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[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.

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

There are more people in the working class.  At no point did anyone in the media ever countenance the idea that Hillary might not win, and this combined with a lot of people's distaste for her and her lack of a coherent narrative meant there wasn't much actual force behind it.  This was corroborated by the media themselves in a desperate bid to save face and act self-aware after they got caught being Clinton's PR wing.

It's not messed up unless I'm misunderstanding you, which is possible because I have no idea what you're talking about.  The power of the intelligentsia is to influence opinions, which they lost their ability to do when they started calling everyone who disagreed with them retarded nazis.  The rust belt industrial class, which usually votes democrat, went for Trump because they felt betrayed and frustrated.  They have a bigger voice when it comes to actually electing people than these "ivory tower" guys.

[GreatJustice]

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.

I'll get back to this

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."

I'll just leave this here and quote from it liberally since it expresses a lot of ideas that I can't quite express succinctly

Now to get to the meat of my issue with calling things "racist":

Spoiler: Long ass quote about dog whistles (click to show/hide)

A month or two ago a British MP named Naz Shah got in trouble for sharing a Facebook post saying Israel should be relocated to the United States. Fellow British politician Ken Livingstone defended her, and one thing led to another, and somewhere in the process he might have kind of said that Hitler supported Zionism.

This isn’t totally out of left field. During the Nazi period in Germany, some Nazis who wanted to get rid of the Jews and some Jews who wanted to get away from the Nazis created the Haavara Agreement, which facilitated German Jewish emigration to Palestine. Hitler was ambivalent on the idea but seems to have at least supported some parts of it at some points. But it seems fair to say that calling Hitler a supporter of Zionism was at the very least a creative interpretation of the historical record.

The media went further, again as a giant mass. Ken Livingstone is anti-Semitic. Ken Livingstone is anti-Semitic. Ken Livingstone is anti-Semitic. Ken Livingstone is anti-Semitic. Ken Livingstone is anti-Semitic. I understand he is now having to defend himself in front of a parliamentary hearing on anti-Semitism.

So. First things first. Ken Livingstone is tasteless, thoughtless, embarrassing, has his foot in his mouth, is inept, clownish and offensive, and clearly made a blunder of cosmic proportions.

But is he anti-Semitic?

When I think “anti-Semitic”, I think of people who don’t like, maybe even hate, Jews. I think of the medieval burghers who accused Jews of baking matzah with the blood of Christian children. I think of the Russians who would hold pogroms and kill Jews and burn their property. I think of the Nazis. I think of people who killed various distant family members of mine without a second thought.

Obviously Livingstone isn’t that anti-Semitic. But my question is, is he anti-Semitic at all? Is there any sense in which his comments reveal that, in his heart of hearts, he really doesn’t like Jews? That he thinks of them as less – even slightly less – than Gentiles? That if he were to end up as Prime Minister of Britain, this would be bad in a non-symbolic, non-stupid-statement-related way for Britain’s Jewish community? Does he just say dumb things, or do the dumb things reflect some underlying attitude of his that colors his relationship with Jews in general?

(speaking of “his relationship with Jews”, he brings up in his own defense that two of his ex-girlfriends are Jewish)

I haven’t seen anyone present any evidence that Livingstone has any different attitudes or policies towards Jews than anyone else in his general vicinity. I don’t think even his worst enemies suggest that during a hypothetical Livingstone administration he would try (or even want) to kick the Jews out of Britain, or make them wear gold stars, or hire fewer Jews for top posts (maybe he’d hire more, if he makes his hiring decisions the same way he makes his dating decisions). It sounds like he might be less sympathetic to Israel than some other British people, but I think he describes his preferred oppositional policies toward Israel pretty explicitly. I don’t think knowing that he made a very ill-advised comment about the Haavara agreement should make us believe he is lying about his Israel policies and would actually implement ones that are even more oppositional than he’s letting on.

