Well said. I don't have a problem with conservatives (SDW, trumptman et al), I have a problem with ignoramuses, conservative or liberal.
Perhaps labeling someone who is in a union chair at his school, an educator, who advocates civil unions, reproductive choice for men and women, and fair trade a conservative shows how profoundly to the left you and others on here must be.
Perhaps labeling someone who is in a union chair at his school, an educator, who advocates civil unions, reproductive choice for men and women, and fair trade a conservative shows how profoundly to the left you and others on here must be.
Nick
Socially and economically-- you're pretty conservative. With notable exceptions, of course.
Socially and economically-- you're pretty conservative. With notable exceptions, of course.
Actually I'm libertarian and lean more so each year. For example I gave up on the drug war a long time ago. I'm part of the group that voted in treatment instead of criminalization for drug use crimes here in California.
I mention the drug issue because last I checked, it was one of the issues you were quite to the right of me on.
I don't know enough about Common Man to defend everything he does. However I see two threads started by him.
Liberal Media Bias
U.N. to blame for war in Iraq
I don't see a thread topic that appears to be spreading hateful, stereotypical lies about the left.
Nick
Because I like you, however much we may disagree in the end, please do me a favor. Could you imagine, out loud, on this forum, why those two thread titles might be interpreted by liberals on AO as roughly equivalent to my or SJO or Shawn or pfflam or Giant or Bunge starting a thread with the title "Conservatives Hate Black People" or "Conservatives Hate Poor People"? We could even change it to something less inflamatory: "Another example of Conservatives Caring More About The Rich Than The Common Man." I'm absolutely serious here. Why might reasonable liberals (and I consider myself a reasonable liberal) take umbrage at such thread topics? What kinds of assumptions--about liberalism, about liberal policies, about liberals as people--underly such thread topics? You must admit that, even without delving into the topic-starting post, there are connotations clearly meant to be assumed, and there is an ideological agenda that is, however old and ragged, intended to be accepted as fact when it simply is not.
I chose the example thread topics I did simply because that was how the left used to paint the right (and still, stupidly, tries to); A Common Man's thread topics are no different.
But seriously, Nick, I'd like to see you work out, in public, why such thread topics might be deliberately inflammatory.
Because I like you, however much we may disagree in the end, please do me a favor. Could you imagine, out loud, on this forum, why those two thread titles might be interpreted by liberals on AO as roughly equivalent to my or SJO or Shawn or pfflam or Giant or Bunge starting a thread with the title "Conservatives Hate Black People" or "Conservatives Hate Poor People"? We could even change it to something less inflamatory: "Another example of Conservatives Caring More About The Rich Than The Common Man." I'm absolutely serious here. Why might reasonable liberals (and I consider myself a reasonable liberal) take umbrage at such thread topics? What kinds of assumptions--about liberalism, about liberal policies, about liberals as people--underly such thread topics? You must admit that, even without delving into the topic-starting post, there are connotations clearly meant to be assumed, and there is an ideological agenda that is, however old and ragged, intended to be accepted as fact when it simply is not.
I chose the example thread topics I did simply because that was how the left used to paint the right (and still, stupidly, tries to); A Common Man's thread topics are no different.
But seriously, Nick, I'd like to see you work out, in public, why such thread topics might be deliberately inflammatory.
Cheers
Scott
I am seriously confused as to how they could be considered hateful?!?!
Here are the two topics.
Liberal Media Bias
U.N. to blame for war in Iraq
If I changed that to female media bias, or black media bias, why would anyone assume that I hate females or blacks, even while claiming a bias?
Also even if I read a thread that said "Bush to blame for war in Iraq" that, to me simple means they want to discuss the causes for the war. Sadly there are people on here of all persuasions who, at times, simply resort to knee jerk thinking which is labeled "bashing" all around. But that doesn't mean that I think the person starting the thread has a hatred for all conservatives just off that thread topic.
Hope that was "outloud" enough for ya, clarify if it isn't.
The media outlets I listed above are very biased to the right. I know that. The difference between their bias and that of CNN or BBC or NYT is that the programs I listed all advertise themselves as biased. They do not pretend to be neutral. My problem is with the mainstream "news" media sliding its political bias into what should be factual reports. Therei s a big difference. I have no problem with a liberal report or publication that bills itself as what it is. All opinions deserve to be expressed in America as long as they are labeled as opinions.
Most mainstream sources strive for the bottom line . . .and that has become middle-right since Fox weedled its way into the 'Common Man's' brain.
Structurally and content wise the media today is middle-right oriented.
Entertainment, in content, is socially-liberal in orientation.
