So does the board skew left?

The BBQ Pit
161

Of those three things, the equation of Islam and terrorism gets far too much play here (I don’t understand why that bit of hate speech is warmly tolerated by the administration) but I’ve certainly never seen the other two ideas. Link to 'em, babycakes. Or just, you know, continue making shit up.

You know, rjung, if all you care about is the truth, well, doesn’t the truth come out in open debate? Doesn’t reasoned discussion usually vindicate the person who was right all along? So when the actions of people like you prevent that debate by making folks like Bricker or Sam Stone sigh and ignore you instead of discussing things with you, all you’re doing is making it harder for the truth to get out.

That is, if that were your goal. I must keep in mind the fact that you explicitly told me it wasn’t.

Thank you for reminding us, lest we forget, that a good number of conservatives really are just morons who are full of shit. It’s not a trait confined strictly to leftist ideologues. Trying to fill the gap left by milroyj, eh Martin Hyde?

162

I should note, of course, that’s it’s not the active political conservatives who do this.

163

Well, not saying that Islam=terrorism, but I do think it’s a legitimately debatable point that sects which teach violence as an answer to problems will end up producing violence as a result of perceived problems. But maybe I’m reading too much into your statement. Anybody who states that all Muslims are terrorists would obviously be guilty of hate speach and should be bounced outa here.

164

Im don’t have time to read all the posts but here’s my 2 cents.

One of the reasons I love SDMB and became a member is because of the caliber of the other members and the quality of the discussions. I almost always learn something and I rarely see an irrational cuss fest. I haven’t spent much time in the political threads but for the record, I want to have an intelligent well expressed contrary opinion. Thats why I’m here. I quickly left other boards that couldn’t provide that. I have little patience with emotional name calling.

I have discussions with a conservative republican frind of mine {I’m independant moderate} and we discuss the issues more than the politicians. Redundant Bush bashing seems pretty useless. I want to hear why people support Bush because frankly I can’t quite understand it. I also think the Democrats have failed miserably in offering a viable alternative. Rational communiation which includes really listening to others opinions, is what we need more of, not less. So conservatives, please stick around.

165

Your OP is whiny crap and this comment is garbage, for the reasons Giraffe has already given. It diminishes my respect for you that you would make it.

I just don’t see the level of bad behaviour on the part of notorious lefties that you and others are whining about.

People refer to “shrill voices of the left”. What does shrill mean, exactly? I don’t think I’ve seen a solid definition, and it seems to be used to mean simply “voices who are persistently throwing fact and reason as to why I’m wrong into my face and refusing to drop it”.

Deal.

I know others have said it better ('luci for one) but the reason for this whole “the boards are dominated by lefties at the moment” meme is pretty easy to fathom.

The prominent face of the conservative movement at the moment is the US Govt administration lead by Bush, an administration which appears comfortable with encouraging, not fighting, ignorance. You may see that as simply a statement of my own bias, but it is a view that many moderate right leaning persons agree with.

A primary cultural activity on these boards is raising instances of ignorance in public life and ridiculing them.

Put those things together and what do you have?

1/ Many instances of lefties bringing up instances of US administration activity based on ignorance

2/ Lefties outnumbering righties in subsequent debate because the moderate conservatives aren’t about to defend ignorance, even if the putative leaders of their movement have no such qualms.

3/ Those righties whose sense of tribe will not let them disown Their Leaders fighting a losing battle, getting frustrated and turning whiney because (see 1/) they are trying to defend ignorance in a forum where ignorance is not respected.

Look at it another way: the whingers say lefties are (but did not used to be) out of control on these boards and dominating debate. How is that possible? Why is it that on these boards, where trying to maintain a counter factual, counter logical position gets you decimated, lefties are currently dominating debate?

The situation that creates this position is clear to me, and it is not a situation of lefties’ making.