Where am I going with this? It’s stupid to care that Ken Livingstone describes 1930s Germany in a weird way qua describing 1930s Germany in a weird way; he’s a politician and not a history textbook writer. It seems important only insofar as his weird description reveals something about him, insofar as it’s a sort of Freudian slip revealing deep-seated attitudes that he had otherwise managed to keep hidden. The British press framed Livingstone’s comments as an explosive revelation, an “aha! now we see what Labour is really like!” They’re really like…people who describe the 1930s in a really awkward and ill-advised way? That’s not a story. It’s a story only if the weird awkward description reveals more important attitudes of Livingstone’s and Labour’s that might actually affect the country in an important way.

But not only is nobody making this argument, but nobody even seems to think it’s an argument that has to be made. It’s just “this is an offensive thing involving Jews, that means it’s anti-Semitic, that means the guy who said it is anti-Semitic”. Maybe he is. I’m just not sure this incident proves much one way or the other.

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.

That wasn't what I meant to bring up but since you mention it

Spoiler: estimating how many Americans are "openly racist" (click to show/hide)

This is a Vox poll asking how many people had favorable vs. unfavorable views of different groups. 11% admit to “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” views of blacks, which sounds bad, except that 7% of people admit to unfavorable views of heterosexuals by the same definition. This makes me think “have an unfavorable view about this group” is not a very high bar. If we restrict true “white supremacists” to those who have only “very unfavorable” views of blacks, this is 3%, well in line with our other sources.

(of note, 1% of respondents had “never heard of” blacks. Um…)

Maybe a better way of looking for racists: David Duke ran for Senate in Louisiana this year. He came in seventh with 58,000 votes (3%). Multiplied over 50 states, that would suggest 2.5 million people who would vote for a leading white supremacist. On the other hand, Louisiana is one of the most racist states (for example, Slate’s investigation found that it led the US in percent of racist tweets) and one expects Duke would have had more trouble in eg Vermont. Adjusting for racism level as measured in tweets, it looks like there would be about 1 million Duke voters in a nationwide contest. That’s a little less than 1% of voters.

So our different ways of defining “open white supremacist”, even for definitions of “open” so vague they include admitting it on anonymous surveys, suggest maybe 1-2%, 1-2%, 4-7%, 3-11%, and 1-3%.

But doesn’t this still mean there are some white supremacists? Isn’t this still really important?

I mean, kind of. But remember that 4% of Americans believe that lizardmen control all major governments. And 5% of Obama voters believe that Obama is the Antichrist. The white supremacist vote is about the same as the lizardmen-control-everything vote, or the Obama-is-the-Antichrist-but-I-support-him-anyway vote.

(and most of these people are in Solid South red states and don’t matter in the electoral calculus anyway.)

4. Aren’t there a lot of voters who, although not willing to vote for David Duke or even willing to express negative feelings about black people on a poll, still have implicit racist feelings, the kind where they’re nervous when they see a black guy on a deserted street at night?

Probably. And this is why I am talking about crying wolf. If you wanted to worry about the voter with subconscious racist attitudes carefully hidden even from themselves, you shouldn’t have used the words “openly white supremacist KKK supporter” like a verbal tic.

tl;dr we're talking maybe 5% of the voting US population, probably more like 1%, and the bulk of those are in states that are totally noncompetitive eg. Mississippi

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

Maybe it isn't. There's probably several factors. But it's a hell of a lot more complex than "liberals are more correct on every issue than conservatives, all the time, conservatives are just dumb rubes"

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

They're the ones I, as an outsider non-liberal (albeit a non-conservative also) see all the time. I very rarely see the reasonable ones try to take on the crazy ones, and it seems like the reasonable ones are really damn quick to close ranks when I go after the crazy ones.

...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.

How much proof is enough? 10 articles? 20?

I feel like I could provide 100 and it wouldn't be enough. I'm not going to bother unless I see literally any kind of evidence that the crazy ones aren't influential.

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.

Trump's cabinet isn't alt-right. If we're using a very broad definition of alt-right that includes Pat Buchanan types then at best it has a few alt-right members. Most of it could be described as "paleocon", with a lot of neocon foreign policy types mixed in.

But to go back to my habit of using quotations,

Spoiler: How important is the Alt-Right (click to show/hide)

2. Is Trump getting a lot of his support from online white nationalists and the alt-right?

No, for the same reason.

The alt-right is mostly an online movement, which makes it hard to measure. The three main alt-right hubs I know of are /r/altright, Stormfront, and 4chan’s politics board.

