Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

Well Trump didn't base his ENTIRE campaign on Racism.

Some of it was anti-current government... a bit of fear mongering (err wait that would be part of the racism category)... A bit of "Make America Great again"...

You know Charisma and all that.

Well, the liberals are wrong about the climate

Liberals control the Climate? I might have to get more invested in American politics... O_O

[Max™]

Don't do that.

[Cthulhu]

Just got caught up and that was some delicious lack of self-awareness, like a microcosm of the broader reaction in the unthinking left's media hugbox. I'm left wondering if there's a reasonable left left to wake up, or if the core is just delusional narratives all the way down. Unless Trump visibly and repeatedly fucks up and the left does a total U-turn on the past thirty-odd years, we're screwed. At least this election served to shatter my ideological illusions.

I admit, I cackled a little when the Clinton coronation party was canceled and all the courtier smiles turned to frowns. That's what happens when you live in a fantasy world too long, you forget what reality feels like. Reality only has a liberal bias if you're living in a virtual reality with poor verisimilitude. Only human perceptions have bias, and insisting otherwise is pretty much the height of the smugness which people refuse to acknowledge. I'm mostly ashamed that I participated in it. It's rather brutally ironic that so much of the left has become so staunchly anti-liberal while continuing to claim a monopoly on openness and reason.

The core is delusional narratives all the way down.  Current Year has been a lot of things, and one of them is a parade of increasingly hysterical behavior from the new generation of left-wing thinkers and leaders.  The left won the culture war and decided they know everything and anyone still on the right is a wrongthinker and either stupid, evil, or both.  I was reading on reddit somebody talking about how the Brexit result revealed "democratic deficits," in other words the thing I wanted didn't win so let's change the rules.

Real talk, I'm glad Trump won.  If nothing else, it might knock some sense into people.  I think this was a good demonstration of the whole "silent majority" thing.  Calling Trump voters deplorables, Nazis, racists, etc. didn't change their minds, it just pushed them out of the debate (that's okay, the people doing it obviously weren't interested in debating anyway) and they kept their mouths shut until the time came to vote.

That is, hopefully the Trump result will make people realize we need to start having serious adult discussions and have a tiny smidgen of good faith towards people who disagree with us.  Maybe that guy in the maga hat isn't actually a stupid nazi hillbilly. 

It won't though, it'll just cause everyone to double down, for example

You'd have to be using insane troll logic to think that Trump somehow didn't base his entire campaign on racism.

[Max™]

The only thing Trump has shown is that the old "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line" quote is absolutely true. Nobody loved either candidate, but Republicans will literally vote for a giant pile of crap if it has an (R) and it's down to election day.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I just realized that I am woefully inexperienced in politics, and I don't really interact with anybody, so perhaps my angry kneejerk reaction to "liberals are smug" isn't the best idea, and perhaps I shouldn't take it as a personal attack.

When people say "liberals are smug," though, what do they even mean? What is a "liberal"? Liberal voters? Liberal Facebook posters? Liberal politicians? Liberal arts majors?

But this does not excuse liberals beating full retreat to the colleges and the cities, abandoning the dispossessed to their fate.

And this: what does it even mean? Do they think that liberal policies are ignoring the rural poor? Or perhaps liberal people tend to overlook the rural poor? Or are the liberals literally moving away?

I REQUIRE A DEFINITION

[Neonivek]

Everyone is Smug Dozebom.

It is called having integrity

How else do you think the Liberals control the wind and weather?

[Max™]

It's just a meme LW is in love with, to the point he goes to impressive contortions to defend the idea that smugness belongs only to the liberal side. If you're smug you're a liberal, but if you're not a liberal and it appears as though you're being smug you're not actually smug, you're just... I dunno, right? Which might sound like the same reason liberals get called smug but hey, I'm not trying to defend the argument.

