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Poll Question: Liberal or Conservative?
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9 [14.52%]
17 [27.42%]
14 [22.58%]
7 [11.29%]
3 [4.84%]
8 [12.90%]
4 [6.45%]
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Syzygy View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 05 2007 at 05:10
Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:

You humorless, freedom hating old git!

But seriously, I'm all for being nice and not trying to offend people, but when the government makes laws that put people in prison for not agreeing with what is deemed politically correct it really makes me worry.
 
 
Agreed, but where has this actually happened, or even looked remotely likely to happen?
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to the already rich among us...'

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 05 2007 at 06:09
Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:


Allow me to clarify. I believe in capitalism, the free market, economic liberty. I believe in small government, bordering on no government. I believe in lowering taxes. All of these are traditionally conservative positions, at least in the USA.
 

I also believe in social liberty, such as the right to smoke (democrats are the ones who take this away) the right to bear arms (conservative). I also believe in gay rights and legalizing drugs, which one place where I differ from conservatives, but those are not my highest priority issues.
 

In my opinions, liberals want to restrict our freedoms in order to increase social equality. Conservatives also want to limit our freedoms, but it's not so blatant or severe. At leaast that's my view.
 

 
Again the age-old defintion problems of liberals.CryConfusedOuchLOL
 
From your first paragraph, you are a true liberal in most countries of the world except for the US. Liberal means to liberate/liberalize (whatever) the markets by scrapping the rules almost completely (stopping short of criminal activities)
 
the only reason why some conservatives believe in lowering taxes is because they have great wealth and want to preserve it. (but know that there is only so many place on top of the pyramid, so they want to avoid too many of their kinds on top >> this is a big concept difference between the two factions of the right wing politics >> the free for all liberals and the status quo conservateurs)
 
From your second paragraph, you are a libertarian, because you don't want somebody's moral beliefs interferring with other's live. >> you are probably pro-choice in the abortion debate too. 
 
Please don't relate the smoking ban to Democrats, this is only an issue where the Tobacco growers are placing their interest. They come from the old south and they are republicans by tradition, and true conservateurs. Only their selfishness is speaking as they protect the right to kill more smokers and non-smokers by keep selling their garbage (which they NEVER touch)


Edited by Sean Trane - June 05 2007 at 06:10
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 05 2007 at 11:10
Originally posted by Syzygy Syzygy wrote:

Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:

You humorless, freedom hating old git!

But seriously, I'm all for being nice and not trying to offend people, but when the government makes laws that put people in prison for not agreeing with what is deemed politically correct it really makes me worry.
 
 
Agreed, but where has this actually happened, or even looked remotely likely to happen?


It has already happened. Affirmative action laws state that must hire minorities, if they are qualified, even if you don't want to. If you refuse you can ultimately go to prison.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 05 2007 at 12:36
Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:


It has already happened. Affirmative action laws state that must hire minorities, if they are qualified, even if you don't want to. If you refuse you can ultimately go to prison.


I thought Affirmative Action was the prioritizing of certain minority groups when seeking to hire employees, rather than a policy that forces people to hire new people when they aren't needed.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 05 2007 at 12:58
I'm a libertarian minarchist.  I believe government should exist to protect citizens from outside invaders and other citizens who directly harm other citizens or their property (which means a defensive military, police force, and courts/law-makers).  We band together and offer taxes for mutual protection, other than that, we should be on our own.
 
I live in America and tend to vote conservative, because they seem to me to be running towards the cliff a little slower than liberals--at least as far as my personal life and income is concerned.  I don't have many options in our stupid 2 party system.  If we had that and each state could decide it's own laws, I would want to move to a more morally conservative one (where things like abortion aren't legal)--but that doesn't really have much to do with the structure of a government.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 05 2007 at 18:31
Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:

Originally posted by Syzygy Syzygy wrote:

Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:

You humorless, freedom hating old git!

But seriously, I'm all for being nice and not trying to offend people, but when the government makes laws that put people in prison for not agreeing with what is deemed politically correct it really makes me worry.
 
 
Agreed, but where has this actually happened, or even looked remotely likely to happen?


