As far as hostile comments and mod actions go, barring anyone actually stepping up with data, my personal impression is that pretty much the liberal/progressive contingency and the conservative/libertarian one both have the same fraction of jerks, idiots, and the like. Accepting that more liberals/progressives engage in politically themed debates here then obviously the absolute number of jerky idiotic comments will come from that camp. Basic math peeps. I have seen no bias from mods.
Bricker there is no liberal groupthink here. Those here who would self-identify as liberal or progressive often very much disagree with each other and argue amongst themselves over well almost everything. What is a “slam-dunk for the right” to you just doesn’t seem that way to many others. And what would a example of such a slam-dunk issue in your mind anyway?
Seems to me that most of the posters are young, and the young tend to be “left” leaning. Once they get older, they’ll become right wing.
BTW it is possible to be a socialist that wants to tax the rich till they squeak, but be against welfare for bludgers and illegal immigration.
Somehow, socialism seems to have been hijacked by bleeding heart liberals that want to give no hopers everything.
However, like I and others mentioned, that “seeded” the original boards heavily to the liberal side and by itself created a self-selection bias at the outset. By the mid-late 00’s we already had a far greater proportion of conservatives than what would have been expected solely from the newspaper carryover but it was still a minority.
No, that is absolute crap. It presupposes that the conservative position (which, today, is way to the left of “right wing”) is the sensible, practical approach and the lefties are all full of hippy-dippy fantasies, that they will eventually come around to good sense. I think Churchill was first credited with that comment, to justify being a Tory asshat.
I know my mother has drifted leftward in her 8+ decades, and I know I am not less left-ish than I was 30 years ago. I do know that there are complexities to life that make some of my ideals difficult to implement, possibly even unworkable. And I know that I am about as wrong as the next guy, something both liberals and conservatives fail to recognize in themselves.
Whatever begets the notion that people move to the right as they age, it is just idiotic. It suggests that conservatism is more pragmatic than liberalism, which has been shown, time and again, to not be the case.
Depends what your definition of “young” is. This board doesn’t fit mine. Based on the unscientific polls we have had around here on the topic there appear to be rather more 30- and 40-somethings than 20-somethings and far more 50-70-somethings than teens of any sort. And sorry folks, over 30 no longer gets to go by “young” in my book ;).
In a way, I guess I could see that I have become more conservative: when I look at the way things are going today, the 70s sure starts to look like a better time in many ways. Still not without its flaws, but not as fucked up as things have become.
Interesting theory. I’ve posted here 12 years (see? not all republicans are chased off) and have never made a single post at work. I know that’s hardly also true of many posters. It’d make for an interesting poll re: what’s your party and do you post here when you’re supposed to be doing the job you’re paid for?
I can’t tell if you are being ironic here, or not. If not, what you are saying boils down to “those darn conservatives react badly to being called names”.
I don’t read the first quote to mean the presence of right-leaning members means the board isn’t all of those things. I read it to mean that there is no such right-leaning board. And I think that’s sadly true, isn’t it? (I’d go one step further: there are no conservative-leaning message boards that are even as accommodating to liberals as this board is to conservatives; however, I’d settle for one that was at least equal.)
“Lean Democrat? Fuck them, I just think the Republicans are bullies and liars and I’d like to spit in their eye.”
As quoted by Bricker in #23, and BorgHunter in #26:
“I just think the Republicans are bullies and liars and I’d like to spit in their eye.”
And Shodan in #45:
“Fuck them, I just think the Republicans are bullies and liars and I’d like to spit in their eye.” (misquoted (deliberately?) as if by “them” I mean the Republicans)
Shodan again, in #151:
“I just think the Republicans are bullies and liars and I’d like to spit in their eye.”
Misquoting and quoting out of context is a form of lying. As for bullying: when starving people break into churches to eat the tallow candles, Conservatives are traditionally the ones troubled by the irreverance, not the starvation.
You (Democrat conservatives and also-but-especially Republicans alike) think riots are sparked by people who want to steal TVs, not by handcuffed Black kids being shot by cops. You wanted people with AIDS to die off, not receive subsidised healthcare. You wanted Black people to “go slow” on Civil Rights, blaming their murders as much on they themsleves as the actual killers . You wanted to deny gay people marriage because your touts in the church pulpits think what they do in bed offends their concept of God.
I’ve been enduring you for over 50 years, and it’s not me who isn’t welcoming you: it’s the future that hasn’t been welcoming you; because you’ve fought it every step of the way.
I am not sure what you are talking about, but you were not misquoted.
If you don’t think Republicans are bullies and liars, and you don’t want to spit in their eye, then you should not have said that you think Republicans are bullies and liars and that you would like to spit in their eye.
My “argument” is that you think Republicans are bullies and liars, and that you would like to spit in their eye. Which is what you said.
Actually, as stupid as the above is, it is an example of one of the things that make this place so amusing - the irony of someone using racist stereotypes to condemn conservatives for being bigoted.
Dude, you weren’t misquoted. And your accusations that Republicans want people to die of AIDS, not to mention your opinion on what illegal immigrants are good for, show more hostility than any conservative in this thread.
Just a quick observation. I did a very dirty search of SDMB looking for the words “democrat” or “republican” in the title for the past 6 months. There was no way in hell I was going to search on posts. The servers would have crashed. I was looking for titles that were either explicitly negative towards the party in question or pointed towards a negative opinion. These were titles where you looked at them and could tell immediately that the OP was casting the group in question in a disparaging light. I excluded titles that appeared to be generic, benign questions. My results:
You can run your own searches to check the results. Maybe you’ll think I excluded ones from this list.
In any case, take this dirty sampling with a grain of salt and interpret as you will. I see a serious left/liberal/Demorat leaning here that shows a disdain for right/conservative/Republicans. It’s pretty sad that people who take great pride in their tolerance and acceptance can be so hate-filled. There also appears to be a tendency on this board to view the people on the right, including board members, as narrow-minded, intolerant, ignorant and bigoted. Well, pot, the kettle has something to say to you.