Also, I said earlier I was worried about the warmth up north, because it would radiate and lose heat to space, and it did.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

But his evidence is lacking. “The smug style in American liberalism” is defined entirely through media and social media. It is The Daily Show, it is liberal Twitter, it is Gawker. (Rensin devotes a portion of the essay to excoriating an essay by writer Hamilton Nolan.) But these are small portions—fractions—of the Democratic Party. And they’re far from representative of American liberals.

This is what I've been trying to saaaaaaaay

bereft of the material and social capital required to dominate elite decision making, they were largely excluded from an agenda driven by the New Democratic core: the educated, the coastal, and the professional

Rensin wtf, anti-intellectual much, of course educated and professional people will drive politics more, duh

[Neonivek]

The thing about Smugness is... well..

WHEN THE HECK have either parties not acted like they were the Cat's Pajamas?

When it this imaginary period of American history where the parties were humble and only gave each other the highest praise?

[Max™]

Just yesterday apparently, but the liberals were too busy being mean to notice that the conservatives reformed.

[Cthulhu]

bereft of the material and social capital required to dominate elite decision making, they were largely excluded from an agenda driven by the New Democratic core: the educated, the coastal, and the professional

Rensin wtf, anti-intellectual much, of course educated and professional people will drive politics more, duh

Too bad they didn't, since the election was decided by working class rust belt states.

[GreatJustice]

Ahh, I must have skimmed that part. Okay, so if we ignore the cherry-picking, that's a good article. But still, how do we define racism? If it can be applied to statements at all, Trump's "you're biased, Judge, because you're Mexican" - isn't that a racist statement?

If we're judging people's hearts, then Trump isn't racist, sure. He's opportunistic, and he's appealed to racists. But that's not what we're doing. We're judging his words.

We're getting somewhere at least.

Certainly there is some argument to be made there. However, the train of thought from nearly all the coverage I've seen is nowhere nearly as nuanced as that, it goes more like Trump made a racist statement -> Trump is an open racist -> Trump is basically David Duke. There is a huge grey area here that I feel is being missed. To give it some perspective,

Dog whistling seems to be the theory that if you want to know what someone really believes, you have to throw away decades of consistent statements supporting the side of an issue that everyone else in the world supports, and instead pay attention only to one weird out-of-character non-statement which implies he supports a totally taboo position which is perhaps literally the most unpopular thing it is possible to think.

And then you have to imagine some of the most brilliant rhetoricians and persuaders in the world are calculating that it’s worth risking exposure this taboo belief in order to win support from a tiny group with five-digit membership whose support nobody wants, by sending a secret message, which inevitably every single media outlet in the world instantly picks up on and makes the focus of all their coverage for the rest of the election.

Sure, it's easy to be scientifically literate when you don't let your beliefs get in the way of knowledge. Does that make liberals morally better? No. Do they know more? Yes. Do they make better policy? Yes. Isn't that what matters?

It's possible to be right for the wrong reasons and wrong for the right reasons.

For example, let's assume Global Warming is a thing. Conservatives say "Global Warming isn't a thing" and advocate for reckless deregulation, cutting spending, cutting taxes, etc ie. what they would normally do. Liberals say "Global Warming is a thing" and raise taxes, impose regulations, fund environment-defending government agencies, etc which is also what they would normally do.

The obvious conclusion to draw is "Well, the liberals identify the problem so their solution must be better than none", but it's a bit more complicated than that. Assume for the sake of argument that conservatives are right about the economy, namely that deregulated markets are better at improving the human condition, at creating wealth, at leading to innovation, etc. If the conservatives are correct then the comparison is a bit different: while not acknowledging Global Warming, their policies result in greater wealth accumulation which results in more investment in new technologies which results in more cost effective environmentally friendly technology which reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the liberal policies that actually try to reduce Global Warming leads to subsidies going to crooks, wealth being reduced, and economic stagnation making it harder and harder to balance "protecting the environment" with all the other liberal goals like "protecting the poor". In this situation, the conservatives, despite totally ignoring the problem, happen to have policies that help solve a different problem that indirectly solves the problem that they ignore.

Obviously just a hypothetical, but still one worth considering, I think. It isn't necessarily clear-cut.

