Sam Stone, I can’t believe you just compared the SDMB to the Freepers.
That’s kind of a pre-emptive strike, Sam. Boiled down, your argument could be read “The liberals refuse to engage in honest debate, because if they had, they would have agreed with us already.”
There’s another possibiltiy for the winnowing of conservative voices herein: the last big argument, the ongoing Iraq Debacle. A lot of the names that were so prevalent have fallen by the wayside, that is true. I think embarassement is a factor. Please note I do not claim to know this, only a conjecture.
Time and again, the Usual Suspects came roaring in here, holding another smoking gun in their grasp, only to have their hopes dashed by one or another single ugly fact. We argued the plausibility of Saddam’s nukes for weeks, as it gradually became undeniable that the case was horseshit.
Some of my political brethren cannot resist the urge to point this out repeatedly. (Not me, of course, I am, like Sam, made of sterner stuff…)
So, to sum up, at least some (indeterminate) number of tighty Righty posters likely ceased to post out of sheer embarassment: that a cause they defended so mightily is proven to be a crock. That’s pretty tough to take.
I’m assuming that to be so, but will certainly defer to Sam’s vast experience in this regard. If he asssures me that it is easy to deal with, I will alter my opinion instanter.
No, the internet equivalent of FreeRepublic would, I suppose, be DemocraticUnderground. For all its bias, the SDMB is still a cut above those places.
Funny, a while back someone asked why so many college professors were typically liberal/democratic. Someone came up with the idea that it was probably because they were more insightful and generally more intelligent than average. IMO, it’s more likely a result of their living in an ivory tower in Abstractland. Many people become professors because they fail or can’t deal in the real world. Many probably become sheltered by immersing themselves in academia (and, of course, many just want to be professors).
I remember sitting in a graduate levels economics course telling a professor that his basic chart on supply and demand didn’t apply to the FX market because lower prices could beget supply rather than demand. After going back and forth he finally conceded that it was true in the real world but didn’t apply to the theory. The Random Walk theory is another classic example of a theory completely missing the nonlineararity of the real world. One where the academicians were about 20 years late catching up with.
It also seems that many liberal arguments are based on an ignorance of economics. I’m sure jshore will have something to say about that. BTW, I know what he means when he says that the board is more accurately described as anti-authoritarian than liberal. I would just add that while that is true to some extent, those same types are often slavishly reliant on sources like skeptic sites that are unbelievably biased.
There exist economic liberals and conservatives, and social liberals and conservatives. Social conservatism, if not a stupid perspective for stupid people, is at least marketed to the lowest common denominator, the “Archie Bunker” tactic often described and discussed on AirAmerica Radio. And if you fish for river trout you’re likely to get more river trout than sea bass. That’s the social part of conservative…
Factor B: If anything, liberal economic theories are very often offered up at pablum-level (“let’s make things fair by taking from the rich and giving to the poor and making everything even”); and while conservative ec theories can also be expressed at troglodyte level (“ya don’t work, ya don’t eat”), they tend more often to be more fully thought out. So you’d think that would even things out among thinking people, and therefore Dopers.
And as a matter of fact, if you look at primarily economic arguments and perspectives on the board, it starts looking a whole lot less liberal around here.
But quite apart from that, social politics hits closer to home and pushes more emotionally volatile buttons, so more of our debates and discussions are about social politics and issues, and our allegiance to the party that reflects our attitude and opinion on these issues often leads us to at least give a “pass” to that same party’s economic politics and policies if not to actually drink the party Kool-Aid.
Then, last but far from least, you’re peering at this board at a particular time and season, the re-election or defeat of George W. Bush, who is definitely a social conservative but, one could definitely argue, not an economic conservative so much as just an economic train wreck. So on this board you’ve got civil libertarians and social progressives and other supporters of social liberal policies mad at him, you’ve got economic conservatives mad at him, and economic liberals mad at him as well. There is also the elephant in the proverbial living room, foreign policy and military issues, whereby even many social convervatives on the board are unhappy with his handling of the relevant issues. So the perspectives and opinions on George Bush, which dominate political discussion on the board these days, are slewed from the general board attitude towards political issues as a whole.