Even NPR and PBS have swung very far to the right, in sponsorship, content and even in the format of presentation: Talk Of The Nation must have a right wing Christain Music program on every other week, and at least two Bush Apologists on every three days. And still they remain closer to the ideal that all media sources should strive to 'objectivity' than any mainstream source!
i'm inclined to think that people notice opposing views more easily, in the various media, than similar views. to me, conservatives seem more common than liberal, not necessarily because they are, but because they are more noticeable. it's probably impossible to eradicate all bias from the media, we all carry our baggage with us everywhere we go.
Perhaps labeling someone who is in a union chair at his school, an educator, who advocates civil unions, reproductive choice for men and women, and fair trade a conservative shows how profoundly to the left you and others on here must be.
Nick
Sorry trumptman, I didn't mean to offend. It has been my impression from your posts that you are a conservative fiscally and economically. It is my impression that you believe that government should play a minimilist role and that you subscribe to Smith's "...The Wealth of Nations..."
When I say Conservative, i do NOT mean Republican. I find it to be horribly ironic that the "conservative" government runs a huge deficit and advocates personally intrusive laws. The republican party is not conservative, and it was not my intention to associate you with them.
I am seriously confused as to how they could be considered hateful?!?!
Well, the problem is that no one is claiming the threads are hateful. That's your word. I'm merely pointing out that they are both deliberately inflammatory and based on decades old rhetoric that simply doesn't apply anymore. That was why I chose the examples I did about "Conservatives Hate Black People." That was the way the rhetoric used to work. It doesn't work that way anymore--and even when boneheaded liberals try to use it, they're easily shot down.
Quote:
If I changed that to female media bias, or black media bias, why would anyone assume that I hate females or blacks, even while claiming a bias?
The problem is that you don't even need to change the titles to get at the underlying problem. The fundamental assumption here is a kind of Reaganite old school rhetoric that insists that "liberal" is by necessity a kind of evil--not the bias itself, but the particular slant of the bias. The syllogism, it seems to me, works something like this: liberals are wrong; conservatives are right; liberals hate conservatives; conservatives love America; therefore liberals, because they disagree with conservatives, hate America. Conservative bias in the media is acceptable, because conservatives love America and the truth and apple pie. Liberal bias in the media is wrong because liberals are wrong and hate America and might as well be communists.
The same logic is at work in the UN responsible for the Iraq War, in many ways. The modern conservative anxieties about US involvement in the UN stem from, really, two fronts: 1) legitimate conservative concerns about US sovereignty (i.e. ceding control of the country over to an international coalition) and 2) Christian Right concerns about "one world government" being the precursor to Armageddon (go watch that news show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and you'll see what I mean). The UN is, of course, the apotheosis of pin-headed liberal ideas (dating back to that paragon of pinheadedness Woodrow Wilson), and so merely mentioning it is to invoke some kind of liberal agenda to divest ourselves of sovereignty and therefore destroy the Union. It must, therefore, be anti-American.
In the end, A Common Man's thread is an attempt to lay blame for the Iraq war squarely at the feet of the UN, and, therefore, at the feet of liberals. That thread, I am happy to say, quickly became a debate about the faults of the UN.
Quote:
Also even if I read a thread that said "Bush to blame for war in Iraq" that, to me simple means they want to discuss the causes for the war.
The problem is that A Common Man's rhetoric of oppression (which is a kind of old school Republican rhetoric that, for some reason, lingers among Republicans who haven't noticed that they control all three branches of government and most of the media--and that but for a brief 12 years under Carter and Clinton (who I do not really consider a liberal), most of the latter half of the 20th century was dominated by conservative politics.
Your version of it here makes two errors: 1) It focuses on an individual, rather than declaring that a broad swatch of the human population is responsible for something; 2) It falls into the same trap as most conservative complaints about liberals these days, which is to say that it unnecessarily focuses on the man and not the politics. This is the same kind of rhetoric that produces the bizarre line that "liberals are blinded by their hatred of Bush," which, as I have written elsewhere on these boards, is an argument that for my money is really quite terrifying to hear someone make.
Quote:
Sadly there are people on here of all persuasions who, at times, simply resort to knee jerk thinking which is labeled "bashing" all around. But that doesn't mean that I think the person starting the thread has a hatred for all conservatives just off that thread topic.
I agree with you on this. Too many of us resort to the kind of kneejerking that makes us appear damned apoplectic.
Quote:
Hope that was "outloud" enough for ya, clarify if it isn't.
I sincerely appreciated the response (even though I was going for more of a "put yourself in my shoes" kind of thing).
Comments
Originally posted by progmac
Well said. I don't have a problem with conservatives (SDW, trumptman et al), I have a problem with ignoramuses, conservative or liberal.
