[nm…]
His referring to what? Of course the media is liberal, if you exclude all the media that isn’t.
Not sure what media you’re referring to.
Not necessarily. Outspoken conservatives who cannot articulate coherent arguments get treated pretty harshly.
This board trends liberal by US standards, but probably not so much by Western European standards. Keep in mind that there are many non-American posters here.
Absolutely; no group is immune from stupidity.
This sometimes pops up in “demonstration debates,” where people reverse sides and argue the position they are actually opposed to. A liberal, carrying a conservative flag for the purposes of such a debate, tends to do a better job than actual conservatives do. (They tend to retreat to a moderate, nuanced version of the proposition. e.g., if one of us were to argue for Creationism, we’d probably go for an “Old Earth Creationist” view, rather than a “Young Earth Creationist” view. At least that allows some latitude for arm-waving.) Conservatives, asked to argue a liberal point of view, tend to engage in deliberately self-defeating straw-man lampooning. (Obviously, there are exceptions, and this is not an universal rule of nature.)
I am not sure how many members on this board first experienced The Straight Dope in print. I first read the column in a distinctly liberal-leaning alternative weekly paper. While I don’t know how many of the other papers the column is syndicated to would be considered, I suspect most are liberal-leaning.
If liberal-leaning persons are more likely to read alternative newspapers then those of us who came to know Uncle Cecil in newsprint may be a self-selected liberal-leaning bunch.
Does anyone know the age demographic of the SDMB? I know all age brackets are represented here, but what is the breakdown? A younger demographic would tend to skew liberal. I would guess that the web in general and social media in particular (I count SDMB forums like MSPIMS and IMHO as social media) tend to have a heavier percentage of young posters.
People, as a rule, tend to move to a more conservative ideology as they age. I wonder if the boards here will see that change over time, or will the younger demographic always out number the oldsters?
Personally, I am 59, and I’ve gotten more leftist as I’ve aged. I used to answer “Are you willing to overthrow the government by force or violence?” with a resounding “Yes,” and now my answer is “Whatever it takes.”
And since we don’t have clear labels, to the 42% who identify as conservative both the 35% moderate and 20% liberal look liberal.
So do the ones who can.
The boards started because of Cecil’s columns, which were published in an alternative newspaper. That started off attracting somewhat more liberals than conservatives. And once the snowball started, it reinforced itself from then on.
Even the token conservative moderator left because he saw that this ‘is not welcoming to conservatives’.
This is not a complaint. It’s the statement of an obvious fact. All this stuff about how smart and open-minded we are is self-serving nonsense.
Regards,
Shodan
They gotta be somewhere.
Most of the time, the libs sit around bragging to each other about how smart they are and how Republicans are ebbul bahstahds and how Obama is god on earth, etc., etc. ad nauseam.
The few conservatives left on this board, for the most part, are somewhat amused by this. It’s like watching chimps jack each other off, then throw shit at other monkeys in the zoo. I say somewhat, because it does get boring after a while.
Sounds like Conservatives in action.
Yes, this. The columns were published in an alternative newspaper, the initial readers and posters were heavily liberal (I would say somewhat more liberals is an understatement), and the boards have a self-sustaining political culture.
Although I generally disagree with both of you guys here on the board in all things political, I do appreciate at least hearing what you both have to say. So thanks for sticking around and tossing in your two cents. Always interested in reading what you, and few other regular (more conservative) Dopers have to say. Really.
That said, this board is pretty good at getting rid of trolls who just come in to spew bile and link to political spam - both conservative and liberal idiots who just want to piss people off. And if the mods don’t get 'em, there is quite often a pile on with people who at least ask for a cite or further explanation that often sends those trolls running if they cannot back up their views with anything resembling fact.
And maybe I am one of those screaming liberals, but it is a lot harder to hang around and defend the Tea Party when confronted with facts and statistics and further questions.
BTW, if you think this board is solely liberal - start a Gun Control thread and watch what pops up out of the woodwork.
And statements like this are why some conservative posters get mocked.
There are in fact several conservative posters who do not get mocked and do quite well for themselves here. The problem is that some of the other conservatives like to wear their perceived victimhood as a badge of honor, allowing them to pretend that the reason people disagree with them is down to political bias rather than failings in their own arguments.
Ha! Maybe it seems “liberal” to Americans.
I’m not so sure this board is as liberal as people say; I’m always amazed at the number of pro-gun threads about which kind of gun is best, for example.
You’re not the first to ask that question by a long shot. For example from 2008 we have Why is the SDMB so liberal?. My post from that thread, which I guess I’ll stick with:
*To very roughly paraphrase something tomndeb posted recently:
1.) Newspaper column that started this message board was a mainstay of “alternative” newspapers, which usually has a more left-leaning readership.
2.) Moderate-sized international contingent, especially western and northern European and Canadian, which tends to skew a little leftwards of the U.S. generally.
3.) Increasing political polarization over the last several years has served to intensify political discourse. To the point where a what was a solidly majority leftist board to begin with, has become rather more so as some more conservative voices have felt marginalized and have opted to move on.
As always I’ll note, as I usually do when this topic comes up, that hardcore social conservatives and genuine Marxists have always been rather rare here ( there used to be a few vocal members, not so much now ). Meanwhile self-identifying libertarians seem to me to have always been just a bit over-represented relative to the general populace.*
“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people”
“Climate change is a lie made up by liberals in order to get grant money for scientists”
“Intelligent Design should be taught in schools”
“Universal Health Care is immoral”
“If it’s a legitimate rape the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down”
“Iraq has WMDs. We should invade them”
“We should invade Iran. We would be right to do so”
“Obama is a socialist from Kenya”
“Lowering taxes on the rich and increasing defence spending will reduce the deficit”
I seriously don’t get why these views would be held by anyone with even the slightest grasp on reality.
And this is a fact-based site. The reason that there are not more “conservatives” here is because their views are quite obviously pure and utter bullshit. They inevitably get called on it, and they just as inevitably slink away.
Quite frankly, I do believe that US “Conservatives” are evil. They are consistently wrong on absolutely every score.