It has already happened. Affirmative action laws state that must hire minorities, if they are qualified, even if you don't want to. If you refuse you can ultimately go to prison.
 
The way that works on this side of the pond is as follows: If a job applicant feels that they have been unfairly turned down on the grounds of race, gender, orientation or age they can take an employer to court, but in practice it's extremely difficult to prove. There are also safeguards in place; small businesses and some specialised businesses are to some extent exempt from this, and there are no legally enforceable quotas in place, contrary to right wing tabloid columnist's beliefs.
 
There is also legislation in place to tackle racism and related -isms in the workplace, and cases of unfair dismissal or constructive dismissal do come to the courts fairly frequently. Again, difficult to prove but it has forced some notoriously racist institutions to clean their act up - the police force being a good example.
 
As far as I'm aware nobody has gone to prison as a result of this, and I'm pretty certain that the same is true in the USA. If you can produce a verifiable example of somebody who has been imprisoned as a result of this, I'd be very surprised.
 
In any case, do you feel that the 'freedom' to employ an exclusively male, white, anglo saxon, heterosexual, protestant workforce is something that businesses actually need, and do you really think that in a country where the Jim Crow laws and lynchings are a living memory that there was no need for any legal action to be taken?
 
In the UK signs outside boarding houses saying 'no Irish, no Blacks, no dogs' are a living memory; I don't feel that the legislation which rendered them extinct was in any way misguided, even if it did curtail a particular kind of free speech. But that's the sinister, repressive left for you I suppose.
'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute
to the already rich among us...'

Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 00:18
Originally posted by Syzygy Syzygy wrote:

Originally posted by ClassicRocker ClassicRocker wrote:

^^^ Valid points, but in the end this is all subjective (like our musical tastes.. no-one's right, yet everyone is). Honestly, I consider myself more liberal than conservative (but that doesn't mean I believe what they all do; I have my own beliefs and more of them just happen to fall into that category).
 
In that vein of thought I HATE the "PC police". I'm sick and tired of everyone bending over backwards so that they don't "offend" anyone. Sure, we have the basics I believe are neccessary to follow: like don't be racist or don't make insults out of sexual orientation, but the problem lies beyond that. People are getting afraid to speak their minds as to not offend, yet virtually anything one says, does, or makes has the potential of "offending" someone in this world.
 
In all seriousness, political satires like Borat help to fight this by saying what they want and being "offensive" in order to get their points across and expose real problems like ignorance in America (and parts of the rest of the world as well).
 
Political correctness is a phantom invented by a largely conservative media establishment to justify the perpetuation of old bigotries. The PC police don't exist, but maybe people are just a little more sensitive about racism, sexism and homophobia these days. Call me a humourless, freedom hating old git if you like, but I don't see this as a bad thing. In the UK press virtually every story about Political Correctness Gone Mad has proved to be completely fictitious, from London primary schools banning Baa Baa Black Sheep (they didn't) to Winterval replacing Christmas so as not to offend Muslims (It was a business initiative in the mid 90s, nothing to do with PC) to schoolchildren singing Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep so as to be PC (they were learning different colours, including black). Sacha Baron Cohen, the man behind Ali G and Borat, did not intend his creations to be anti PC, but rather to expose the inherent bigotries and hypocrisies that are all too prevalent in contemporary Western societies. Read this quote from the man himself:

Regarding his portrayal as the anti-Semitic Borat, Baron Cohen says the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry," rather than a display of racism by Baron Cohen himself.[23] "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice," Baron Cohen explains. [4] Addressing the same topic in an NPR interview with Robert Siegel, Cohen says "...and I think that's quite an interesting thing with Borat, which is people really let down their guard with him because they're in a room with somebody who seems to have these outrageous opinions. They sometimes feel much more relaxed about letting their own outrageous, politically incorrect, prejudiced opinions come out."[24] Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he also wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference in that genocide. "When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."[4] Regarding the enthusiastic response to his song "In My Country There is Problem", he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."[4]
(Wikipedia, my italics)
 
If you think that Borat is a blow against  PC you have missed the point, and indeed the joke.
 