And, re: “intelligence” —
The liberals whose posts I read on the board are somewhat better written and reflective of more intelligence than the average liberal-minded person I meet elsewhere, but the conservatives on the board here are dramatically better informed, more lucid, far sharper, and generally smarter than the average conservative thinking person.
As a student at Stanford University many years ago, I was extremely liberal.
The corporations screwed the workers. A hard working man/woman could hardly eek out a living to feed the family. And this was true then and now.
I was extremely hurt when my Classics professor said that in 5 years or so I would change my mind. I said to myself: NEVER.
Then finally after 11 years of post highschool education I started earning a decent income…and every time I turned around, I was taxed.
Wondering why if there were 2 people…one wanted to work 4 hours a day at 2 dollars /day and spend the afternoon at the saloon or beach he would earn 8 dollars/day…But if I decided I would forgo the beach or resting at home or whatnot, I would think that I should make 16 dollars/day…But I learned that the more you work, the more you pay for others who didn’t all things being equal.
Yes someone has to take care of the unfortunate and disadvantaged…Why punish the "rich"guy.
My point is that so many of the SDMB people i believe are involved in school either as students or teachers who have not been so heavily involved in knowing what it is like to pay taxes in excessive amounts.
My Classic Professor was right. I did change…BUT I am a devout environmentalist, pro-life but believe in womens right to choose…anti having religion jammed down our throats.
Perhaps you can make sense of all this. Am waiting for the expected wave of anti MadSam sentiment.
Well, I don’t think there are too many socialists on these boards. And, to the extent that a liberal point-of-view favors more government intervention in the marketplace and such, well I can see how that one might be characterized as more authoritarian on the face of it. However, I think that point-of-view sort of ignores the power of corporations and the economically powerful over the less economically powerful.
On the other hand, I’d also note that even some of you who tend to think of yourselves at least somewhat as libertarians have a strong authoritarian streak in regards to government when it comes to defense / foreign policy / government secrecy issues. In fact, I am quite amazed by this sometimes, as I have expressed to you in threads on the subjects.
Except that I don’t agree that this board is biased liberal, as I noted. I do think that it does not have many religious Right brand of conservatives…and I hypothesize that one would find that such a brand of conservatism is negatively correlated with the amount of education, although I’ll admit I don’t have statistics to back it up.
Well, we have all felt that run-ragged feeling sometimes on the SDMB. However, I agree with elucidator that the change that you see may be due in part to the whole Iraq war thing and other policies of the Bush Administration that I would argue present a particular challenge for their defenders to defend.
Oh, I’ve done that a few times. I posted on one conservative board on the subject of climate change after a Scylla link led me to it. That board didn’t even pretend to be non-partisan and the guy who ran it closed the thread on me after allowing he and his friend the last word on the subject. (To be fair, he was unfailingly polite and invited me to participate in other threads in the future.) And, I also posted on climate change at the Michael Crichton messageboard…which I guess would be the rough equivalent of coming here and saying the Cecil is all wrong…except to people who are not as interested in objective evidence and cites and so forth.
Well, this correlation that you suggest might be true on average…I don’t know. But, as for me, I am someone who is working in the corporate world, pulling down an (admittedly-right-on-the-border) 6-figure salary, and living in the relatively high-tax state of New York. Besides which, the only major tax shelter I have is my 401K…e.g., no mortgage housing deduction as I rent. So, I’d bet the percentage that I pay in taxes is just about as high as anyone. (Note that while my income may not be high enough to get me into the highest tax bracket, I am also at the income level where nearly all of my income is still subject to the full payroll taxes.)
And, yet, as most here would attest, I am quite reliably “liberal” on economic matters.
Go figure!
I think the notion of the tax-and-spend liberal versus a lean government conservative are long gone. They are all guilty of pork projects and pandering to special interests up to their eyeballs.