One article. One. Article. This is the face of liberalism, folks.

Two, actually, but I screwed up the formatting (google the headline and you should find it)

You asked for examples, I provided some. I have things to be doing besides looking for hysterical Democrats writing articles about racist Trump supporters.

A forum. What even is a liberalism? I'm pretty sure that some liberals were smug. But when you give blanket statements like "liberals, in general, were smug," you need more evidence than that.

I can't provide infinite evidence. I can't get a citation from every self-identifying liberal and compare their average "smugness" before and after the election. At some point you need to provide counterexamples.

Strawman much? I don't think that "Trump is racist" is equivalent to "every non-liberal ever is a racist." You might want to have your eyes checked.

I wasn't referring to you, I was referring to Mr. "har har I thought racism was disliking black people har har"

Not all, but *shrug* that's what I see in the alt-right. I realize that their public face might be as inaccurate as the SJWs on Facebook, but what else do I have to go with?

I'd say that the alt-right is to conservatives what SJWs are to liberals but then I'd be severely overestimating the influence of the alt-right because they have no influence in academia or powerful media organizations currying their favour (No, Breitbart doesn't count)

[Neonivek]

Ok if there is one thing I wish people would stop it is conflating "Progressives" with the Left and with Liberalism.

SJWs are not "Extreme leftists" because they do not follow leftist philosophies or even pseudo-left ideologies... at least not exclusively (they are all over the map).

Specifically the ones I am referring to could better be labeled "Pseudo-progressive Trolls" (PPTs). Their goal is to annoy and harm others through seemingly progressive stances and arguments that they don't necessarily believe in or that mask a darker intention.
-Actually the reason I don't like using the term SJW is because... There are so many people that fall under this that the word has lost meaning... But I don't tear people down for using it, though I will say my displeasure everytime.

It isn't a "Liberal" idea that people should remain segregated...

It would be like saying the Military is a conservative institution

Conservatives say "Global Warming isn't a thing" and advocate for reckless deregulation

Wait what? Are we sure Global Warming is divided among party lines?

In fact my research suggests it used to be... and it is becoming (or already is) Bipartisan once again.

The reason I fear Trump's reckless deregulation isn't because he is Conservative or Liberal... But rather that he is running the USA as a business and has stated that. I haven't heard of his stance on environmental protection as of yet.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

bereft of the material and social capital required to dominate elite decision making, they were largely excluded from an agenda driven by the New Democratic core: the educated, the coastal, and the professional

Rensin wtf, anti-intellectual much, of course educated and professional people will drive politics more, duh

Too bad they didn't, since the election was decided by working class rust belt states.

Okay, this is officially messed up. So the Ivory Towers were so influential... that they lost. Huh. Makes sense, right? /s

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Ahh, I must have skimmed that part. Okay, so if we ignore the cherry-picking, that's a good article. But still, how do we define racism? If it can be applied to statements at all, Trump's "you're biased, Judge, because you're Mexican" - isn't that a racist statement?

If we're judging people's hearts, then Trump isn't racist, sure. He's opportunistic, and he's appealed to racists. But that's not what we're doing. We're judging his words.

We're getting somewhere at least.

Certainly there is some argument to be made there. However, the train of thought from nearly all the coverage I've seen is nowhere nearly as nuanced as that, it goes more like Trump made a racist statement -> Trump is an open racist -> Trump is basically David Duke.

See? I'm not going down that line. He's racist in the sense that he makes racist statements. That's all I'm saying. Don't assume that I'm just another of those freaking-out Facebook SJWs.

There is a huge grey area here that I feel is being missed. To give it some perspective,

Dog whistling seems to be the theory that if you want to know what someone really believes, you have to throw away decades of consistent statements supporting the side of an issue that everyone else in the world supports, and instead pay attention only to one weird out-of-character non-statement which implies he supports a totally taboo position which is perhaps literally the most unpopular thing it is possible to think.

I don't know where that quote's from, but the author got it wrong. Dog-whistling is... take "ghetto" for instance, everybody knows it means "the black part of town." Or "state's rights," which we all know is "the right of states to enact segregation."

