Well, I would point out that there are a lot of people here who identify as Democrats or liberal in general, but this is just accidental to anything they post. That is, just as one might encounter a board where the predominant tendency of the poster was Christian (or Jewish, or Hindu, or what have you), but that the content of the posts was hardly, if at all, informed by conventional Christian (or Jewish, Hindu, etc.) theology/ethics/history/critique; there is similarly no reason to suppose that just because this board leans Democratic/liberal, that the posts here should be taken as representative of the current state of Democratic/liberal thought.
Put another way, there are a lot of people here who identify as Democrats or liberals, who sometimes even posit that they are putting forth Democratic or liberal ideas — and they are totally deluded. They are merely shoehorning their own personal hobbyhorses under a rubric, even though actual Democratic or liberal policymakers or intellectuals would consider them complete non-starters.
Put still another way, just because people vote Democratic or liberal and support their politicians doesn’t mean they know the first thing about the principles that actually animate Democratic or liberal politics. There’s no qualifying test at the voting booth.
That’s irrelevant to the issue of why the American population is so heavily liberal, as demonstrated when Obama beat Romney in an SDMB poll by 91 to 12. This percentage was roughly reflected in SDMB commentary by Americans, for Americans, about the election.
And I never said differently. Unpopular posters, however, are going to get more Mod notice, since they are going to get more reports against them bringing them to that notice. Also, hostility can be a defensive response to constant attacks from numerous posters ganging up on a single poster and hounding them.
I think this board has excellent mods and an admirable rule set. I don’t see much political bias on the parts of the mods, and certainly they aren’t banning folks for their opinions, unpopular or otherwise. DTC was a lefty, and he ended up getting the ban hammer. I’m considered a righty, in these parts anyway, and I’m still here years later…and I’m a fairly prickly poster. So, it’s not a left/right thing, nor even a science/psudo-science thing…but I think my point about the corporate culture and steep learning curve are pretty accurate, at least that’s how I see it.
Read my first post in this thread for two good examples. Recall Marley’s “gun grabber” fiasco from a few weeks ago for a third. There was another one in the Elections forum just last week…maybe the week before. I gave generic liberals some well deserved grief over the great victory for gun rights that was the defeat of the unneeded background check bill, and Marley decided that was somehow off topic…then a page or so later, he refused to enforce his own instruction…and yes, I did report the posts quoting my post that drew the instruction. But it was liberals taunting conservatives, so he couldn’t be bothered with even trying to be fair about it.
While you said that in a very gentle and diplomatic way (very leftist politician of you), it’s nonsense.
Protecting ideas does not result in a zero tolerance policy towards debate. If anything it’s particularly more tolerant because you’re dealing with minds that are solid in their beliefs and while have no intention of letting them be swayed, they’ll still engage in the communication for the sport of it or for your courtesy.
Opposite that, being left has nothing to do with “free, open and intelligent discussion and political leaning.” The amount of cultist behavior that results in ‘our way or the highway’ mentality that
The simple reason Dope is left, is because many things these days are. It’s merely a law of averages ..or is that probability.. hmm.
You see the same thing with college campus administration. The staff has a left to right ratio of 6:1.
As for moderator notice.. we’d be naive to think that it doesn’t play ANY part.
However I’d like to think the moderators have something better to do than show obvious defeat at the hands of some anonymous person online.
Hardly. Radio is a very handy medium for background entertainment while working; it fills your ears without demanding anything of your eyes and hands. Heck, I subscribe to MLB Audio rather than upgrading to MLB TV for that very reason.
I am pretty centrist according to the Political Compass test previously mentioned. I am very slightly Right/Libertarian.* On this board I tend to see not just a liberal/conservative, Democrat/Republican split but also an extremist split.
I’ve seen a preponderance of posts from the left-leaning members that are anti-military, anti-religion (to the point of extreme rudeness), environment over humans, anti-business and so on. Maybe it’s because they are more vocal and active and so attract more attention, I don’t know.
From the right, as far as I’ve seen, there have been a few posters who lean slightly to the right of Glenn Beck but mostly they seem to be more nuanced in their postings. Sure, there are a few who are 100% anti-abortion, anti-immigration, anti-gun control and pro-business. But I they seem to be the exception to the rule. I would actually characterize the remainder of posters as more Libertarian than conservative, looking for variance in their responses and not being “all or nothing”.
Again, this is IMHO. As someone who appears to be more conservative on some topics than many of the board members I do find it disheartening to see the vitriol being spewed from people who claim to be so intelligent, tolerant, patient and good-looking (YMMV). I try to stay out of the political discussions because the bile flows pretty heavily. Religious threads tend to devolve when the chosen few jump in with their “invisible sky fairy” comments. People who post that they want stronger immigration control are immediately racists. If you want the current gun laws enforced you are a “gun nut” and probably a potential murderer. You want the government to display some restraint in its spending or involvement in the lives of citizens you are immediately a Neanderthal Tea Partier who wants to evict widows and orphans and put the poor in workhouses.
*I think it would be interesting if everyone on this board took the test and put their results into their signature line.
I’m gonna stick with “exposure to Cecil Adams tends to skew toward people who read alternative weeklies,” and “the reading of alternative weeklies tends to skew toward Democrats (or at least away from Republicans).”
I don’t see why it needs to be considered more complicated than that.
Join date 1999 says ii all. I don’t think that’s true anymore. Heck, I joined in 2002, and I’ve still never read any of his stuff nor even heard of him until after I joined.
IQ tests do not in any way reflect one’s overall ability to reason. There are a number of different arguments (correctly) reasoned by people on both sides why the split might be that is not based on reasoning skills, but putting that aside for the moment because it doesn’t pertain to this particular line of thought, one’s IQ score does not necessarily predict one’s ability to reason. [Side note: If you have a citation that focuses solely on reasoning skills, then please show it. It would be more germane.] This is important because if we’re assuming this board has a tendency to attract people who do have a higher-than-average ability to reason (which it may not, to be fair), then IQ score is irrelevant to that fact. To imply that “there is a political imbalance of IQ scores, therefore, there is a political imbalance of reasoning skills” is plain wrong.
Now, if you were just simply refuting rhubarbarin’s claim without intending to bolster or refute one overall argument or another, or if you’re simply not claiming anything about a correlation between reasoning skills and board demographics at all, and thus my response is an illogical one to yours, then I apologize for misreading you. Independent of all that, however, it’s important for everyone (rhubarbarin included) to note that it’s a logical fallacy to say IQ=reasoning skills.