# You poor lonely conservative in the SDMB sea of liberals **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 29, 2004, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745 "2004-09-29T22:47:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/141 "2004-09-30T17:02:15Z")
Come now. It’s a liberal trending board, with some participation by conservatives, libertarians, socialists, moderates, and anarcho-syndicalists, just for variety. I hardly think that an unfair description of this place. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/142 "2004-09-30T17:05:02Z")
Indeed, this goes back to that most terrible of American political insults, actually calling a liberal a liberal. The label is surely descriptive. Why shake it. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/143 "2004-09-30T17:05:07Z")
Any board with a reasonable number of posters from international countries will always _seem_ to lean to the left, at least from an American perspective. To me (from my perspective) the board actually seems to lean to the right _, but that is a personal thing and I fully accept that my idea of the centre will vary a great deal from others. I will also accept the SDMB is to the left of the American centre. It is almost_ bound \* to be due to its international poster quota. - And yet I vote with the accepted conservative parties in local elections. It’s all relative. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/144 "2004-09-30T17:27:58Z")
> [@TheLoadedDog](#): > > Put it this way: my son doesn’t even know what a see-saw (teeter-totter) is, due to our current scared, litigious society. Thst is why I’m a conservative. And how, precisely, does that have anything to do with liberals and/or conservatives? If you’re somehow convinced that the current American culture of overprotectiveness and overlitigiousness is in any way a liberal or democratic creation, then Karl Rove is even more of an evil genius than I already thought he was. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/145 "2004-09-30T17:30:16Z")
**Aro** your post stamped 05:40 PM was spot on. Perfect. You latest one was, meh, alright I suppose 😃 ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/146 "2004-09-30T17:30:20Z")
**Aro** your post stamped 05:40 PM was spot on. Perfect. Your latest one was, meh, alright I suppose 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/147 "2004-09-30T17:31:21Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Come now. It’s a liberal trending board, with some participation by conservatives, libertarians, socialists, moderates, and anarcho-syndicalists, just for variety. > > I hardly think that an unfair description of this place. Who’s arguing with you? There seems to be almost universal agreement that the board is left-leaning. The only argument is whether conservatives are a minority, or whether they’re a hyperbolically described vanishing few voices in an overwhelming storm of liberality, or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/148 "2004-09-30T17:32:05Z")
I thought double posting was impossible now? ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/149 "2004-09-30T17:42:56Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > I thought double posting was impossible now? It is. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/150 "2004-09-30T17:43:59Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > It is. Not quite. I’ve seen two double threads today. And double posting within a thread can happen in rare circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/151 "2004-09-30T17:45:01Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > I thought double posting was impossible now? It is ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/152 "2004-09-30T17:52:28Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > So, am I a conservative, a liberal, or what? You are, like me, and many others here, a semi-libertarian. You want government to stop interfering with your rights and get its nose out of where it doesn’t belong, but you don’t go to the libertarian extreme of wanting government out of _everything_- you recognize the importance of government acting within the limits of what it can reasonably achieve and with regarding to public good ideals that the private sector can’t take into account. Unfortunately, given the weird dichtomy of liberal/conservative, that puts you firmly against half of what each side believes in, while firmly for the other half. You want the economic freedom of conservatism with the social freedom of liberalism, and rail against the social totalitarianism of conservatism and the economic totalitarianism of liberalism. And absolute libertarianism is a little too “jump off this cliff- honest, thoughtful people will guarantee you land safely” for your taste. You are an Independent. Relish it. You are now free to laugh in the faces of those whose politics torture their ideology, and you may instruct candidates to jump through hoops to gain your considered vote. For the record- My positions are 90% similar to Gobears; I am a bit more neo-conservative on foreign affairs. I am a registered Republican not because I agree with everything they say, but because if I keep voting in primaries, I can eventually make _them_ agree with what _I_ say. