WTF is wrong with you, conservative America?!?

The BBQ Pit
61

Does this blanket assumption apply to everyone in the world? I’ve changed my views rather drastically in life on account of arguments and the evidence. I realize it’s rare, but I’m wondering how broad a reach you’re going for with this statement.

Why are you here then? To troll the other side?

The OP isn’t talking about all conservatives. They’re talking about the birther type who listens to Beck seriously, who thinks our president is a part of a grand conspiracy and is a sleeper cell agent meant to destroy America, etc.

Conservatives on this board who argue well are generally well regarded. There aren’t many. But these intellectuals aren’t the massive band of stupid the OP is talking about.

But here’s the problem with that. You are almost all - conservatives, that is - in this together. You have an extreme amount of partisan discipline. You will almost never attack one of your own and immediately rush to their defense. You have almost all decided that “my side right or wrong” is more important than truth or intellectual honesty or even what’s best for the country.

To get you to reject the hateful, ignorant liars is like pulling teeth. On some level you must know they’re wrong yet you will rush to defend them. Sometimes directly (“these statements are not absurd lies if you interpret them in this creative way!”) or more often by trying to by partisan tu quoque. “Oh, 60% of republican primary voters think obama is a secret muslim terrorist? WELL SOMEONE SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT BUSH ONCE! We’re even!”

If you had any sort of integrity or credibility, you’d say something like “Look. I know my side has been at least partially co-opted by the loonies. I don’t support the lies they tell, or the hate they spread, or the ignorance they encourage. But I still have conservative values, which is why on these issues I _____”

But you never say anything like that. You rush to defend the ignorant, the liars, the hateful, which makes you guilty of the same things they are.

I mean - seriously - you must realize that over the last few years the right has been highly radicalized - and not just a fringe. There are mainstream views which are hateful, ignorant lies. Why is it that none of you can even acknowledge this? If you aren’t one of them, then reject them.

Let’s look at the low hanging fruit. Fox News is by far bigger than any leftist media outlet. (And don’t say “it’s only as biased as CNN/AP/etc which are a giant liberal conspiracy”, that’s so fucking stupid. None of them are remotely as biased, advocative, or flat out dishonest as Fox). Not only that, but many more people swear by it. They look at Fox News as a singular beacon of truth in a sea of lies.

Talk radio is pretty much entirely dominanted by conservatives. Those thousands chain e-mails that are made up of bullshit that are designed to provoke outrage are almost exclusively conservative in nature.

Hell, this board is predominantly liberal. Why? Is it because we ban conservatives? That we won’t hear them out?

No, it’s because this board has a very high level of discourse, one of the highest on the internet. People are challenged here. The board has a strong scientific/skeptical bent and bullshit gets destroyed here. Compare it to somewhere like free republic. Where are the ideas honestly debated and exchanged?

Most conservatives simply do not thrive in such an environment. There are plenty that do - a few of the conservative posters around here are among the best on the board - but as a whole, the nature of conservatism (and again, as with my previous posts I’m discluding intellectual libertarianism in this because their motivations are different) the nature of conservatism is a fear of change, and with that, a fear of challenging your own world view.

This board does not abide by bullshit, hence a natural outcome was to discourage most conservatives from posting here.

I’m somewhat involved in the organized skeptical movement as well as secular, rationalist movements. The interesting thing here is that those movements are generally non-political outside of their specific reach (fighting ignorance and fighting religious oppression, basically). Fighting ignorance should not be a partisan thing. And yet the skeptical movement is almost entirely made up of liberals and libertarians, with very few conservatives amongst the mix.

This is because skepticism is about challenging your views, recognizing your biases, and finding out the ultimate truth through the use of reason and evidence. This does not suit the sort of anti-intellectual, “I don’t need evidence, I know it in my gut” conservatism that marks the majority of the movement.

This is a boring view.

Let’s consider it for a moment. What are the odds that both sides are exactly equal? That they both have the exact same amount of merit, that their leaders are both equally pure or impure, liars or honest, hateful or reasonable? These huge entities covering a huge range of topics are equally meritous or correct on all issues?

The “all sides are equal, everyone is just as biased/honest/reasonable/etc. as everyone else” view is the simple one. It does not require nuance. It makes the assumption that no matter what, all sides are equal. If one side suddenly became beacons of honesty and reason and the other side advocated the extermination of all their political opponents, you’d still be left with the idea that all sides are equal no matter what. It’s not amenable to change based on the actual facts of the situation. So it is useless.

62

Sam Stone, I guess you failed to notice I was one of the ones that thought this retread on the Republican health care alternative plan of the 90’s was not a very good one.

I think it was important to pass because the reality is that even Republicans understand that they would be dead meat if the most popular provisions of the law are repealed, and even more so when the people eventually will begin to notice that the alternative is worse. Health care costs in America are in reality a bubble. Even half good solutions like the one congress managed to pass are better than continue with the de facto Republican plan.