 
No, I completely get the point of Borat, believe me (sorry - I think that I just worded it incorrectly).
 
In any case, when I refer to PC, or the "PC police" (sometimes considered to be the A.C.L.U.), I am talking about (like you said) a certain sensitivity to certain topics (such as racism, sexism, and homophobia). The problem, is that people are sensitive to the point where they start twisting fairly normal acts into a viewpoint that makes it seem offensive (or racist/sexist/homophobic).
 
One example that sticks out in my mind is the Snickers commercial from the last Superbowl (you can look it up on Youtube). As far as I am aware, it was pulled from the air after representatives of the gay community found it to be homophobic. As a quick recap, in the commercial two men were working in a car garage; one pulled out the candy bar and began to eat it while the other came over and chewed on the other end. They accidentally kiss, then proceed to say "Quick! do something 'Manly'!" Following this they rip out their chest hair with their bare hands. The End.
Now some people may disagree about this, but it's kind of a stretch to consider that homophobic. Because of their dislike of kissing each other, these men were obviously heterosexual, and therefore reacted in a slightly exaggerated way (for humor) one (heterosexual male) might react in that situation. Just because the men didn't enjoy the kiss, DOES NOT make the commercial homophobic! It was meant to be humorous because of their reactions!
 
Another example of when political correctness isn't always correct would be the difference in the terms "black" and "African American" when describing race (the latter being preferred by most PC-people in America). The problem with this is that African American implies that they are all from Africa, or are all living in America! Neither of these things are true, and many of these people have heritage from (or were born in) the Caribbean islands, Central America, S. America, etc. "Black" is a more proper term simply for the fact that it clearly identifies a race in the same way that "white" does. To clarify: these terms in of themselves are not bigotry; they become problems or offensive when people use them in an ignorant context...
 
Finally, we have stretches to not "offend" with movements like removing "Under God" from the U.S. "Pledge of Allegience" (which merely succeeds in drawing more attention in something that can easily be left out if one choses), and forcing employees to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" (or any other "seasons greeting" they wish to give) with a fear of bring fired. Things seem to get hugely blown out of proportion these days, and it's tiring!
 
 
... ok. I'm done. LOL
 
for now
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 12:22

To add to your sentiment, the PC police think we should be tolerant of all types of people...

...accept of course for the intolerant ones--they don't tolerate intolerant people.  So I guess that means they souldn't tolerate themselves either?Confused
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 12:28
Not to hail the virtues of prog-rock too much, but it's refreshing to see that political discussions can go on here without an unhealthy amount of bitterness and over-reacting.  I seriously think that the horizon-expanding music that is progressive rock seems to make listeners more accepting of differing ideas, despite not necessarily agreeing with them. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 13:17
Originally posted by jmcdaniel_ee jmcdaniel_ee wrote:

Not to hail the virtues of prog-rock too much, but it's refreshing to see that political discussions can go on here without an unhealthy amount of bitterness and over-reacting.  I seriously think that the horizon-expanding music that is progressive rock seems to make listeners more accepting of differing ideas, despite not necessarily agreeing with them. 

Naw ... I just think that there''s a general fatigue when it comes to discussing politics. You may want to check the "Venezuela freedom of speech" & the "which animal is it OK to kill" threads to  see a more  relevant sample of  the acceptance of differing ideas. 
As for horizon-expanding qualities, I can't see that a musical genre is the cause of such an effect. The open mind is there to begin with. Sometimes some will be interested in a wider variety of musical styles, some will be willing to accept other races/creeds/beliefs, and some will eat anything that hits their plate. I'm sure we can go over a lot of threads here & find stunning examples of elitism, snobbishness, superiority complexes, "I am the Lord King Boofy" attitude and such to argue that progsters are as human as the rest of humanity.


Edited by debrewguy - June 06 2007 at 13:23
"Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 13:27
Originally posted by jmcdaniel_ee jmcdaniel_ee wrote:

Not to hail the virtues of prog-rock too much, but it's refreshing to see that political discussions can go on here without an unhealthy amount of bitterness and over-reacting.  I seriously think that the horizon-expanding music that is progressive rock seems to make listeners more accepting of differing ideas, despite not necessarily agreeing with them. 
 
