I regretted as soon as I did it, but I jumped into a political discussion with a friend on Facebook the other day.

It started with her screed in response to someone giving her flak about not liking Obama. I chimed in saying, in essence, I get crap all the time about my politicals stance(s), because I think both parties are worthless.

Her response was, in essence - you have to choose a side because something is either right or wrong. So, in a nutshell, the Republicans are right and the Democrats are wrong. I tried to explain my position that it wasn't that simple, but was essentially dismissed as part of the problem.

Now, I know this board leans to the right, but I've also come to realize that it is not necessarily firmly rooted in the GOP. I can appreciate that difference. I think the failure to realize that liberal is not synonymous with Democrat and conservative is not synonymous with Republican is a fatal flaw in most political discourse in this country.

Interested to hear some of your thoughts.

So you tag-teamed some chick because she didn't like Obama.

I fixed that, I defriended every stupid f'n liberal I had on FB.

(01-08-2010 12:06 PM)Rebel Wrote:  So you tag-teamed some chick because she didn't like Obama.

I fixed that, I defriended every stupid f'n liberal I had on FB.

Anyay 1987,
I think there is much in what you say. I think it's largely b/c people make big assumptions, they "know" what Dem, Rep, Lib, Cons, all mean...whether it's true or not.

Ironically, I think this is emphasized in public schools. Instead of teaching students how to have a civil discussion about controversial topics, including listening to someone else, and understanding what their terms mean and perspectives are, we see heated arguments with insults and put downs, coupled with smug teachers who think they've done a good job b/c the pupils are so animated. We also see teachers criticizing POV that are still TBD if they don't agree w/ their preferred view. We see administrators with their heavy hand overreact to issues, and take pre-emptive measures to censor their schools, lest disagreement creep in on their watch (and heaven forbid, question their absolute authority!)

Listening is a skill that needs to be practiced. It's not a concession of being wrong or a sign of weakness to listen and understand a different point of view. But few people make the effort to acquire this ability.

BTW, since she was the one taking **** for not liking the Kenyan, don't you think it's safe to say that Democrats think the exact same way? Or are you trying to show how "moderate" you are?

(01-08-2010 12:09 PM)Rebel Wrote:  BTW, since she was the one taking **** for not liking the Kenyan, don't you think it's safe to say that Democrats think the exact same way? Or are you trying to show how "moderate" you are?

I'm not comfortable painting with such a broad brush, I guess. Maybe that makes me "moderate" as you say. But I happen to think it's too simple to generalize.

(01-08-2010 12:19 PM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  

(01-08-2010 12:09 PM)Rebel Wrote:  BTW, since she was the one taking **** for not liking the Kenyan, don't you think it's safe to say that Democrats think the exact same way? Or are you trying to show how "moderate" you are?

I'm not comfortable painting with such a broad brush, I guess. Maybe that makes me "moderate" as you say. But I happen to think it's too simple to generalize.

It is, but the person railing on your friend is an Obamaphile, I.e. a leftist. I'm liberal on some social aspects, but "leftist" is a completely different animal. Look up "Classical Liberalism", it describes many of my views. That person is a Socialist. Ask them about their views. It'll probably describe Socialism and/or Fascism to a T, as it does Obama.

Rebel:

Point taken.

I'm always amazed at how little people know about their chosen party or a particular politician before they go off on a tirade (either pro or con).

The internet came of age. It is a simple as that. The wedge is probably unsealable now in some aspects, because people can collect talking points within seconds of wanting to argue. That can make it hard to have intelligent conversations when someone says something like "Democrats are leading us into a Great Recession" or "Republican's want to stone hte geys" because each conflicting side collects a sound bite from a two bit state rep from the left coast or flyover country, and applies it to the other 50% of America.

Whoever screams the loudest from each party gets the most facetime. Those that scream the loudest are typically on the fringe. That's not exactly a revelation, but more like the first day of Political History 101.......

I like reading books on various topics, and in the bookstores I notice a rather large number of political books titled, "How the [insert Repubs, Dems, Conservatives, or Liberals] are destroying the country" or something along those lines. Just seems rather immature. I agree with 1987's original post, too many people make assumptions. They also seem to lump people together rather than think of political thought as a continuum.

I get along with everyone that isn't a GDamn thief hellbent on stealing my money and doling it out to everyone else. Not one of those people? Cool, we'll get along.

(01-08-2010 02:55 PM)Rebel Wrote:  I get along with everyone that isn't a GDamn thief hellbent on stealing my money and doling it out to everyone else. Not one of those people? Cool, we'll get along.

That would explain your apparent anger. Almost every politician is doing just that, in one way or another. Good thing you don't live in Illinois, it's even worse - not just federal, but state government is a veritable black hole when it comes to money.

(01-08-2010 03:00 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  That would explain your apparent anger. Almost every politician is doing just that, in one way or another. Good thing you don't live in Illinois, it's even worse - not just federal, but state government is a veritable black hole when it comes to money.