63

That’s your defense? When faced with accusations about conservative errors, your response is to ignore the errors - and then accuse liberals of refusing to address the errors they’ve made.

64

You are, of course, welcome to post whatever you please, within the rules of the boards. My comment was simply an observation that these threads, of which I have seen more than I can count, seem to be to be an utter waste of time. I am absolutely baffled as to why people seem to take such relish in engaging in these competitive mental masturbation sessions, in which each side tries to declare their correctness louder than the other. Nobody ever changes their opinions on anything, nobody ever concedes the smallest point…it just goes on and on and on and on ad nauseum.

But, as I say, if that’s what you enjoy, more power to you. By the same token, however, I have the right to my opinion. If I were to walk past someone repeatedly slamming his head against a brick wall, I’d probably say something about that, too. In the interest of nonthreadshittiness, though, I’ll bow out now and leave you people to it.

65

Senor, I’d suggest that the lefty analog to Rush et al is actually the blogosphere, which seems to run more lefty than righty. Unfortunately that’s just anecdotal since I was unable to find any hard numbers… however…

This piece from dem panty-wearin’ pinko commies at The Nation suggests liberal blogs have three times the ‘audience participation’ rate as conservative ones; that liberals are way more vocal (a conservative would say, ‘whiny’), and the ‘infrastructure’ encourages that (they cite Kos, which lets the audience put stuff on the ‘front page’, of sorts). You could make an argument that the lefty channel of choice is the interweb (since they’re all students and unemployed), and righty is talk radio (since they all have jobs and have to drive to work and stuff) :stuck_out_tongue: But I’d never suggest that.

Sam Stone, once again you’ve done a fantastic job of explaining why the math of Obamacare doesn’t work, and we’re screwed if we don’t do something about it. The budget deficits in his 10 yr blueprint go up and up, to $774b in its last year. In 2011 we will borrow almost 1 out of every 3 dollars we spend, racking up crushing debt for our kids’ generation and squeezing out all would-be spending for helping the poor and stuff.

66

Shit, in the land of radiopharmaceutical science that isn’t divided by political leaning. There’s a more than enough stupid to go around.

67

Thank you, Cyningablod. It’s a relief to know I’m not alone in my views.

If we were talking about the fall of a random African country, or the fall of an ancient Armenian satrapy, it would be amusing. But this is America the Superpower, and Western civilization will literally be affected by the shenanigans of Karl Rove, Glen Beck, etc. We may be witnessing a tragedy beyond even epic proportion.

One sees much anger in today’s America. But the anger is largely misfocussed; indeed, the bitterest complaints are often by millionaires complaining about their taxes.

Very true. Alleged agenda like improving schools or outlawing abortion are actually the last things right-winger leaders want: They need the anger. Even budget-balancing is in this category; the deficits of Reagan and GWB were deliberate “Kill the Beast” moves.

68

This is typical of what you like to post. A bunch of whiny bullshit about how the bill only works if congress enacts it. Well no shit.

And as for your pronouncement about how the bill could reduce the deficit farther if you kept the cuts but removed all the spending. Do you actually think that’s a profound realization? Of course if you removed the spending and kept the cuts it would further reduce the deficit. But, it wouldn’t cover 30 million people, remove pre-existing conditions or any other of the necessary things the bill does.

69

Ah, good to see you finally dropping any pretensions of being a moderate, that act was getting silly.

As before, I was not happy with the reform we got, and it was already clear to me that the numbers would very likely not add up in the near future, but this position ignores 2 big flies in the ointment.

First, the real world, were reforms like Medicare do not remain static: like medicare, the health plan was bound to get changes and further reforms to make it last as other government plans.

And then there is the economic cost of not doing anything. (The current default republican plan)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28abelson.html

And I should add a third one: the unaccounted human cost: of families going into bankruptcy thanks to health care costs and the people who continue to die for not getting proper treatment thanks to the irrational health care we have now.

70

99+ % of the internet is a waste of time. Hell, probably 90+ % of the Dope is a waste of time. So what’s your point?

And yet here you are engaging in that competitive mental masturbation yourself.

Don’t let the door etc.

71

As has been pointed in other threads, the right-wing defines centrist and rationalist thought as “left-wing,” rendering your claim fatuous.

Yeah, perhaps centrist and rationalists do outnumber, barely, the insane-right on blogs. Since this is already BBQ Pit I can point out one reason for this: many right-wingers just aren’t smart enough to compose prose sensible enough even for a blog.

72

First of all, Sam, I’m sure we are all mighty impressed that you did this all on your own, with just your pocket calculator and some good ol’ common sense. A lesser man might have cut and pasted some opinions from a source he could trust to offer the reliable point of view. But we are assured that this is all your own doing, and not second-hand from a rightwing blog. We are so assured, yes?