166

A few points here:

  • I’m not sure what your political perspective really is. You claim to be “socialist”, and to share your perspective with those you label the “Lefty Lunatic Fringe”, yet it somehow galls you that people criticize Bush. I find that rather contradictory and perplexing. Perhaps you really, really are a member of the “Socialists for Dubya”. I don’t know, and, truthfully, I coulnd’t give a rat’s ass how you describe yourself.

  • It’s important to note that the post you described as “Gorj Bush is teh st00pid!”, i.e. this one:

was recognized by the OP of that thread (eventually) and by Airman Doors, USAF as not being a hijack.

That was you, whining about something that you thought was a hijack by rjung, even though the principal people involved didn’t.

  • I note that in this current thread, you’re also whining and asking for Moderator action. You want the Pubbies to have their voice, and you want to silence their opponents through Moderator action.

  • Fucko off.

167

Well, I seriously don’t think that yet another pitting is going to cause someone to change the way that they post.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a solution any more than you do. Perhaps giving out STRONG warnings to the ones that do nothing but post about how much they hate Bush or how much they hate the “loony left” would be a nice start.

Yeah, I know, but it does bug the living shit out of me that I was offline for 15 months and the SAME posters are acting the SAME as they did back before I went offline. I wish there was some easy solution, unfortunately, I doubt that there is.

168

I haven’t done a survey and neither have you, but I have grave doubts. I can think of several moderate conservatives who have stated that they did not vote for Bush, think he’s a jerk, don’t support the war in Iraq, are vehemently against fundie influence on government etc. And for every moderate conservative upfront and honest enough to say that, there’s probably a good few more who feel that way but don’t feel able to publicly denounce the putative leader.

Those folks are not going to jump into a thread and defend the current US administration’s actions, on the above topics (and they’re the big topics). And it has nothing to do with their feelings about the futility of arguing with idiots.

169

I think you need to ponder these two comments, then revisit your OP.

170

The powers of the “shrill left” are truly amazing. Despite the fact that they are in GD where they can’t use insults, despite the fact they are armed merely with facts and logic as you (I assume you would say) are also, you are decisively driven off.

What conclusion can be drawn, Watson? What is going on here? What devillry are these crazy lefties drawing upon? Where can I get some?

There is a scary lack of linking to specific instances of loony lefties wielding their Amazing and Terrible Powers. Should a conclusion be drawn?

171

Comment of the thread.

172

Does this mean we’re *not * going to get links to the Britney Spears slavegirl porn?

173

Bolding is mine.

This is the sort of thing that really gets annoying, fast. In one sentence, you have labeled people as Commies (is that still the secret code word for traitor?), and once again played the Mandate card (it was not a landslide by any stretch). It’s like a broken record. As for alienating America, which party has sided with the likes of Robertson, Falwell, Phelps, etc (Dominionists and fanatics)? We are not the ones who deliberately polarized the country. “We” are not the ones applying the “traitor” label to anyone who might be in the way. There are true conservatives here. Airman Doors is one. I respect him. He is conservative, but is not an unreasoning party hack. He is a thinking conservative. There are many others, such as Starving Artist. If anything, conservatism as been hijacked by people who have no clue what it really means, by those who put The Party ahead of the country (just like the real Communists did to Russia).

Conservatism means a careful and deliberate approach to change. It means weighing the consequences before making or changing law. Conservatism means believing in minimal government interference in peoples private lives and business. If anything, the curent administration is extreme rabid liberal, making sweeping changes with no idea how they will pan out (Patriot Act, Social Security overhaul, National Security Personnel System, national ID cards, etc).

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I know what you mean, but “extreme rabid liberal” ain’t the correct term. “Radical right wing extremist” is what you’re looking for.

175

I don’t get it either. I’ve apparently missed something very significant in the life of Evil Captor.

176

I German board that I am frequenting occasionally uses a rating system. Posters can give positive or negative feedback points (assigned to a certain post, and with an option for stating what you liked) to other posters and the amount of positive or negative feedback you’ve received is displayed as a green or red gauge in the sidebar of each of your posts.