“[Bush is] a big-government Republican, and there’s no longer even the pretense that he’s for smaller government.” – Stephen Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth
The straight dope column is not a political column. It’s more of a randomness column. In other words, topics are selected from across a huge variety of areas of knowledge/research, and they’re often very “off the beaten path”. Stuff you read about in the straight dope columns is not what you read about in the mainstream media, and in the vast majority of cases it’s not what’s directly related to anything you need to know for your job or any other ‘real world’ reason. It’s just stuff you learn about for fun, in essence.
Now for whatever reason this sort of approach to information/entertainment appeals more to liberals than to conservatives. NPR, for instance, often does similar random explorations of interesting but mainly non-relevant issues, such as reporting from out-of the-way places in distant parts of the worlds on local issues. Conservative radio shows or other conservative sources don’t cover such news; they only cover what’s directly related to American politics. Thus, the SD provides material of a sort that appeals mainly to liberals.
If you can show me documentation that college professors are more liberal than conservative, as a group, I’d love to see it. My life experience as a husband of two college women who were professors, which allowed me to meet 50-100 professors on a personal basis, would tend to refute your assertion. Perhaps you are just noticing the loud minority who squeak.
What are you using for a basis when you say liberals know less about economics than conservatives?
As opposed to the sites that propound ignorance as fact?
Not only is that thought totally cliche, I find it very insulting. I’m not a professor myself, but having been a grad student, I’ve seen how they are not only (on average) very smart, but they are more hard working than just about anyone else I know. They live in the real world more than most people - how many jobs do you know of where you have to constantly scrounge for money? And face the pressure of having to put out a stream of high quality work? You have to deal with money, manage people, interact with peers, give countless presentations, etc. The typical professor won’t lead a sheltered, comfy life until tenure, and even then there are pressures.
Doesn’t sound like a very conservative arrangement to me.
Well, why isn’t it?
When I came to find the SDMB, I thought it was mostly conservatives. That was January 2002 (ignore what it says up there ^, my first few months were lost in the black hole). I found the columns “Who Wrote the Bible”, which was linked from FARK.com. I then read the message board threads related to the columns. That hooked me. Spent most of my time in GD.
I remember my first thread - a run of the mill second amendment thread - where I jumped in. I suggested that the word “militia” means something (not that I expressed it well), and was quickly attacked. Nice folks like exTank and catsix, among others, kept me busy. But I stuck to my guns. I posted cites. I supported arguments. By the end of the exchange, I had been accused of being a sock puppet.
This was shortly after 9-11, before all the Iraq mess, and GD had a very different tone. All the threads about Bush quickly degraded into Clinton bashing threads. I didn’t participate in many of those threads - just lurked.
A year later, and I was posting frequently in the run up to the Iraq war. By “Mission Accomplished”, I was in hiatus. It wasn’t as much fun.
Which gets us to the fact that I think we can all agree with: GD is currently skewed heavily to the left, at least by American standards.
Is it because of the reasons given above? I dunno.
But perhaps it could be an “incumbent” effect. The board is diligent about facts and logic. A sitting President has three and a half years of record to criticize, the challenger only has ideas. That debate disparity draws the crowd best advantaged and right now, that’s the left.
Many of the names of the conservative posters “back in the day” are still around. You see them post ocassionally, perhaps more often in other fora.
In that sense, I give kudos to Sam and Shodan for their perseverance.
If I’m right, GD may keep this tilt for a year or so into the next Democratic administration. Which won’t be too long.
It goes without saying that the SDMB is publicized more through liberal sources (i.e., free ‘alternative’ weeklies) than anything remotely conservative.
This is either due to snooty liberals wishing to exclude conservatives, or snooty conservatives wishing to avoid liberals.
I will go out on a limb and say it’s both.
