The middle ground may be boring and safe, but it should be where the majority of us should be. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/29 "2016-11-23T11:09:37Z")
I hear you, but … since when have values been about being part of the “cool kids”? It’s about what you’ve thought through carefully, on your own, about what you think and believe and can defend, and are ready to stand up for whether it’s cool or not. I know that’s not overly fair; I too was influenced by people I admired, as I developed my personal set of values. But at the end of the day, it was the way certain ideas resonated that mattered, not who was expressing them. (Plus, we’re still cool 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/30 "2016-11-23T12:50:27Z")
Thinking as a geographer…perhaps in part it’s because, in the 1960s-1990s, the actions and attitudes lauded by the OP took place in the BIG CITIES, where an aggressive approach tends to be already part of the cultural mindset. That battle was won (more or less). Then, in the 21st century, we move on to the suburbs, smaller towns and cities, and rural areas. Here, the vibe just tends to be “nicer” (or perhaps “weaker,” from the perspective of the OP’s goals, which I share). So, many liberals/progressives have had to adapt their strategies and styles – both in their own behavior, and in the more subtle behaviors they target in the ignorant (e.g., “microagressions,” which many progressives, to their credit, also catch _themselves_ doing). ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/31 "2016-11-23T13:16:58Z")
Wow, it’s interesting how perceptions are different. In my experience, the whiny, cry-babies of the internet are the men’s right/alt-right/nut-jobs types who seem to blubber about anything remotely deemed ‘peecee’ in society. In fact during the whole debate between DJT and HRC I couldn’t help, but see DJT as a [pouting, cry baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV76npPvrVo). Clearly others seem to take **these same actions** as… strong? I can’t see why. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/32 "2016-11-23T13:29:09Z")
My knee jerk stereotypical mental image of a “tough liberal” was some blue collar union dude. Nowadays the stereotype of a liberal guy is a hipster or nu-male who makes money working on computers all day or making coffee. Conservatives are tough guys because they work in resource extraction, agriculture, logging, law enforcement, the military, and similar fields. A lot more people are fat or out of shape nowadays too, so the total number of “tough guys” may have decreased. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/33 "2016-11-23T13:30:54Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Clearly others seem to take **these same actions** as… strong? I can’t see why. It’s not a positive sense of strong. It’s aggression, and they currently have the upper hand so it’s bolstered by confidence. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/34 "2016-11-23T13:31:10Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Honey CHILE I ran to facebook to get away from yall. > > Turns out, maybe I’m really running from my damn self. Don’t that always be the way? Nice to see you stop by for a visit **Nzinga**. We are in a weird time. I think of it as The Great Rebalancing. Since the beginning of the U.S.'s history, the White Male POV has dominated culture. To but a big number on it, let’s say 95% of the mainstream media had been from that POV. Over the past few decades that has changed, and been accelerating recently. Now, let’s say that the White Male POV is maybe 75% and other POVs, Women, Race, LGBTQ, etc make up the rest. So proponents of the Old POV see their world slipping away and are deeply resistant to change, and scared and angry. The Other POV’s feel like it is inevitable that this Rebalancing of POV’s will continue. So the Old POV fans feel like a cornered, fighting minority when they still have a majority share of influence. And the other POVs think it’s all over except for getting the words and gestures right, when they really still have a minority share of influence. Add the economic shifts that have moved jobs out of communities, add a provocative bully to flick the nose of the Progressives, and you end up tossing a match onto the national conversation. Boy did we get that wrong. My $.02 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/35 "2016-11-23T13:37:48Z")
It goes both ways as someone else mentioned. The alt-Right/MRA types whine and bitch and moan because they are positioning themselves for a “but THEY started it” justification for when they do act out. As we have seen by their deeds they want to be rough and coarse in word and action without any adverse consequence and have the last word, and to claim that this is so because we recognize their rightness and strength and dare not challenge them. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/36 "2016-11-23T13:58:01Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > It probably wasn’t like this, but this is how I remember it in my hazy montage of the 90s. > > Liberals, atheists, progressives, whateverthefuck…They were the cool kids. I wanted to be like them. I went to high school in the late 80s. Mostly it was the stereotypical hick jocks and cheerleaders who were the “cool” kids. The Liberals, atheists and progressives were mostly AV and theater kids. But I don’t remember things being particularly political or as contentious as they are today. 90s I remember mostly a lot of ambivalence. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/38 "2016-11-23T15:34:22Z")