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/153 "2004-09-30T17:54:13Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It isn’t so much liberal vs. conservative. In those terms, the boards splits pretty much as has been described - on fiscal issues, fairly strongly liberal, on non-fiscal issues, overwhelmingly so. I’d scale that back slightly, but perhaps we just have different impressions of the leanings. I think on fiscal it leans somewhat liberal and on non-fiscal, fairly strongly. > [@](#): > > Considering that **Rune** and **stpauler** both immediately denied their label as “conservatives”, maybe in a few instances, your ( **DMC** ’s) perceptions of who is conservative vs. who is liberal might be off by a bit. Naw, I apologized to stpauler for accidental inclusion, but Rune’s a conservative, by just about any definition. Nothing wrong with that, so I’m not really sure why he denies it. Heck, he’s a European that is conservative by American standards, so he’s probably way to the right at home. > [@](#): > > It’s a liberal board. Some people spend a lot of time trying to deny it, but it’s a hell of a stretch. I’d actually guess it’s a fiscally centrist board with left of center leanings on non-fiscal issues, but it’s a big board, and I’m not willing to go count them all. It does tend liberal overall, but I don’t consider it a liberal board. If I wanted a liberal board, I’d go visit Democratic Underground, but that’s boring. > [@](#): > > Thanks for the list. Most of us recognize some pretty smart Dopers there, and it is an honor in to be in the company. I hope I made it quite clear earlier that I felt the majority on my list were quite intelligent posters who debated in good faith. Conservatives were not the target of my pitting, persecution complexes were. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/154 "2004-09-30T17:56:52Z")
I should probably quantify a previous statement I made. When I say I think it’s centrist fiscally, I do think it’s a slight left lean even there. Perhaps 40-45 on that scale being used elsewhere. By the same token, I think socially the board is likely in the 25-30 range. Definitely a lean on both counts, but not very far on the first. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/155 "2004-09-30T18:05:57Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > So, am I a conservative, a liberal, or what? I actually think you’re pretty typical of the folks on this board, which is why you wouldn’t be on my list of liberals or conservatives (which were overly broad to begin with, as I don’t truly think there are more than 20 people here who I would accuse of group-think, and they are likely in equal numbers on both sides). I guess you could say that you “swing both ways” but don’t tell your boyfriend that. 🙂 No, I’m not saying you’re average, as you’re anything but. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/156 "2004-09-30T18:12:47Z")
::snicker:: I’m a conservative now? OK. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/157 "2004-09-30T18:15:51Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I can’t speak for others, but I tend to place fiscal issues on a higher level than a lot fo the social issues. Governments can’t do too much if they don’t have the money to do it with, and much of what the gov’t does is either counterproductive or wasteful. Thanks, I get that impression from a lot of Libertarians, but have never really asked before. Perhaps that’s why I weight them more on the conservative side. I think that that impression is bolstered by the “State’s Rights” argument on the social side. While I applaud those who actually believe in that (like yourself, and I have never questioned it in your case), it IS used as an excuse by too many bigots, so oftentimes rings hollow even when it’s not. > [@](#): > > I think Shodan hit the nail on the head about the anti-Bush pile ons. I wasn’t around here during the Clinton years, so I don’t know if the Republican partisans were as bad then, but the venom spewed at Bush on this board is so over the top that it does make things seem ridiculously slanted at times. [_Cue the residient Bush-whackers: But you don’t understand-- Bush DESERVES all the venom spewed at him…_] Yes, it does get a bit ugly at times. To be fair, when FellatioGate was happening, I sometimes felt like I had accidentally landed on the New Republic messageboard, but then, as now, there were plenty of people to provide the balance here. I do think some of the threads are necessary, such as when new issues arise, but agree that probably two out of three Bush-bashing threads are just rehashes of previous threads. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/158 "2004-09-30T18:21:25Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Indeed, this goes back to that most terrible of American political insults, actually calling a liberal a liberal. > > The label is surely descriptive. Why shake it. You say it’s descriptive, but whqat does it mean? Our founding Fathers considered themselves to be lberal. Milton Friedman considered himself to be liberal. And the current Admin’s staffed with “big-government conservatives,” whatever the fuck that means. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/159 "2004-09-30T18:24:26Z")
For those who keep insisting that this board slants left: does it matter? Nobody wins a debate around here by taking a poll. Do you think you lose a debate if more posters side against you? I just don’t get why some people make such a big deal about it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745/160 "2004-09-30T18:26:33Z")
See, I get the impression the board slants **right** on fiscal issues: overall, the board is more libertarian than anything else. Daniel [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-poor-lonely-conservative-in-the-sdmb-sea-of-liberals/266745.md?page=9)