The only one that displays clear user statistics is /r/altright, which says that there are about 5,000 registered accounts. The real number is probably less – some people change accounts, some people post once and disappear, and some non-white-nationalists probably go there to argue. But sure, let’s say that community has 5,000 members.

Stormfront’s user statistics say it gets about 30,000 visits/day, of which 60% are American. My own blog gets about 8,000 visits/day , and the measurable communities associated with it (the subreddit, people who follow my social media accounts) have between 2000 – 8000 followers. If this kind of thing scales, then it suggests about 10,000 people active in the Stormfront community.

4chan boasts about 1 million visits/day. About half seem to be American. Unclear how many go to the politics board and how many are just there for the anime and video games, but Wikipedia says that /b/ is the largest board with 30% of 4Chan’s traffic, so /pol/ must be less than that. If we assume /pol/ gets 20% of 4chan traffic, and that 50% of the people on /pol/ are serious alt-rightists and not dissenters or trolls, the same scaling factors give us about 25,000 – 50,000 American alt-rightists on 4Chan.

Taking into account the existence of some kind of long tail of alt-right websites, I still think the population of the online US alt-right is somewhere in the mid five-digits, maybe 50,000 or so.

50,000 is more than the 5,000 Klansmen. But it’s still 0.02% of the US population. It’s still about the same order of magnitude as the Nation of Islam, which has about 30,000 – 60,000 members, or the Church of Satan, which has about 20,000. It’s not quite at the level of the Hare Krishnas, who boast 100,000 US members. This is not a “voting bloc” in the sense of somebody it’s important to appeal to. It isn’t a “political force” (especially when it’s mostly, as per the 4chan stereotype, unemployed teenagers in their parents’ basements.)

So the mainstream narrative is that Trump is okay with alienating minorities (= 118 million people), whites who abhor racism and would never vote for a racist (if even 20% of whites, = 40 million people), most of the media, most business, and most foreign countries – in order to win the support of about 50,000 poorly organized and generally dysfunctional people, many of whom are too young to vote anyway.

Caring about who the KKK or the alt-right supports is a lot like caring about who Satanists support. It’s not something you would do if you wanted to understand real political forces. It’s only something you would do if you want to connect an opposing candidate to the most outrageous caricature of evil you can find on short notice.

[Rolepgeek]

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.

You think that was just this year? And just the left?

That's how tribalism works, man. Both sides of the spectrum. Left is just more visible, since they're more active online, because they're younger. Also, left is the 'revolutionary' side, and is thus more activist by nature. The right still has it's shit, though. People forget that, because we're on the internet, and it has become popular to criticize SJWs.

Hell, science only lines up with liberal beliefs vaguely, and most of the reason for it is that universities and higher education tend to also harbor a lot of liberal folks, who help convince others to be liberal as well as tending to be the thing conducting a lot of research. The left is the faction of the new. Science is new. But once the attitude has set in, people don't pay attention to the science. My mother works for a hospital, helping finances for research departments, and brings up science articles all the time. She's maybe the most progressive person I know. And she puts zero faith in the science about how bad fracking actually is (not as much as people make it out to be; most of the things going wrong are from companies not doing due diligence, which has largely been/is being resolved. She doesn't process how quickly sea levels are supposed to be rising. They're rising at a 'dangerous over the next century', not a 'dangerous in the next decade' rate. The left happens to be more likely to be true. But taking that for granted is a fallacy and a dangerous one.


Also SJWs are just the left's version of the religious right. It's already been noted the similarities it has to protestant theology. *shrug*

[Neonivek]

I think people are SERIOUSLY overinflating the "SJW"'s presence here. They are a lot more visible then they are numerous.

There are far more Leftist Racists then there are SJWs for example.

[Reelya]

A group doesn't need to be numerous to be influential. Campus-style politics and online activism is more and more seeing "SJW" types (for want of a better term) as the gatekeepers of opinion. Left-wing racists might perhaps be more numerous, but how influential are they over the mass of general left people?

