plague311
Great minds think...
Your superhero power is not understanding a ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ thing people are saying to you.
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Understanding the Liberal Mindset
- Thread starter smartcooky
- Start date
Your superhero power is not understanding a ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ thing people are saying to you.
In his defense or condemnation of me, I'm having trouble figuring out who's on the side of Centrists are just basically both siders unwilling to take a stand for the good and who's on the side of progressives are extremist who thing everyone to the right of them is a fascist.
I've on occasion said poe's law says as much about the non-religious as it does about fundamentalists in that it all shows how the non-religious so misunderstands fundies. I'm a little bit in that territory in this conversation. I really have trouble understanding where progressives are coming from. I would actually like to have a pleasant conversation with a fairly extreme progressive willing to help with that. Not going to happen but it be useful.
One of the things I've noticed on the internet a genuine lack of understanding can be essentially indistinguishable from bad faith strawmen.
Frank Newgent
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2002
- Messages
- 7,707
Your post is like a midget prisoner climbing down a wall.
That's quite the simile, I believe I understand now.
plague311
Great minds think...
Right but his strawman was absurd. My reply to him quoting me is that we don't have "centrists" around here. Such a one does not exist. Every "centrist" on this forum is just conservative-lite. Pick any self-proclaimed "centrist" on this forum and I will find repeated behavior of them berating liberals but being awfully quiet when it comes to Trump (notice I didn't say silent, but quiet). Support through silence is an absolute thing and the "centrists" on this forum are hypocritical at best. dudalb repeatedly equates the left and the right as "equally as bad", which is ridiculous in and of itself.
That sounds good, but if evaluating every case without taking into account what has happened before or what was "extreme" last time leads to what happening today. Here is a concrete example. I live in Massachusetts and the state passed a universal health care law that is very close to what affordable care act became. The thing is that law was a centrist compromise worked out between the Republican Governor Mitt Romney and the liberal state legislator. Skip ahead a couple years and suddenly the affordable care act is the extreme liberal position and the centrists are arguing that democrats need to "comprise" and move to the center more. The affordable care was the center, the right decided if left likes something then it must bad and moved right. If the center can only move to the right then those people whos only political position is being in the "center" will end up right wing very quickly.
plague311
Great minds think...
Well stated, the overton window has shifted so much that those who were "centrists" 10 years ago have moved right. The GOP has consistently moved right since the creation of the tea party.
Welcome to the forum.
i have been lurking in the forums since the early 2000's but don't post because usually someone more eloquent has already has already responded with what i would have said anyways.
This is a particular pet peeve of mine because I actual like the idea of being able to compromise with others. Of course that assumes both parties are working in good faith and can recognize reality. Most people who call themselves centrist seem to have the memory of a goldfish and would probably take the position that some slavery is the center position between slavery and no slavery.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
it's more that as the window moves right, people who would have been right wing feel they can get away with calling themselves "centrist", and people who were genuinely in the centre now get attacked as far-left.
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Very true. It is very covenant that it always the left that needs to meet the right halfway but never the right need to meet the left halfway.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Are we still in the social issues forum? The left has prevailed on almost all the issues under contention back when Bill Clinton was facing off against George H.W. Bush, with the rather glaring exception of abortion which has been moved down to the state level. We now have nearly all the things which the Buchananist kulturkämpfers dreaded back then, such as legally married gays openly serving in the military, diversity experts embedded in corporate HR, sensitivity trainings and speech codes on college campuses, etc.
When was the left ever asked to meet the right halfway on any of this stuff?
In my opinion this is often an misinterpretation of the centrists. I don't often criticize trump because why bother? There's plenty of that already and my criticism would amount to, he's even worse than I thought or he's still bad. I'm generally of the opinion there is nothing to be done but wait for 2 years and hope the GOP wakes up from their infatuation.
How would the left actually meet the right halfway on gay marriage? Either you can marry someone of the same sex or not. The only way I can think would be getting rid of all the legal privileges associated with marriage and make it purely a social event. Which seems bit extreme just because some people have opinions on who someone else should marry.
Regarding gays serving in the military, Don't ask Don't tell was literally that compromise. It ran for 17 years, more than enough time to figure out being gay didn't make a person unfit for duty.
I might have missed it but when did having a corporate diversity code or a campus speech code became a legal mandate? Seems like big government overreach to micromanage whether or not a company or school have a diverse workforce or a welcoming culture.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
“Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as president.” (source)
That was the right moving a step closer to allowing gays to serve openly, their previous stated preference was a total ban on service with the ability to enforce that ban by asking recruits about their sexuality upfront.
Social issues are often resolved in an extralegal manner, although I have to point out that campus speech codes actually do interact with First Amendment law when the campus is owned by the state.
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Here's the thing if Trump's and the GOP's behavior and policies are so bad that it should go without saying that you don't support it. Then it kind of should go without saying that people shouldn't consider thier positions as valid either.
The GOPs embrace of trump didn't come out of nowhere and won't be magical solved itself in 2 years. The same people who debate themselves repeating Trump's lies aren't suddenly going change.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Do you attempt to compensate for this? I mean, do you take a pause and consider whether a different assumed inflection would make someone else's post seem less abrasive and more well-intended? Do you re-read what you've written prior to posting, to see if someone else is likely to read it in a confrontational tone when you didn't intend it as such?
I'm not needling, I'm actually curious.
I know that my tendency is to write in a very formal fashion, and it tends to come across as snotty and condescending, or at least cold, to readers. As a result of that, I try to be more casual and conversational in my writing, especially at work. I end up using a lot of emoticons in my work communications, even though I really think it's childish and unprofessional. But other people seem to appreciate it so... oh well, I adapt.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
I think there's a nuance that you may be missing, at least with me. First off, I don't think I'm a centrist - I think I hold a mix of views. Some are borderline socialist, others are fairly conservative. I definitely don't view myself as progressive. I'm independent.
More than that, you'll find very little of me bad-mouthing or berating Trump... but if you look a bit further, you'll find that I don't bad-mouth or berate ANY elected official. I think the worst I might say is that I don't like someone's policies? I know I shared a dislike of Hillary Clinton some years back, based on information from several friends and family who worked with them - the general feedback was that Hillary treated staff like crap, and I don't think that's a good quality in a public figure.
You (and others) seem to mistake my lack of vitriol directed at Trump as being support for them. You take my few cases of calling out poor assumptions and extreme behavior as being support, when it really isn't. I dislike Trump quite a bit. As an individual, they're someone I would never want to spend any time around, and would actively avoid. As a politician, I find them to be a blowhard and a bloviator, more interested in putting on a show than running the country. That said, I also don't think every single thing they do is the end of the world, and I find the constant refrain of "dictator" and "fascist" and "rapist" etc. to be counterproductive and lacking in civility.
I definitely think that Democrats and Republicans in the US are equally bad - but they're bad in completely different ways. You might hold a different value set than me, or have different priorities than me - so to you they may not be equally bad. But to me, it's pretty much a choice between a giant douche and a ◊◊◊◊ sandwich - and both of those suck.
The lesser evil is still an evil.
dirtywick
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2006
- Messages
- 12,689
i think there needs to be some accountability for the blatant criminal conduct of a lot of these people, and if there is you'd best believe all you're going to be hearing how politically motivated it all is in 2 years. and the centrists and moderates don't want to talk about it only leaves the left, who they despise, so that's a really nice perception they get to have on how the corrupt media they consume is telling them the truth about how it's all political and tds
jt512
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2011
- Messages
- 5,558
It comes off as literate.