...and I trash every f'n politician that does it.

(01-08-2010 02:49 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I like reading books on various topics, and in the bookstores I notice a rather large number of political books titled, "How the [insert Repubs, Dems, Conservatives, or Liberals] are destroying the country" or something along those lines. Just seems rather immature. I agree with 1987's original post, too many people make assumptions. They also seem to lump people together rather than think of political thought as a continuum.

Right. You can't pin the woes of this country on a particular group of people. Everyone shares the blame.

Rebel - I hear what you're saying and agree that, for the most part, fringe liberals are the most spend-happy group around. But the hawks in the GOP have squandered a few billion dollars here and there, too, whether it's misguided weaponry programs or blindly sending the Brinks trucks to Halliburton.

I'm waiting for a party to truly embrace the "less is more" philosophy to our government.

(01-08-2010 03:32 PM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  I'm waiting for a party to truly embrace the "less is more" philosophy to our government.

When you find it, let me know. I'm not a member of any party. The reason I align with many Republicans is because I'm hawkish when it comes to defending the nation, they're more apt to be fiscally conservative than Democrats, and the damn Democrats have been taken over by the most radical mofos this country has ever seen. I seriously think many in the DNC want to see this country destroyed and rebuilt into something that patterns any number of Socialistic European countries. Sure, France "now" is the best place to live; ask the 12+% unemployed that. ...and that's normal for France, not for us. I think the Dems are fine with a 12+% unemployment so long as "their" version of fairness is in play. Fairness to me means two, totally different things. You work, you succeed. You wanna be lazy? Well f--- you, starve for all I care. We have equality here. Everyone else has the same chance. People rise up out of the ghettos, trailerparks, and barrios all the time. If one can do it, ALL can do it. If they don't, don't look at society, look inward at your own self.

(01-08-2010 03:00 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(01-08-2010 02:55 PM)Rebel Wrote:  I get along with everyone that isn't a GDamn thief hellbent on stealing my money and doling it out to everyone else. Not one of those people? Cool, we'll get along.

That would explain your apparent anger. Almost every politician is doing just that, in one way or another. Good thing you don't live in Illinois, it's even worse - not just federal, but state government is a veritable black hole when it comes to money.

That's true w/ most states, and it's getting worse, for various reasons

http://volokh.com/2010/01/05/underfunded...n-dollars/

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/age-con...et-sluts-9

including the Fed Gov't that apparently wants this to be a suicide pact

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...70644.html

(01-08-2010 03:55 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(01-08-2010 03:00 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(01-08-2010 02:55 PM)Rebel Wrote:  I get along with everyone that isn't a GDamn thief hellbent on stealing my money and doling it out to everyone else. Not one of those people? Cool, we'll get along.

That would explain your apparent anger. Almost every politician is doing just that, in one way or another. Good thing you don't live in Illinois, it's even worse - not just federal, but state government is a veritable black hole when it comes to money.

That's true w/ most states, and it's getting worse, for various reasons

http://volokh.com/2010/01/05/underfunded...n-dollars/

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/age-con...et-sluts-9

including the Fed Gov't that apparently wants this to be a suicide pact

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...70644.html

Yea, I suppose it is. Though the Illinois prisons need to open a special wing to hold all the former governors - it gives you some idea. The worst part is, the biggest thieves are still free.

BGSU -

I’ve been thinking about this a little more on this slow Friday afternoon, aaaaaaaaand since I'm certain you are just dying to know:

I think your example is a pretty good illustration of what arrogant, self-important, ponderous, rug-burned internet pricks people can be sometimes. A person mentioned their political persuasion, and all people could think to do was fall all over themselves and trash others as they try to prove a point. As if that could possibly prove anything. As if your friend of on Facebook was about to respond, saying, "Really, I have seen the light, and I have henceforth forsworn my prior allegiance."

Every day I talk to someone or read something that speaks with this supposedly high-minded tone, indicating that anyone with half a brain and a quarter-ounce of human decency must agree with what I say now. Liberals have no monopoly on arrogance or cruelty, but the more pretentious strain of it seems to be a particularly liberal thing now, maybe because George W Bush made all liberals feel as though they had every right to be arrogant and crude in defense of their cause;—indeed, that it was their duty to spare no one. And what bugs me the most about this is that the characteristic liberal disdain doesn't even have the dignity of a Rush Limbaugh or a Glenn Beck. At least Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck lash out publicly, saying what they think and making their outrageous and ridiculous claims for all the world to see and refute. But most liberals hide behind a veil of kindness and humanitarianism, shielding their really angry and bitter thoughts behind a facade of equity and humility. Until it comes out in the most anonymous of situations: hence the prevalence of all-out liberal spewed hate on the internet.

Everybody likes to feel like they're right in their opinions, and liberals are no different; the internet just affords liberals the only place where they can say what they think and still keep their precious facade of humanitarian decency.