Another point that I've read elsewhere is that mass media are bad at telling you what to think - heavy handed dictates don't go down well, but they're superbly capable at telling you what to think about, i.e. framing the conversation. Gatekeepers of opinion in a group fill the same role: they don't have to always be right, they don't even need to have people agree with them very often. They just need the influence to determine which topics are being talked about, and what angle is being debated on that topic.

[martinuzz]

Holy moly, just caught up with missing a day or two of US drama. What the fuck is Trump trying to do, start a civil war, with his reaction to the recount? "Millions of illegal voters"  ...!? Is he completely psychotic or have no brains? That man is SO unfit to be a president. Dear US friends, you have to do everyting in your power to stop this polarising maniac from becoming president. It will doom your country.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/trump-clinton-heeft-popular-vote-gewonnen-door-ernstige-kiesfraude~a4423677/

"Clinton won the popular vote only thanks to massive fraud". C'mon. That's a toddler's reaction, not a president's reaction.

[Vilanat]

I think people are SERIOUSLY overinflating the "SJW"'s presence here. They are a lot more visible then they are numerous.

There are far more Leftist Racists then there are SJWs for example.

Interesting. would you say that your opinion on domestic and/or foreign politics has not been influenced by various SJW?

[Loud Whispers]

From my perspective, the Jedi are evil!

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." - Says a Jedi, dealing in absolutes.
Muh supreme morality

because it fucking does, ever read Conservapedia?

No, but I read such things as 'carbon nanofibres are patriarchal' and I see that no side is exclusive to stupidity and dogma.

STRAWMAN ALERT

Pardon friend, you just reaffirmed your beliefs that reality has a liberal bias and-

There is a difference between the left and the right, and it is a meaningful one. BECAUSE it does not tolerate intolerance. BECAUSE it uses fact and reason through science. BECAUSE it values democratic ideals over corporate absolutism.

Yeah, claimed exclusive monopoly on fact and reason through science.

There are loud and snobby pseudoliberals and then there are liberals.

Unless the liberals destroy the loud and snobby pseudoliberals, those loud and snobby peusdoliberals are the face of liberalism. Just as the GOP failed to destroy Trump and now his right are the face of the GOP, your no true scotsmen are liberals.

Well that's snobs being snobby. How can you show that this is representative of liberals?

Because liberals being snobby for others holding views that oppose liberalism is representative of liberals

*sigh*
I am a liberal. I was pretending to be a liberal as seen from the ENEMY'S side. It mocked everybody, really, that's how comedy works though.

It is a staple of liberal comedy that in its attempt to be self-mocking, it does not examine any of the flaws of the self, rather it attacks its own opponents under the guise of humility. It mocked your opponents, you didn't mock yourself, don't pretend otherwise :/

C: "This is how things work."
LW: "No, it's like this."
C: "YOU SMUG LIBERAL BASTARD"
how would you respond

Spoiler: for as long as you see your enemies this way, you will never bridge the gulf between you and reality (click to show/hide)

I've always lived my life repeating that I am a humble man of no talent, thus to get anywhere I must work hard for it. My humility shows, thus only once in my life I've been called arrogant, and I solved that problem very quickly by being self-effacing to the highest extent. I do not draw that knowing more stuff makes me better than someone else, and this has served me well. For example in my day to day dealings by virtue of there not being conservatives to converse to, any time I correct someone who's factually wrong it is liberals, who don't understand simple things like biology or history, or I'm just offering them a different opinion to one of the countryside political parties that gets no voice here. That doesn't make me better than them just because I was privileged enough to be educated in those subjects, and it is an obvious truth to remember and live by. Conversely I have met people who believed that just because they were Harvard of Oxford educated that I would treat them with the respect of a Princeling; for the most part such former students of these establishments are very well-mannered, though one such person I found completely worthless - too arrogant.

the perception of smugness killed us, it's those damn Russian propagandists /tic
"Reality has a liberal bias,"
read conservapedia for a few seconds, then reconsider
"because it's 2015,"
get with the times, dood, it's not the 15th century anymore
"are you kidding me?"
mrw when reading conservapedia
"such things are smug, no twisting is needed."
[NEEDS_CITATION]

It's like I'm on rationalwiki
Let me just put it this way: Jews, Catholics and Muslims pray, and when doing so, judge themselves for their flaws to make them known. They practice a skill that others find difficult, because judging one's self honestly is truly difficult without practice.