Yes, it definitely is refreshing, compared to talking to people face-to-face that get really angry when you disagree with them (at least that's how quite a few people are in the Mid-Western U.S.!) But I would also venture to say that prog-rock in general can help to "expand your horizons", maybe because listening to it is more of an active process that requires a little more brain power to analyze (generally) compared to passive run-of-the-mill music that dominates society these days. This critical thinking and also the types of ideas expressed in the music itself seem (for most) to promote (NOT cause) more open-mindedness to new ideas.
(Sounds good to me, but maybe I'm just another "prog elitist"! Big%20smile)


Edited by ClassicRocker - June 06 2007 at 13:28
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 14:01
Moderate.  But if my family knew about some of my positions on a variety of issues they would probably call me a liberal wiener.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 20:59
Green party!



So more liberal than conservative, and more socialist than liberal, but the green party suits me well.  To think, two years ago when I joined this place I used to be pretty moderate.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 06 2007 at 23:26
Originally posted by Bluesaga Bluesaga wrote:

Green party!



So more liberal than conservative, and more socialist than liberal, but the green party suits me well.  To think, two years ago when I joined this place I used to be pretty moderate.
 
Haha, do ya think Nader is going to run again?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2007 at 22:52
Originally posted by xenuwantsyou xenuwantsyou wrote:

Moderate.  But if my family knew about some of my positions on a variety of issues they would probably call me a liberal wiener.

For some reason, I didn't need to check your country info to think that you're an american Confused
"Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 10 2007 at 06:29
Originally posted by debrewguy debrewguy wrote:

Originally posted by xenuwantsyou xenuwantsyou wrote:

Moderate.  But if my family knew about some of my positions on a variety of issues they would probably call me a liberal wiener.

For some reason, I didn't need to check your country info to think that you're an american Confused
 
 
Yup, they simply come out that way, not realizing how much they fit so perfectly the stereotype we have of them.Wink
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 13 2007 at 10:29
Originally posted by Sean Trane Sean Trane wrote:

Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:


Allow me to clarify. I believe in capitalism, the free market, economic liberty. I believe in small government, bordering on no government. I believe in lowering taxes. All of these are traditionally conservative positions, at least in the USA.
 

I also believe in social liberty, such as the right to smoke (democrats are the ones who take this away) the right to bear arms (conservative). I also believe in gay rights and legalizing drugs, which one place where I differ from conservatives, but those are not my highest priority issues.
 

In my opinions, liberals want to restrict our freedoms in order to increase social equality. Conservatives also want to limit our freedoms, but it's not so blatant or severe. At leaast that's my view.
 

 
Again the age-old defintion problems of liberals.CryConfusedOuchLOL
 
From your first paragraph, you are a true liberal in most countries of the world except for the US. Liberal means to liberate/liberalize (whatever) the markets by scrapping the rules almost completely (stopping short of criminal activities)
 
the only reason why some conservatives believe in lowering taxes is because they have great wealth and want to preserve it. (but know that there is only so many place on top of the pyramid, so they want to avoid too many of their kinds on top >> this is a big concept difference between the two factions of the right wing politics >> the free for all liberals and the status quo conservateurs)
That's ridiculous. Conservatives believe in lowering taxes to increase disposable income and stimulate the economy, to take money away from the government to prevent it the means and incentive to grow, and as a basic issue that the government shouldn't be diving into your hard earned paycheck.
 
From your second paragraph, you are a libertarian, because you don't want somebody's moral beliefs interferring with other's live. >> you are probably pro-choice in the abortion debate too. 
 
Please don't relate the smoking ban to Democrats, this is only an issue where the Tobacco growers are placing their interest. They come from the old south and they are republicans by tradition, and true conservateurs. Only their selfishness is speaking as they protect the right to kill more smokers and non-smokers by keep selling their garbage (which they NEVER touch)
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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