But human interaction can rarely be reduced to a binary in any productive way. Liberal? Conservative? It becomes more and more clear that politics is, at least in democratic countries, is for the vast majority of people just a playground upon which they can play out the petty squabbles and childhood issues and inferiority complexes that dance in their heads. For most people, it isn't about "justice" or "the good" or "the right." It's just about using those words to act out their revenge on their own personified pain.

For instance, and only using his nomdeguer as an obvious example to the Spin Room, and not as a call-out, RobertN has the knack for neatly personifying for many people their own repression, their own provinciality, their own small-mindedness and aloofness to facts; so when he is aloof to them, or distant with them, or otherwise ignores their "facts," they become enraged, and lash out bitterly. Though I do fault (to point that I now ignore him completely on this site) RobertN for not sticking around and trying to put down his liberal thoughts on paper here in the Spin. In my mind, RobertN and to a lesser extent Artiface are sort of like a crazy drunk Wild West cattle rustler who heads into town, bursts through the swinging doors at the saloon, fires off 50 rounds, hits nothing, then retreats wondering why everyone else is thinking “WTF? Stick around and have it out with us.”

Because I know that it is very difficult to know how to say to someone that they're just playing out their own drama, or that they're letting the group dynamic impress its illogical arguments in their minds as sensible. You'd have to be a very good judge of character, and you'd have to be able to project love to people even while telling them they're wrong.

That's true politics—the art of the handling of human beings, the art of judging the waters of human discourse and knowing precisely what action to take at precisely what time in order to benefit everyone the most. I think we can start to get an image of true politics when we learn to let go of our group identifications and labels and accept the possibility that we might be wrong. For example, an expert in true politics could have given RobertN an answer which, in a paragraph or two, completely changed his mind and his perspective on the entire topic at hand; and yet he would have been just as prepared to accept that Rebel or Sum or even little ol’ Lord Stanley might have been right, after all.

But none of us here are really up to that yet. I'm not bad-mouthing the Spin, or RobertN, sincerely, but the group identifications we many times make here, and in political discourse in general across all bounds, are unfortunate at best—especially giving that they're totally unnecessary.

I'm not perfect on this count, either, but I do realize that we really have to learn to let it go.

Yes I know, broad brush and all. "Liberals" aren't a cohesive unit any more than "gays", "conservatives", "women", "americans", "boy scouts" "Toledo Football Fans" or any other large group of people.

I think that to the extent that liberals lean towards providing more services and other benefits to the poor (regardless of the reason they're poor), at the expense of the much better-off citizens, as opposed to the more conservative viewpoint of sink or swim, which would probably result in more homeless people (and lower taxes I'm sure), that it is more humanitarian. I don't really call that a "veil". You can obviously argue about the ramifications of the liberal policies and that they're a bad idea, but that's a separate issue.

But I generally agree with your other comments. I can't speak to who is more "hate-filled" or whatever on the internet (between liberals and conservatives), as I don't read about politics usually - this board is the closest I get to talking politics, and I don't post much. I don't read Democratic Underground, listen to Rush, or anything else specific to politics. I don't see much difference between the 2 sides from my limited experience. There's more liberal bashing than conservative bashing on this board, but there are obviously more conservatives here, so it's proportional. I agree that too many seem to look down on those that they disagree with, assuming of course that the other person is wrong at best, and a complete idiot possibly. There's no reason to jump on somebody with the opposing viewpoint (which appears to have happened in the original post).

(01-08-2010 05:27 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I think that to the extent that liberals lean towards providing more services and other benefits to the poor (regardless of the reason they're poor), at the expense of the much better-off citizens, as opposed to the more conservative viewpoint of sink or swim,

Conservatives DON'T think that. They're the most giving subset of the population in terms of charity. They just don't want the damn government stealing 100 bucks from them to give 10 bucks to someone for the sake of a vote. Oh, and BTW, where'd the other 90 bucks go?

(01-08-2010 12:09 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(01-08-2010 12:06 PM)Rebel Wrote:  So you tag-teamed some chick because she didn't like Obama.

I fixed that, I defriended every stupid f'n liberal I had on FB.

Anyay 1987,
I think there is much in what you say. I think it's largely b/c people make big assumptions, they "know" what Dem, Rep, Lib, Cons, all mean...whether it's true or not.

Ironically, I think this is emphasized in public schools. Instead of teaching students how to have a civil discussion about controversial topics, including listening to someone else, and understanding what their terms mean and perspectives are, we see heated arguments with insults and put downs, coupled with smug teachers who think they've done a good job b/c the pupils are so animated. We also see teachers criticizing POV that are still TBD if they don't agree w/ their preferred view. We see administrators with their heavy hand overreact to issues, and take pre-emptive measures to censor their schools, lest disagreement creep in on their watch (and heaven forbid, question their absolute authority!)

Listening is a skill that needs to be practiced. It's not a concession of being wrong or a sign of weakness to listen and understand a different point of view. But few people make the effort to acquire this ability.

Coming from The Torch. Priceless.