Funny, I'm living in a purple state and have many conservative people to talk to, I can talk with them without having a fit or calling them stupid, and yet because I'm a liberal I'm "smug". This makes no fucking sense.

It is not because you are a liberal that you are smug, it is because you are smug that you are smug. That you are also liberal makes you a smug liberal

Well isn't someone a good little anti-intellectualist, pulverize the Ivory Towers who criticize your government

My government is drawn from and supported by intellectualists, they all come from Oxbridge. That's besides the point though, something you seem to have missed :[
For starters you must know that if we are to use an image as sexy as Ivory Tower intellectuals, I am of that group; I was not being sarcastic when I talked of someone capable of entertaining me with a discourse on postcolonial intertextual dialectics, I have genuinely found a need to learn such things and take joy from them. They have taught me new ways of looking at things, some of which I found valuable. When I'm saying someone who's worked on the docks has shown greater intelligence than an elite academic, I'm likewise not being sarcastic. A great deal of liberal smug arises from how the academic theatre is dominated by liberals, and so the perception has come to be anyone who is not involved in a line of work that stems from academics is nothing more than a failed liberal; thus your kneejerk reaction that if I am to criticize the notion that being intellectual makes one superior, I must be a 'good little anti-intellectualist.' How am I to believe you aren't smug when talking to conservatives when even now you are so condescending? I should think you would have a sensible chuckle if I called you a 'good little sheeple' now wouldn't you? :P
The root of your ailments is smug.

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.

No, it is not 'just a meme LW is in love with.' I'm afraid you've lost popular support across the world, and it is not the fault of one mere shitposter as I. On the topic of liberals having a monopoly on smug, I must correct you here, I am not saying that smugness belongs only to liberals, only that for liberals it is such an awfully visible (and critically!) dominant flaw that has turned away most of society. It is a very simple mistake to make, off the top of my head for example I could name Milo riding in on a throne as an example of the arrogance of the alt-right, it's simply far less of an issue for socialists and conservatives drawing on working class people who have nought to be proud of competing with wealthy liberals who have plenty of avenues on which to construct their perceived superiority; from the rank and file, not just the leadership.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

From my perspective, the Jedi are evil!

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." - Says a Jedi, dealing in absolutes.
Muh supreme morality

Noooooooooooooooooo!

because it fucking does, ever read Conservapedia?

No, but I read such things as 'carbon nanofibres are patriarchal' and I see that no side is exclusive to stupidity and dogma.

False equivalency, try again. The left has been wrong. The right has been more wrong more often. Your one example of a SJW idiot does not counterbalance every single YEC. Aren't they, like, 40% of the population?

STRAWMAN ALERT

Pardon friend, you just reaffirmed your beliefs that reality has a liberal bias and-

There is a difference between the left and the right, and it is a meaningful one. BECAUSE it does not tolerate intolerance. BECAUSE it uses fact and reason through science. BECAUSE it values democratic ideals over corporate absolutism.

Yeah, claimed exclusive monopoly on fact and reason through science.

*facepalm*

That wasn't me. If I were writing it, I'd say "the left tends to use facts and reason," not this absolute stuff. But even with this absolute, he doesn't say that the right cannot use facts and reason! REEDING COMPREHENSHUN DOOOOOOOOD

There are loud and snobby pseudoliberals and then there are liberals.

Unless the liberals destroy the loud and snobby pseudoliberals, those loud and snobby peusdoliberals are the face of liberalism. Just as the GOP failed to destroy Trump and now his right are the face of the GOP, your no true scotsmen are liberals.

Ahh, so we're discussing liberals as they are seen (from outside), not liberals as they are. A rather important distinction, don't you think? Even more so, because I would agree that liberals are seen as smug! Try writing better.

Well that's snobs being snobby. How can you show that this is representative of liberals?

Because liberals being snobby for others holding views that oppose liberalism is representative of liberals

Argument from assertion, dood. Were you even trying when you wrote this?

*sigh*
I am a liberal. I was pretending to be a liberal as seen from the ENEMY'S side. It mocked everybody, really, that's how comedy works though.