It works very well and is very popular.

177

It doesn’t matter what way the board skews.

What matters is how people act. There is a high level of anger with regards to the war etc. Some posters can’t accept that others approve of the decisions made with all the things we’ve seen over the last few years.

There is without question some people that just won’t let it go. They bring up their shite in almost every thread they appear in. It becomes very boring indeed.

However, I remember after 9/11 and in the run up to the war. The right wing posters were in the ascendancy. A lot of them heaped dogs abuse on people that didn’t agree with them. Words like ‘traitor’ and ‘terrorist supporter’ were used. Some of the right wing posters that have received praise in this thread very superior judgmental fucks during the run up to the war. Not so much anymore. Now they call for respect and tolerance of different views. Whatever.

Swings and roundabouts IMO. Deal with it or leave. If a poster is just posting about the same shit and derailing threads, report them and move on.

If we all agreed this board would be very boring indeed.

178

I have a couple of thoughts, but first a quote from a greatly unappreciated dead American: “The enemy is not conservatism. The enemy is not liberalism. The enemy is bullshit.” – Lars Erik-Nelson. If everyone here was as willing to decry factual wrongness (or absence) as they were ideological wrongness (or fuzziness), then this debate would disappear. If posters would hammer stupid posts that support them as assiduously as any post that disagrees, we would be a lot closer to fighting ignorance than we claim to be, and the folks who prefer insult to insight would shortly vanish as well. We’d be the poorer for colorful invective, but I think we’d get by. So here are the thoughts:

  1. “Left” and “Right” are no longer useful terms, partly because of the tendency to measure everyone by yourself and partly because current events create new areas of disagreement faster than ideology can keep up (what disinterested alien would, for example, have predicted that Democrats * would have led the fight for equal rights for Black Americans, Women, Gays, and then drawn the line at unborn but viable children, and draw more lines between protecting the semi-democratic filibuster in 2005 and railing against it when it was their worst enemy in 1968 and 1998, or be vehemently on one side of the plethora of issues that is laughably called “states’ rights” in one decade and have serious discussions about the constitutionality of secession in another?), but mostly because politics have become, unloveably, a package deal. It is still theoretically possible, but politically untenable, for someone to support lightly-regulated gun ownership, support national health insurance, approve of Saddam Hussein’s ouster and be outraged over the current administration’s inability to either protect the military or control it. These are the truly dispossessed of their democratic birthright, because they have no hope of consolation from either side of the debate. Whether you like it or not, nobody agrees with you on everything*, and the closer you get to what you personally want, the more people (who used to be on your side) are sniping at you.

  2. Most people are not trained debaters, which is only a problem because those who are generally abuse their training anyway. There are far too many “debates” that may start out about the question “who’s right?” but devolve into arguments about the totally unrelated and uninteresting question, “who’s smarter?”, which never seem to involve the actual topic.

  3. Message boards are all about getting attention. Hell, that’s why I joined up – sometimes I say something funny and I’d rather somebody else noticed it and said something nice about me than just mutter it to myself. Sometimes the quickest way of getting attention is to say something memorable and content-free, rather than constrain a post to the drier facts and accepted wisdom.

  4. I’ve been rude to other posters before, and I’ll even admit that I have typed things I might not have said aloud had I been in the actual presence of the person I was addressing. This is cowardly, no question about it. A pseudonymous message board does in some ways encourage bad behavior, and everybody gets to decide what crosses the line. The thing is, nobody gets to be the final judge, except the moderators, and they seem to exercise more than their share of restraint.

  5. This just seems sensible – do not argue that you’re right because you’re in the majority and that you’re persecuted because you’re in the minority. Pick a side, formulate an argument, and defend it. If this were a prerequisite for joining a debate, the idiotic posts both sides are complaining about would soon vanish.

179

There was some thread a while ago in which photoshopped images were offered on ebay and we were invited to evaluate them.

180

Does thisparticular gate swing both ways?