Some time ago I asked for recommendations for well-written polite left-wing blogs to balance the right-wing ones I was reading and really appreciated the results.
Now I’m asking for the reverse: the SDMB is pretty left-wing and I’m looking for its rightish-wing equivalent. I’ve lurked on Free Republic from time to time and been most disappointed with the quality of the respondents, and the format bites. I’m not touching St**frnt with a bargepole (one visit was enough). I suppose I’m looking for something that is to Free Republic what the SDMB is to Daily Kos.
It’s very possible that one just hasn’t formed yet. I doubt the SDMB had any intention of becoming a left-leaning board politically, it just ended up that way. And the SDMB is pretty unique in the kind of people it draws, so it could just be luck that it ended up with decent political debate instead of the status quo ranting and raving.
I’m libertarian-leaning conservative, and the SDMB hasn’t driven me away. I find that while conservatives are in the minority here, they usually aren’t caricatured as complete mongoloids by the majority. The only group I think would find a hard time here are the strict social conservatives, but I’m not sure what could be done to improve that as most social conservatives are fairly rigid in what they believe, which makes debate more difficult.
I think it’s probably a pretty much inevitable outcome of the moderated, tempered, community-based ethic here - in the same way that Wikipedia has emerged with (what appears to Americans as) liberal leanings - actually, it’s more a reflection of centrist views in terms of world politics - likewise, the SDMB isn’t liberal, it contains a reasonably broad spectrum of views centred roughly around a point that is - yes - to the left of the right wing, but that’s because the centre lies in that direction.
Trying to make it come out any other way is probably not going to work - that’s one of the reasons Conservapedia is such a pile of shit - not specifically because of the chosen politics, but because of the bias and censorship applied in order to maintain those chosen politics - the same thing could happen (and probably has) with communities that try to maintain an emphasis on other ideologies
I disagree. I find that the SDMB is pretty well left of centre. I do not see a ‘reasonably broad spectrum of views’. For instance, I’d be very surprised if any of the members from the U.K. - other than FRDE - voted Conservative (I didn’t) on policy grounds. So just as before, I’m looking for something to balance it so I get a better overall picture.
I would like to add that when you say ‘the SDMB is pretty well left of centre’, it depends on what you mean by the centre!
For example, as a European I would describe ‘the centre’ as including:
National Health Service
gun control
religion not a political factor
‘Left of centre’ would include:
State nationalisation
Communist parties
I don’t think this is the definition used in the US.
Also in the UK, the Conservatives still have associations with Thatcher, including monetarism, poll tax and war-mongering. Labour has moved to the centre.
If we can agree that this is indeed a ‘left leaning’ messageboard, and origionally it is/was really infact just a board for asking intelligent questions…what does that say about conservatives?
E-mail me…(it’s in my profile). Asking the folks here for an honest opinion about a conservative board is like asking them who would be their choice for a conservative, Republican president. You won’t get a straight answer, and if/when you do, you can be pretty sure their choice will be someone well to the left of Reagan…
Quartz, there are probably more political conservatives on SDMB that you would think. We just tend to have full time jobs and don’t post 200 times a day.
Oh, maybe. It’s just that I keep seeing people complaining about things like ‘liberal bias’ as if their conservative views would be destroyed by it or something.