Well I responded to a begging question but I thought the assumption was reasonable. A quick search revealed this from the Washington Times:
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THE WASHINGTON TIMES More than 80 percent of Ivy League professors who voted in 2000 picked Democrat Al Gore and just 9 percent voted for Republican George W. Bush, according to a new survey. The poll by Luntz Research Companies also found that only 3 percent of the professors describe themselves as Republicans and that Bill Clinton was the Ivy League faculty's pick for best president of the past 40 years. "All that this survey shows is what we already know, that the elite universities are subsidiaries of the Democratic Party and political left," said David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which commissioned the poll. Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster whose firm conducted the survey, said he was "disappointed" to find such political conformity. "I think if parents saw the political leanings of these professors, they'd be upset," he said. "I think universities should insist on the same diversity in their faculty that they look for in their students . I have a problem when these faculties have no Republican or conservative representation at all." The poll — available on the Web at www.frontpagemagazine.com — not only surveyed the professors' general views, but also asked their opinions on specific issues, and compared those responses with nationwide poll results. "Issue by issue, the faculty is so out of touch with the American people," Mr. Luntz said. The poll of 151 professors and administrators in social science and liberal arts faculties at Ivy League universities had a margin of error of plus or minus 8 percent. The survey found: •While Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush each had 48 percent of the popular vote in the last presidential election, 84 percent of the professors who voted in 2000 picked Mr. Gore — more than nine times as many as voted for Mr. Bush. •Asked to name the best president of the past 40 years, the professors named Mr. Clinton as their top choice, at 26 percent. Overall, 71 percent of the professors named a Democrat as their pick for best president, compared with just 8 percent who named a Republican. •Asked their party affiliation, 3 percent of the faculty said they were Republicans and 57 percent said they were Democrats — a strong contrast to a recent nationwide survey showing slightly more Americans consider themselves Republicans (37 percent) than Democrats (34 percent). •Forty percent of the professors support slavery reparations for blacks, compared with 11 percent of the general public. •Ivy League faculty strongly oppose (74 percent to 14 percent) a national missile-defense system, while the American public favors such a system by 70 percent to 26 percent.*
First off, I’m socially liberal. Pro-choice, anti-death penalty, hardcore seperation of church/state, all for stemcell research, etc… You name it, I’m liberal. But, most arguments I hear from liberals about trade regulations, price controls, etc. betray not merely a difference of opinion but an outright ignorance of economics. Bottom line is that liberals always want to toy with the workings of the economic engine rather than simply redirecting it’s output.
I’m pretty sure you know that the opposing statement to mine is really “As opposed to not slavishly relying…”
Skepdic.com is often wrong and I’ve shown that to be the case in another thread. There slant is typically an argument from ignorance. If it’s not proven then it’s not true. Now that’s just a slant, but they’ve also cited that a certain phenomenon had no evidence behind it when that wasn’t the case.
Speaking as somebody who visits the SDMB on and off, I re-affirm that a lot of conservative posters have dropped out. I suspect embarrassment, combined with the propensity of many posters to opine without substantiation. Factually speaking, thing aren’t going that well on the terror front and the economy could be in better shape. Thus, the Left of Center has no shortage of rhetorical ammunition.
It is gratifying to see that Sam Stone stuck around: he consistently understands the need for facts and evidence when discussing empirical issues.
As someone who considers himself conservative, but scores on the liberal side in most (US-devised) tests, I have developed two theories during my four months on the SDMB (one month under another alias - quite legally - don’t alarm a Mod or try it at home).
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The true test of a liberal is whether (s)he hates guns and wants the damn things banned. Gun-veneration unites most American dopers, whether “left” or “right”. If and only if they pass the “guns kill people and are not nice” test, they qualify as card-carrying liberals.
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The SDMB is liberal because the founding fathers (small "f"s to distinguish from the truly untouchable white males who put together a document three centuries ago), the Admins and the Mods are liberal. It’s a liberal club that accepts conservatives so that it can, hopefully, convert them, or failing that, play with them until they are driven off.
And, yes, I do hate America!
I don’t know how many members the board has now…but 'd bet there are less than 100 who you could tell which way they lean politically.
This board doesn’t lean either way.