But enough of that. We know its flawed, and will need fixing. Perhaps it might have been better had Obama been engaged in negotiation and effort with a creative partner, rather than a right that lies down on the floor shrieking and kicking “No! No! No!”. How are we to take that seriously, what with “death panels” and “socialbilized medicine” and so on and so forth.

Would you be happier if we scrap this thing in favor of a more Yurpeen model of single payer, without all these dreadful accounting ploys? No? Because the status quo was wholly unacceptable, had been unacceptable for years and years, while insurance companies sucked in tons of cash and millions of our fellow citizens simply did without.

Your ideology demands that you believe that this sort of thing cannot possibly work. But it does, doesn’t it, with varying degrees of success. You are outside the conversation, you are not seeking to help, you are hoping to destroy. Outside of sneering, have you anything constructive to offer?

Big Money hate this thing. They hate the very idea that the sweet, sweet flow of cash might somehow be tamped down. The well-being of their fellow citizens means nothing to them, they have already proved this abundantly. Why would we trust them, why would we trust their paid mouthpieces?

The number one reason this thing has so many problems is that we were not negotiating in good faith, we couldn’t, because to do so would mean negotiating in good faith with people determined to sabotage the effort. And the result is a sorry mess, but its a start.

Tonight, millions of Mom’s sleep better, knowing that their kids are insured. You go tell them that you’re taking it back, and give them your numbers and charts. You think Mamma Grizzly is a bear? You don’t know the half of it. Go tell the millions of people who couldn’t buy insurance but now can, you go tell them you’re yanking it back.

Good luck with that.

73

The bill was (and is) a fiscal disaster. We can’t afford it. I think at the end of the day, you and the other lefties here know that, but as per SOP nobody ever admits they’re wrong, they usually change the subject and inject snark (or as some of the kids here like to do, they go ad hominem).

PS apparently the term d’art is independent, since unlike most people on this board, I hold both conservative and liberal opinions across the spectrum of issues.

And Septimus, were you being sarcastic when you cry that the right defines what’s moderate, then babble on that the “centrist and rationalists” outnumber righties on blogs (thereby defining what’s centrist to your own benefit?)

If not, 10 out of 10 on the unintentional comedy scale.

74

Morbid curiosity compels me to ask: such as?

75

Who was he negotiating with? Didn’t the democrats have a majority?

76

A majority doesn’t cut it anymore. You need a supermajority. That’s what makes it so extraordinary that Obama still kicked your ass.

77

The same fuckers who want to cry about bipartisanship whenever they don’t get their way, and then crow on about a “mandate” when they regain any type of majority.

78

And I see you fail at reading comprehension, I already said twice that I think it was likely not to work to the letter, but continuing the status quo will lead to a worse financial disaster.

79

Generally accurate, but you seem to have missed my larger point: Ignorance, irrationality, and disregard for facts and nuance now govern contemporary popular conservative thought. The birther/Coulter examples were just illustrations of my larger point.

But I think you secretly knew this.

I’m not the one who started the “echo chamber” argument, and I have little interest in participating in it.

That’s because the majority of Dopers are liberals.

On a board whose raison d’etre is fighting ignorance, that stands to reason, IMHO.

When I drafted my OP, I didn’t give a flying shit if anyone responded at all. I just wanted to vent. Why is that so hard to understand? Why do you insist on implying that I wanted “confirmation” of anything?

Believe what you wish.

Congratulations. You have a grasp of basic fact (at least on this issue). You are now among those conservatives–seemingly the minority, these days!–who can debate things as an informed adult. Please do try to encourage your co-ideologues to lift themselves up to this level, too, mkay? Much obliged.

What the hell does that have to do with the main theme of my OP? Or my comments since? Again, as I indicated in my first paragraph of this post, you have myopically missed the larger point of my OP, choosing instead to zero in on the examples. As if the examples were the actual issue I was raising, rather than just being, you know…examples. :rolleyes:

80

Ah, so now Pit threads have to be non-wastes of time. Gotcha. :rolleyes:

I wonder what sort of precious cultural contributions we might find if we reviewed YOUR entire posting history? Never once wasted any time, have we?

“Mental masturbation session” is webspeak for “someone expressing an idea with which I disagree, with which a third party later happens to concur.”

Spare me this lame rhetoric.

From now on I shall be scrutinizing your each and every post to ensure that you never “waste” any time, and never engage in any debate in which no one is likely to change their minds. K?

:rolleyes:

Ironically, your post is the one that has contributed the least information to this thread. Others, even when disagreeing with me, have made substantive points. You just dropped in to say, “You’re not saying anything important.” :dubious: Think about that.