It is a staple of liberal comedy that in its attempt to be self-mocking, it does not examine any of the flaws of the self, rather it attacks its own opponents under the guise of humility. It mocked your opponents, you didn't mock yourself, don't pretend otherwise :/

Curses! My eeeeeeevil plaaaaan was foiled by this damned LW! ...no, not really. I was pretending to be a smug liberal. I didn't actually think that you were in a bubble, that's just the sort of thing that your ENEMY the smug liberal would say.

C: "This is how things work."
LW: "No, it's like this."
C: "YOU SMUG LIBERAL BASTARD"
how would you respond

Spoiler: for as long as you see your enemies this way, you will never bridge the gulf between you and reality (click to show/hide)

It's a simplified version of what has actually happened. I have been called smug for simply saying that people are wrong, on this thread. Did I reveal a bias when writing that? Sure. Am I capable of interacting with and considering the beliefs of those who disagree with me? Yes. Therefore I am not closed-minded.

Also lol you Armokdamn hypocrite, that's the same joke I made except I don't think you're making a joke

I've always lived my life repeating that I am a humble man of no talent, thus to get anywhere I must work hard for it.

Okay, your choice, I'd rather tell myself that I deserve the world on a silver platter.

NOPE, hahaha

My humility shows, thus only once in my life I've been called arrogant, and I solved that problem very quickly by being self-effacing to the highest extent.

My arrogance shows, this one time I said that somebody was wrong, which obviously shows that I'm a smug liberal right?

I do not draw that knowing more stuff makes me better than someone else, and this has served me well.

Huh, neither do I, and yet you're demonizing me as THAT SMUG BASTARD, might want to reconsider

For example in my day to day dealings by virtue of there not being conservatives to converse to, any time I correct someone who's factually wrong it is liberals, who don't understand simple things like biology or history, or I'm just offering them a different opinion to one of the countryside political parties that gets no voice here.

...that's a good point you have there, when I correct a liberal on non-politics they're just a normal person, whereas when I correct a conservative on non-politics they're demonstrating the inferiority of their party.

Nope! Just kidding. Haha, I bet you thought you had me there.

That doesn't make me better than them just because I was privileged enough to be educated in those subjects, and it is an obvious truth to remember and live by.

That's funny, I know that too! I never said that liberals were better than conservatives, I said they were more scientifically correct, et cetera.

Conversely I have met people who believed that just because they were Harvard of Oxford educated that I would treat them with the respect of a Princeling; for the most part such former students of these establishments are very well-mannered, though one such person I found completely worthless - too arrogant.

Well, it's a fucking good thing that I don't expect that much respect then, eh?

the perception of smugness killed us, it's those damn Russian propagandists /tic
"Reality has a liberal bias,"
read conservapedia for a few seconds, then reconsider
"because it's 2015,"
get with the times, dood, it's not the 15th century anymore
"are you kidding me?"
mrw when reading conservapedia
"such things are smug, no twisting is needed."
[NEEDS_CITATION]

It's like I'm on rationalwiki

What about it? The constant Conservapedia references? They're the equivalent of SJWs. What-about-X? We need to compare liberal smugness today with old-liberal smugness and conservative smugness for a good understanding of the scale.

Let me just put it this way: Jews, Catholics and Muslims pray, and when doing so, judge themselves for their flaws to make them known. They practice a skill that others find difficult, because judging one's self honestly is truly difficult without practice.

Funny, I do that too! But no, I'm the smug liberal demon, I fit so easily into the mold

Funny, I'm living in a purple state and have many conservative people to talk to, I can talk with them without having a fit or calling them stupid, and yet because I'm a liberal I'm "smug". This makes no fucking sense.

It is not because you are a liberal that you are smug, it is because you are smug that you are smug. That you are also liberal makes you a smug liberal

What about me is smug? This is a real question and I've been asking it for a while.

Well isn't someone a good little anti-intellectualist, pulverize the Ivory Towers who criticize your government

My government is drawn from and supported by intellectualists, they all come from Oxbridge. That's besides the point though, something you seem to have missed :[

...

It's a quote from a song, you heathen.