Perhaps labeling someone who is in a union chair at his school, an educator, who advocates civil unions, reproductive choice for men and women, and fair trade a conservative shows how profoundly to the left you and others on here must be.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Perhaps labeling someone who is in a union chair at his school, an educator, who advocates civil unions, reproductive choice for men and women, and fair trade a conservative shows how profoundly to the left you and others on here must be.
Nick
Socially and economically-- you're pretty conservative. With notable exceptions, of course.
Originally posted by ShawnJ
Socially and economically-- you're pretty conservative. With notable exceptions, of course.
Actually I'm libertarian and lean more so each year. For example I gave up on the drug war a long time ago. I'm part of the group that voted in treatment instead of criminalization for drug use crimes here in California.
I mention the drug issue because last I checked, it was one of the issues you were quite to the right of me on.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Actually I'm libertarian and lean more so each year.
And thus your conservatism makes us strange bedfellows on certain issues.
Originally posted by midwinter
And thus your conservatism makes us strange bedfellows on certain issues.
Don't worry Scott, I'll nibble your ear until you come around on the other issues.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
I don't know enough about Common Man to defend everything he does. However I see two threads started by him.
Liberal Media Bias
U.N. to blame for war in Iraq
I don't see a thread topic that appears to be spreading hateful, stereotypical lies about the left.
Nick
Because I like you, however much we may disagree in the end, please do me a favor. Could you imagine, out loud, on this forum, why those two thread titles might be interpreted by liberals on AO as roughly equivalent to my or SJO or Shawn or pfflam or Giant or Bunge starting a thread with the title "Conservatives Hate Black People" or "Conservatives Hate Poor People"? We could even change it to something less inflamatory: "Another example of Conservatives Caring More About The Rich Than The Common Man." I'm absolutely serious here. Why might reasonable liberals (and I consider myself a reasonable liberal) take umbrage at such thread topics? What kinds of assumptions--about liberalism, about liberal policies, about liberals as people--underly such thread topics? You must admit that, even without delving into the topic-starting post, there are connotations clearly meant to be assumed, and there is an ideological agenda that is, however old and ragged, intended to be accepted as fact when it simply is not.
I chose the example thread topics I did simply because that was how the left used to paint the right (and still, stupidly, tries to); A Common Man's thread topics are no different.
But seriously, Nick, I'd like to see you work out, in public, why such thread topics might be deliberately inflammatory.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by trumptman
Don't worry Scott, I'll nibble your ear until you come around on the other issues.
Nick
I'm glad you were paying attention to my position on pulling out of Iraq....
Originally posted by midwinter
Because I like you, however much we may disagree in the end, please do me a favor. Could you imagine, out loud, on this forum, why those two thread titles might be interpreted by liberals on AO as roughly equivalent to my or SJO or Shawn or pfflam or Giant or Bunge starting a thread with the title "Conservatives Hate Black People" or "Conservatives Hate Poor People"? We could even change it to something less inflamatory: "Another example of Conservatives Caring More About The Rich Than The Common Man." I'm absolutely serious here. Why might reasonable liberals (and I consider myself a reasonable liberal) take umbrage at such thread topics? What kinds of assumptions--about liberalism, about liberal policies, about liberals as people--underly such thread topics? You must admit that, even without delving into the topic-starting post, there are connotations clearly meant to be assumed, and there is an ideological agenda that is, however old and ragged, intended to be accepted as fact when it simply is not.
I chose the example thread topics I did simply because that was how the left used to paint the right (and still, stupidly, tries to); A Common Man's thread topics are no different.
But seriously, Nick, I'd like to see you work out, in public, why such thread topics might be deliberately inflammatory.
Cheers
Scott
I am seriously confused as to how they could be considered hateful?!?!
Here are the two topics.
Liberal Media Bias
U.N. to blame for war in Iraq
If I changed that to female media bias, or black media bias, why would anyone assume that I hate females or blacks, even while claiming a bias?
Also even if I read a thread that said "Bush to blame for war in Iraq" that, to me simple means they want to discuss the causes for the war. Sadly there are people on here of all persuasions who, at times, simply resort to knee jerk thinking which is labeled "bashing" all around. But that doesn't mean that I think the person starting the thread has a hatred for all conservatives just off that thread topic.
Hope that was "outloud" enough for ya, clarify if it isn't.
Nick
The unbiased
The media outlets I listed above are very biased to the right. I know that. The difference between their bias and that of CNN or BBC or NYT is that the programs I listed all advertise themselves as biased. They do not pretend to be neutral. My problem is with the mainstream "news" media sliding its political bias into what should be factual reports. Therei s a big difference. I have no problem with a liberal report or publication that bills itself as what it is. All opinions deserve to be expressed in America as long as they are labeled as opinions.
Fellows
Structurally and content wise the media today is middle-right oriented.