I don’t think there’s been a shift. It’s all in what you pay attention to and how you frame certain things. Like the election protesters - whiny sore losers or strong people sending a message to the opposing side? There are liberals who want safe spaces and conservatives who are offended by green Starbucks cups and people crying about things being too PC/not PC enough. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/39 "2016-11-23T16:00:32Z")
I was never a liberal back in my younger days, but I do know what the OP is talking about. Back in college and high school (1987-1996), the liberals tended to have a more… combative bent. The ideals were the same- equality, environmentalism, etc… but there was a definite attitude of being willing to deliberately stick it to the Man, so to speak, and the consequences were seen as badges of honor, even by knucklehead high school kids who were only barely aware politically. They’d get in trouble for protesting various things, etc… One of the people I respected most in college was a sort of professional protester/hippie, for lack of a better term. He would spend his summers doing various progressive things- spiking old-growth trees, protesting, getting thrown in jail, beat up by cops, etc… and would do his own brand of unapologetic proselytizing to the rest of us during the school year, along with whatever he could manage in our little university town. I didn’t (and still don’t) agree with everything he was pushing for, but I sure respected his willingness to put his money where his mouth is, and suffer for his principles. That takes a different sort of determination than just making blog posts, etc… Fast forward a couple of decades, and it does seem like the Left is much more concerned with making sure everyone’s safe, happy and not threatened in the least bit, rather than sticking it to the establishment. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/40 "2016-11-23T17:43:01Z")
You could always try to join the alt-right. The race and gender thing are a pretty big hurdle in your case, but there are other inroads. How hirsute would you say your neck is, left unattended? ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/41 "2016-11-23T18:03:53Z")
> [@Omega\_Glory](#): > > I don’t think there’s been a shift. It’s all in what you pay attention to and how you frame certain things. Like the election protesters - whiny sore losers or strong people sending a message to the opposing side? There are liberals who want safe spaces and conservatives who are offended by green Starbucks cups and people crying about things being too PC/not PC enough. I think there’s been a shift on targets, before it was worthwhile causes, like pressing environmental issues or flagrant social injustices, today the “progressive” left is busying itself with frikking pronouns. I have a theory, that what we see now (at least in developed countries) are allergic reactions, as in the theory that people who are brought up in sanitized environments have a greater chance of having autoimmune problems were a harmless stimulus triggers a reaction that is more damaging than the stimulus itself. The social immune system of the last generation or two hasn’t had the exercise it needed, and now kids flip the fuck out with triffles. For example, in years past Feminism had to deal with big hairy problems (:rolleyes:), getting the right to vote, getting the same rights as men, getting the same pay for the same work, etc… Significant issues that have been solved. Now a new generation comes along, they like the vicarious feeling of social struggle they get from seeing how the first and second generation of Feminism fought and want a piece of that action… but the targets are gone, yesterday they rose against being treated as property, today [they get a Nobel laureate fired for a deliberately misinterpreted joke](http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/23/sexist-scientist-tim-hunt-the-real-story). It’s like the story of Don Quixote, the man went insane reading fantastic knight tales of chivalry and adventure of days past, to the point he saw giants in windmills and charged at them; kind of funny but not to the miller that would had his means of livelihood ruined by a neurotic do-gooder that feels he has fought the good fight against evil as he rides away from the wreckage. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778/42 "2016-11-23T18:50:43Z")
Labour parties turned their backs on workers and the poor and became right wing, pushing a message of compromise (in spite of ideals) and “working together” to “get things done”. The right-wing became even more right-wing, digging their heels in harder and harder for every progressive social issue lost, while secretly cheering for increasingly right-wing economic policies underhandedly slipped under the table by the “left”. The actual left split into smaller parties, becoming more and more marginalized, exacerbated by more and more people on both sides enjoying more comfortable lives in general, taking it as proof the system worked, and thus, instead of voting their conscience, continued propping up the status quo to “work within the system”, promoting “gradual change”. Meanwhile the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, corruption thrived and rights gradually degraded into where we’re at now. Of course it’s more nuanced than this, but people have deluded themselves into believing there’s any difference between “legitimate” candidates other than _how_ right-wing they are, while being convinced voting for their convictions and ideals is equal to “throwing away your vote”. I’m happy to throw away my vote every election. At least it’s an honest vote. IMHO, from my scandinavian perspective. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-left-used-to-be-the-tough-guys/772778.md?page=3)