For starters you must know that if we are to use an image as sexy as Ivory Tower intellectuals, I am of that group; I was not being sarcastic when I talked of someone capable of entertaining me with a discourse on postcolonial intertextual dialectics, I have genuinely found a need to learn such things and take joy from them. They have taught me new ways of looking at things, some of which I found valuable. When I'm saying someone who's worked on the docks has shown greater intelligence than an elite academic, I'm likewise not being sarcastic. A great deal of liberal smug arises from how the academic theatre is dominated by liberals, and so the perception has come to be anyone who is not involved in a line of work that stems from academics is nothing more than a failed liberal; thus your kneejerk reaction that if I am to criticize the notion that being intellectual makes one superior, I must be a 'good little anti-intellectualist.'

Here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT INTELLECTUALS WERE SUPERIOR stop strawmanning me STOP STRAWMANNING ME

So within the context of me NOT CALLING INTELLECTUALS SUPERIOR it sounded like an attack on intellectuals.

How am I to believe you aren't smug when talking to conservatives when even now you are so condescending? I should think you would have a sensible chuckle if I called you a 'good little sheeple' now wouldn't you? :P

I'm not condescending, I just have a scathing sense of snark.

The root of your ailments is smug.

PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF

[Neonivek]

Holy moly, just caught up with missing a day or two of US drama. What the fuck is Trump trying to do, start a civil war, with his reaction to the recount? "Millions of illegal voters"  ...!? Is he completely psychotic or have no brains? That man is SO unfit to be a president. Dear US friends, you have to do everyting in your power to stop this polarising maniac from becoming president. It will doom your country.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/trump-clinton-heeft-popular-vote-gewonnen-door-ernstige-kiesfraude~a4423677/

"Clinton won the popular vote only thanks to massive fraud". C'mon. That's a toddler's reaction, not a president's reaction.

I will say this... Trump is VERY irresponsible when it comes to his voters.

Even Obama knows when to calm people down.

The root of your ailments is smug.

Ahhh a trap! This is along the lines of "You are delusional"

There is a difference between the left and the right, and it is a meaningful one. BECAUSE it does not tolerate intolerance.

Isn't that in of itself kind of intolerant?

"We tolerate everybody except the outgroup."

A better way to put it is that Tolerance is a Cardinal Virtue. It is about being tolerant when you need to be tolerant and in the right ways.

Tolerance isn't something that is good in all situations.

[TheBiggerFish]

Oh god, he actually said that?

(Googling 'trump says hillary clinton won popular vote fraud' brings up three news sites reporting the exact same thing and at least one cites his Twitter.)

Why, Trump.  Why.

(make it stop)

[Neonivek]

Oh god, he actually said that?

(Googling 'trump says hillary clinton won popular vote fraud' brings up three news sites reporting the exact same thing and at least one cites his Twitter.)

Why, Trump.  Why.

(make it stop)

Why are you surprised he said it BEFORE the polls actually happened?

Though ok... I am surprised he said it after he won... given he is against the recounts.

[ChairmanPoo]

From my perspective, the Jedi are evil!

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." - Says a Jedi, dealing in absolutes.
Muh supreme morality

Noooooooooooooooooo!

[smjjames]

Holy moly, just caught up with missing a day or two of US drama. What the fuck is Trump trying to do, start a civil war, with his reaction to the recount? "Millions of illegal voters"  ...!? Is he completely psychotic or have no brains? That man is SO unfit to be a president. Dear US friends, you have to do everyting in your power to stop this polarising maniac from becoming president. It will doom your country.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/trump-clinton-heeft-popular-vote-gewonnen-door-ernstige-kiesfraude~a4423677/

"Clinton won the popular vote only thanks to massive fraud". C'mon. That's a toddler's reaction, not a president's reaction.

I will say this... Trump is VERY irresponsible when it comes to his voters.

Even Obama knows when to calm people down.

I doubt Trump is even capable of calming people down, at least not consistently. He was like 'We must come together and unify.' and now he's like 'VOTER FRAUD! ARGLEBARGLE!'

The root of your ailments is Smaug.

PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF

FIFY

Just injecting some humor in here since we are misusing the word smug here, I still don't get what conservatives (or you guys) mean by smug here.

[Neonivek]

Maybe he is honestly afraid that the recounts will actually turn up something...