# The "conservatives" on this board have turned me liberal **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 28, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578 "2015-12-28T17:39:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/21 "2015-12-28T20:59:52Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Why would someone turn into a liberal/conservative based on their perception of the motivations of other people on their “side”, especially a limited subset on one MB? > > I tend to be skeptical of all such claims. But to the extent that there’s any validity to them, they’re probably just a socialization process. Nothing to be proud of, IOW. Because learning the motivations of others can leadvyou to challenge your own. If other people believe it for this reason, maybe you do, too, but don’t realize it. It’s often easier to see motivations in others, as you make up excuses for yourself. I remember figuring out that I held a lot of the opinions I decried as bigotry in others. I remember when I realized that my position on abortion did have something to do with punishing sex. The more conservative arguments I see, the more I wonder how I ever could have been one. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/22 "2015-12-28T21:16:30Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Yes, because one idiot speaks for 100% of every other conservative in the world. It has been my life-long dream to call the children of a President “chimps” and now that adaher has said it is ok I now finally can. How dare you spake unkindly of our leader, our thought provider and God, **adaher**. > > It is nice to know you chose sides. As I can now put you in the category of an “retard” with the other retards because just like **BigT** I like to keep tabs on you people. Right, remember this! Not all conservatives are like **adahar**! Some of them are like **Drunky**. How that’s an improvement is left as an exercise to the reader. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/23 "2015-12-28T21:24:58Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Why would someone turn into a liberal/conservative based on their perception of the motivations of other people on their “side”, especially a limited subset on one MB? My problem isn’t so much the motivations as the arguments. I think there are good cases to be made for some (allegedly) conservative ideas, like lowering the federal budget deficit; I’ve just never noticed any conservatives actually making them. It’s either no big deal, or such a crisis that they shut down the government (or was the shutdown just a bargaining chip to get rid of Obamacare, I can’t remember). My own view of political discourse is that it’s become akin to trench warfare in WWI. Sides are dug in so deeply to their current positions that no power in the political world can shift them. I’ve been hoping for some new issue to arise that will come as a surprise, the parties won’t have their turf staked out yet, shake things up a bit. I thought the 2000 election might be just the thing. Surely both sides can agree that we want the most accurate election possible; there can’t be a partisan way to count votes, can there? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/24 "2015-12-28T21:35:49Z")
For the ridiculously small bit that it’s worth, there are several conservatives here that are IMO worth talking with: -Bone -Bricker -Martin Hyde (not to be confused with magellan or martini\_enfield, although I constantly do, to the point that martin may not even be the dude I’m thinking of, it might be martini, or even someone I’m forgetting except that their conservative username begins with m, so my apologies whoever you are) -F-P seems to have gotten a lot more reasonable to me in the past few months, although maybe that’s just because I haven’t butted heads with him over something really IMO dumb in the last few months -a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting. Yeah, there are a lot of Clothahumps and billfishes and Shodans out there being poisonously dumb, and then there are the adahers and ITRs spreading very earnest ignorance. But I appreciate the SD as a place I can sincerely and respectfully discuss politics with people I disagree with. ---
**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:** [December 28, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/25 "2015-12-28T21:41:06Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Before I found this place, I was very happy as a Kinda-Libertarian (more about why they’re all “kinda” later). Raised by a military dad and a mom that was a Goldwater Girl, I voted for Nixon, and was pro-Reagan back in the day. > > At a staunchly Libertarian college, I met quite a few smart conservatives, who cared about their country and the level of discourse in it (like William F. Buckley). > > But the “conservatives” here are maddening. They will do or say anything to bolster their “side”, as if this is some sports event where, if you get a liberal mad, you win a point. Actually, they must feel like they’ll get 100 points if they can say “Nuh-uh, you too!”; their tu quoques are laughable > > And they have no shame, pretending not to understand basic tenets of civilization if they can “score a point”. Witness one of them puzzled as to why we can’t portray Malia and Sasha Obama as monkeys: > > Posts like this have really pulled back the curtain on the real motivations behind what the right-wing says and does. You love your privilege, your advantages, more than you love this country, and certainly more than 99% of the people in it. > > So, even though I grew up hating liberals, dammit, you jerks have pushed me into it. When you simplify politics to a single axis you are bound to be confused. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/26 "2015-12-28T21:41:22Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Right, remember this! Not all conservatives are like **adahar**! Some of them are like **Drunky**. > > How that’s an improvement is left as an exercise to the reader. One of them contributes nothing but brainless jabs, content-free idiocy, puerile jokes and laughable non-sequiturs, and the other is blue and drinks a lot. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/27 "2015-12-28T21:42:15Z")
Maybe LHOD and BigT can have a love child and the SDMB can have a second coming. PS Plastic Vegetable is probably 10 percent of the reason I come here. Even if he? is attacking you its comedy gold I tells ya. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/28 "2015-12-28T21:47:56Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Maybe LHOD and BigT can have a love child and the SDMB can have a second coming. HA! I’d like to see 'em _try_! Oh, God… no, wait… ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/29 "2015-12-28T21:49:31Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > For the ridiculously small bit that it’s worth, there are several conservatives here that are IMO worth talking with: > -Bone I’m more of a libertarian. Sheesh! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/30 "2015-12-28T21:49:45Z")