And then you have to imagine some of the most brilliant rhetoricians and persuaders in the world are calculating that it’s worth risking exposure this taboo belief in order to win support from a tiny group with five-digit membership whose support nobody wants, by sending a secret message, which inevitably every single media outlet in the world instantly picks up on and makes the focus of all their coverage for the rest of the election.

A five-digit membership? We aren't talking the KKK here, we're discussing the many people who hate/dislike/would prefer to remove, say, TEH GAYS or TEH MUSLIMS or TEH BLACKS or TEH MEHICANS. That's a few more than 10000 people.

Sure, it's easy to be scientifically literate when you don't let your beliefs get in the way of knowledge. Does that make liberals morally better? No. Do they know more? Yes. Do they make better policy? Yes. Isn't that what matters?

It's possible to be right for the wrong reasons and wrong for the right reasons.

For example, let's assume Global Warming is a thing. Conservatives say "Global Warming isn't a thing" and advocate for reckless deregulation, cutting spending, cutting taxes, etc ie. what they would normally do. Liberals say "Global Warming is a thing" and raise taxes, impose regulations, fund environment-defending government agencies, etc which is also what they would normally do.

The obvious conclusion to draw is "Well, the liberals identify the problem so their solution must be better than none", but it's a bit more complicated than that. Assume for the sake of argument that conservatives are right about the economy, namely that deregulated markets are better at improving the human condition, at creating wealth, at leading to innovation, etc. If the conservatives are correct then the comparison is a bit different: while not acknowledging Global Warming, their policies result in greater wealth accumulation which results in more investment in new technologies which results in more cost effective environmentally friendly technology which reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the liberal policies that actually try to reduce Global Warming leads to subsidies going to crooks, wealth being reduced, and economic stagnation making it harder and harder to balance "protecting the environment" with all the other liberal goals like "protecting the poor". In this situation, the conservatives, despite totally ignoring the problem, happen to have policies that help solve a different problem that indirectly solves the problem that they ignore.

Obviously just a hypothetical, but still one worth considering, I think. It isn't necessarily clear-cut.

Certainly. It could just be that science happens to line up with liberal beliefs... but I don't think that's all of it.

One article. One. Article. This is the face of liberalism, folks.

Two, actually, but I screwed up the formatting (google the headline and you should find it)

You asked for examples, I provided some. I have things to be doing besides looking for hysterical Democrats writing articles about racist Trump supporters.

Here's the thing - these "hysterical Democrats," how are they the face of liberalism?

A forum. What even is a liberalism? I'm pretty sure that some liberals were smug. But when you give blanket statements like "liberals, in general, were smug," you need more evidence than that.

I can't provide infinite evidence. I can't get a citation from every self-identifying liberal and compare their average "smugness" before and after the election. At some point you need to provide counterexamples.

...the burden of proof is on you, dude, if you want to show that liberalism is smug then you need to provide more than just a few whiny blogs and threads.

Strawman much? I don't think that "Trump is racist" is equivalent to "every non-liberal ever is a racist." You might want to have your eyes checked.

I wasn't referring to you, I was referring to Mr. "har har I thought racism was disliking black people har har"

Okay... *don't whiteknight, Doz, let Mr. Har fight his own battle*

Not all, but *shrug* that's what I see in the alt-right. I realize that their public face might be as inaccurate as the SJWs on Facebook, but what else do I have to go with?

I'd say that the alt-right is to conservatives what SJWs are to liberals but then I'd be severely overestimating the influence of the alt-right because they have no influence in academia or powerful media organizations currying their favour (No, Breitbart doesn't count)

Ahahahahahahaha

First of all, the SJWs are the public face of liberalism, SJWs plus Ivory Tower plus Cackling Commie Babykiller = liberals, from one perspective.

And have you been living under a rock or what? Look at Trump's cabinet and tell me that's not alt-right.

Academia? Powerless, apparently, to stop the rise of the alt-right.

Media organizations? They have their own media.