Entertainment, in content, is socially-liberal in orientation.
Even NPR and PBS have swung very far to the right, in sponsorship, content and even in the format of presentation: Talk Of The Nation must have a right wing Christain Music program on every other week, and at least two Bush Apologists on every three days. And still they remain closer to the ideal that all media sources should strive to 'objectivity' than any mainstream source!
I am right and you are wrong . . . !
ah yess...
MYTH! It's a frickin myth.
hey common... is O'Reilly a liar?
Is he an independant?
So you listen to only rightwing media... of course anything else will seem to the left of it... and guess what... I'm sure you like it that way.
try reading Eric Alterman's book.
Put down the Washington Times and get a grip.
Originally posted by trumptman
Perhaps labeling someone who is in a union chair at his school, an educator, who advocates civil unions, reproductive choice for men and women, and fair trade a conservative shows how profoundly to the left you and others on here must be.
Nick
Sorry trumptman, I didn't mean to offend. It has been my impression from your posts that you are a conservative fiscally and economically. It is my impression that you believe that government should play a minimilist role and that you subscribe to Smith's "...The Wealth of Nations..."
When I say Conservative, i do NOT mean Republican. I find it to be horribly ironic that the "conservative" government runs a huge deficit and advocates personally intrusive laws. The republican party is not conservative, and it was not my intention to associate you with them.
Originally posted by trumptman
I am seriously confused as to how they could be considered hateful?!?!
Well, the problem is that no one is claiming the threads are hateful. That's your word. I'm merely pointing out that they are both deliberately inflammatory and based on decades old rhetoric that simply doesn't apply anymore. That was why I chose the examples I did about "Conservatives Hate Black People." That was the way the rhetoric used to work. It doesn't work that way anymore--and even when boneheaded liberals try to use it, they're easily shot down.
If I changed that to female media bias, or black media bias, why would anyone assume that I hate females or blacks, even while claiming a bias?
The problem is that you don't even need to change the titles to get at the underlying problem. The fundamental assumption here is a kind of Reaganite old school rhetoric that insists that "liberal" is by necessity a kind of evil--not the bias itself, but the particular slant of the bias. The syllogism, it seems to me, works something like this: liberals are wrong; conservatives are right; liberals hate conservatives; conservatives love America; therefore liberals, because they disagree with conservatives, hate America. Conservative bias in the media is acceptable, because conservatives love America and the truth and apple pie. Liberal bias in the media is wrong because liberals are wrong and hate America and might as well be communists.
The same logic is at work in the UN responsible for the Iraq War, in many ways. The modern conservative anxieties about US involvement in the UN stem from, really, two fronts: 1) legitimate conservative concerns about US sovereignty (i.e. ceding control of the country over to an international coalition) and 2) Christian Right concerns about "one world government" being the precursor to Armageddon (go watch that news show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and you'll see what I mean). The UN is, of course, the apotheosis of pin-headed liberal ideas (dating back to that paragon of pinheadedness Woodrow Wilson), and so merely mentioning it is to invoke some kind of liberal agenda to divest ourselves of sovereignty and therefore destroy the Union. It must, therefore, be anti-American.
In the end, A Common Man's thread is an attempt to lay blame for the Iraq war squarely at the feet of the UN, and, therefore, at the feet of liberals. That thread, I am happy to say, quickly became a debate about the faults of the UN.
Also even if I read a thread that said "Bush to blame for war in Iraq" that, to me simple means they want to discuss the causes for the war.
The problem is that A Common Man's rhetoric of oppression (which is a kind of old school Republican rhetoric that, for some reason, lingers among Republicans who haven't noticed that they control all three branches of government and most of the media--and that but for a brief 12 years under Carter and Clinton (who I do not really consider a liberal), most of the latter half of the 20th century was dominated by conservative politics.
Your version of it here makes two errors: 1) It focuses on an individual, rather than declaring that a broad swatch of the human population is responsible for something; 2) It falls into the same trap as most conservative complaints about liberals these days, which is to say that it unnecessarily focuses on the man and not the politics. This is the same kind of rhetoric that produces the bizarre line that "liberals are blinded by their hatred of Bush," which, as I have written elsewhere on these boards, is an argument that for my money is really quite terrifying to hear someone make.
Sadly there are people on here of all persuasions who, at times, simply resort to knee jerk thinking which is labeled "bashing" all around. But that doesn't mean that I think the person starting the thread has a hatred for all conservatives just off that thread topic.
I agree with you on this. Too many of us resort to the kind of kneejerking that makes us appear damned apoplectic.
Hope that was "outloud" enough for ya, clarify if it isn't.
I sincerely appreciated the response (even though I was going for more of a "put yourself in my shoes" kind of thing).
Cheers
Scott