See, what did I tell ya? My money on is LHOD being the bottom. We will let Czarcasm have sloppy seconds. I guess 23and me will have to do the genetic testing. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/31 "2015-12-28T21:51:36Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Maybe LHOD and BigT can have a love child and the SDMB can have a second coming. Exactly–billfish falls in the category of “conservatives who spend too much time thinking about you having sex and it’s creepy as shit.” > [@Bone](#): > > I’m more of a libertarian. Sheesh! 😛 Point being, libertarian conservatives pretty much **are** the reasonable wing of conservatism these days :). ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/32 "2015-12-28T21:51:41Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > For the ridiculously small bit that it’s worth, there are several conservatives here that are IMO worth talking with: > -Bone > -Bricker > -Martin Hyde (not to be confused with magellan or martini\_enfield, although I constantly do, to the point that martin may not even be the dude I’m thinking of, it might be martini, or even someone I’m forgetting except that their conservative username begins with m, so my apologies whoever you are) > -F-P seems to have gotten a lot more reasonable to me in the past few months, although maybe that’s just because I haven’t butted heads with him over something really IMO dumb in the last few months > -a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting. > > Yeah, there are a lot of Clothahumps and billfishes and Shodans out there being poisonously dumb, and then there are the adahers and ITRs spreading very earnest ignorance. But I appreciate the SD as a place I can sincerely and respectfully discuss politics with people I disagree with. I love all the Doper conservatives that seem to be giving a sincere effort rather than trolling, even when I disagree harshly. The only ones I don’t like (or the only times I don’t like them) is when they are obviously giving no effort (or only putting effort into trolling). It’s also very frustrating when they refuse to accept that I actually believe what I post, but I assume it’s just hard for some people to get into the heads of others, and imagine that there really are different ways to think about some things, so I try not to hold it against them. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/33 "2015-12-28T21:52:31Z")
> [@digs](#): > > So, even though I grew up hating liberals, dammit, you jerks have pushed me into it. We reluctantly accept you. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/34 "2015-12-28T21:55:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > . It’s also very frustrating when they refuse to accept that I actually believe what I post, but I assume it’s just hard for some people to get into the heads of others, and imagine that there really are different ways to think about some things, so I try not to hold it against them. Jesus. That’s so fucking sanctimonious that it would make BigT blush. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/35 "2015-12-28T21:56:30Z")
As to the thread - a principled position that can be swayed by dismay with others who share your beliefs are not truly principled positions. I support free speech. Wait, so does Fred Phelps. If Phelps’s position can sway my support, did I ever support free speech in principle? Those positions that can be flipped are conveniences, not principles. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/36 "2015-12-28T22:01:38Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > As to the thread - a principled position that can be swayed by dismay with others who share your beliefs are not truly principled positions. > > I support free speech. Wait, so does Fred Phelps. If Phelps’s position can sway my support, did I ever support free speech in principle? Those positions that can be flipped are conveniences, not principles. And that’s a fair point as well. HOWEVER, I know that the behavior of many radicals, way back in the mid-nineties, helped push me away from radical (read: socialist anarchist) politics. From watching people celebrate mass arrests as victory, to hearing people talk earnestly about how they planned to execute bankers and their families after the revolution, to listening to people glorify political graffiti as a strike against capitalism, to seeing people smash a television in a crowded downtown intersection and think they’d accomplished something–over time I became convinced that the radical leftist movement contained too many people who were lethal to any sort of success that I’d want to be part of. The laudable goals of radical leftism, I became convinced, were unattainable. Pushed me right toward the center, it did, turned me into the Bernie-Sanders-loving moderate you see before you today :). ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/37 "2015-12-28T22:07:45Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Jesus. > > That’s so fucking sanctimonious that it would make BigT blush. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen very often. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/38 "2015-12-28T22:16:19Z")
Sorry I’ve been MIA–just made it back here from a marathon shoveling-out-the-elderly-neighbors workout… Good point, Happy L. (post 2): It was this board _and_ my fellow Libertarians _and_ the gun lobby, _and_ the Cheney administration, _and_ the current GOP candidates… My political slide has been complex, and the result of many factors. Details available, but I’d have to wax spiritual as well as philosophical, and I’m not sure anybody wants that… > [@octopus](#): > > When you simplify politics to a single axis you are bound to be confused. Amen. And may I say it’s working. Hmm, I suppose I could have posted [QUOTE=me, this morning, in a parallel universe] The "conservatives’ on this board have pushed me into seeing both sides of many issues… Damn you to hell! [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/39 "2015-12-28T22:20:49Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > See, what did I tell ya? > > My money on is LHOD being the bottom. > > We will let Czarcasm have sloppy seconds. > > I guess 23and me will have to do the genetic testing. You are aware that it is posts just like this one that make the OP’s point, aren’t you? A liberal couldn’t have written a parody post and made you look any worse than you have just made yourself look here. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578/40 "2015-12-28T22:28:49Z")
And the OP has another point: **This is now officially a No Speculating About Sex Between Posters thread.** Because we’re pretty sure some of those involved are just not that good at it… (Well, I can think of one who’s a _leeetle_ too drunky…) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservatives-on-this-board-have-turned-me-liberal/741578.md?page=3)