Is the Politics Forum Winding Down?

Sturgis wrote:

Chrissee wrote:
Maybe the forum is declining is because half of what is posted here are right-wing lies posted ad nauseum in hopes that by repeating the lies enough times, they will become true. They won't.

What drives me away from the political forum is behavior such as this where it is continually said that anything said by a supporter of George Bush or anyone in the Republican party is a lie. There are several truths which are overlooked; however, there are certain persons who have no desire to hear them.

Add to this the absurd accusations hurled from certain individuals towards the Republicans and then do yourself a favor and count through the posts in the majority of topics listed in the political threads, and notice that there is little (no) truth to the idea that "half of what is posted here are right-wing lies". This is clearly wrong since far less than half the posts are made from the right-wing individuals so the idea of half the responses being lies from the right wing says that anything said by a Bush supporter is a lie and that according to you Chrissee, half of all posts are from his supporters, a count through proves that to be wrong.

Well...I realize there are people who suppose every word the conservative Republican, kneejerk, sycophant supporters write is a lie...and a damnable lie at that.

I disagree.

Words like "a" "an" "the" "and" "but"....are often not lies at all.

Most of the rest are...but certainly not all!

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The conservatives are seeing the light, and have less to argue about. And they're embarrassed.

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lash wrote:

Quote:

All considered liberal re American politics. On this board, re political threads, that's homogenous.

Certainly, among you, there may be nuances of difference, but I find it hard to believe that you'd attempt to negate the glaring, basic similarity.

see, that's precisely what i was talking about. as if american liberal and american conservative where the two most important characteristics in the world. those 'nuances' as you call them, are real differences outside the american perspective. not saying everyone should now change and start seeing the picture, no. most posters are american, so that's how it is. it just drives some people away, as it gets old quick and really unproductive. liberal-conservative, good-bad, black-white, democrat-republican. nothing else in the world.

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sozobe wrote:

Sturgis, I'm curious -- what brought you TO the politics forum? That's the main place you post (I think?) and you've only been here a couple of months, curious about why you're here. (Happy to have you! But in terms of "winding down", seems like we are getting new people all the time...)

I ended up at A2K while searching for something else...I then fell in love with this place. What brings me to the political forum (United States part at least, I try to stay out of the other countries except for reading them since they are not part of my political knowledge spectrum) is that I have some fairly conservative ideas and I interject them in an effort to balance the information listed for anybody who may be reading through. Keep in mind, I am not a staunch conservative and if one reads my posts, I am in general fairly open minded and have criticized George Bush. Balance, that is what I would hope each discussion could have, sadly it often (most times) does not. When it becomes too heavily unbalanced, I stop posting and stop reading that particular thread, it seems more sane for me that way.

I agree with you that the politics arena does not seem to be winding down. As long as new people join and post, new ideas will always be here.

As to my time here at A2K, check out my posts in games (acronyms, add a letter and elsewhere....I am spread around in various locales here, it's amazing fun and learning.)

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Lash wrote:

"Squinney and Blatham, Soz and me, and Thomas ..."

All considered liberal re American politics. On this board, re political threads, that's homogenous.

Certainly, among you, there may be nuances of difference, but I find it hard to believe that you'd attempt to negate the glaring, basic similarity.

Thomas is a liberal? Shhh.. No one tell him or he will be upset.

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parados wrote:

Thomas is a liberal? Shhh.. No one tell him or he will be upset.

Why would he be upset? Thomas admits to being a liberal ... albeit a very old-fashioned one.

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I first ventured into the Politics forum shortly after Terri Schiavo died. I wasn't on either side of the fence, but took the position that it was really none of our business. The personal attack was quick and brutal. I left with my tail between my legs. I recently ventured back with a tougher skin while maintaining, what I think, is a more middle-of-the-road position than either left or right.

As an independant voter, who votes republican, democratic, or libertarian, depending on the candidate, I prefer a disscusion without the personal mud slinging. Also, I scoll past the pasted 'news' articles and op/ed pages. I really don't care what someone wrote in the media. I'm much more interested in the opinions of the people here who can speak for themselves.

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Sturgis, have really appreciated your perspective.

Overall, I think Thomas has it in terms of "death of the internet imminent!" I joined Abuzz when it was flush with cash and moderators, but there were still complaints everywhere that it had passed its heyday. In fact, my participation was almost short-lived because of that -- since I was new to the online experience, I took the "death of...!" stuff at face value, and I didn't particularly want to get involved with something that was about to peter out.

But I stayed around long enough to see that whatever it used to be, it was pretty cool at that moment. Dlowan and Craven, to name two, had joined about the same time as me and there was a lot of funny stuff going on.

So one person's "death of" was another person's "birth of", and so it goes.

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dagmaraka wrote:

lash wrote:

Quote:
All considered liberal re American politics. On this board, re political threads, that's homogenous.

Certainly, among you, there may be nuances of difference, but I find it hard to believe that you'd attempt to negate the glaring, basic similarity.

see, that's precisely what i was talking about. as if american liberal and american conservative where the two most important characteristics in the world. those 'nuances' as you call them, are real differences outside the american perspective. not saying everyone should now change and start seeing the picture, no. most posters are american, so that's how it is. it just drives some people away, as it gets old quick and really unproductive. liberal-conservative, good-bad, black-white, democrat-republican. nothing else in the world.

Sure, there are real differences between these perspectives, but none of these perspectives represent social conservatism as it exists (and thrives) in the U.S. None of the individuals named by Nimh, and questioned by Lash, fall within that category. Thomas' views occasionally intersect with those of social conservatives, but as far as I can tell, he is a libertarian, which often entails views diametrically opposed to social conservatives and military-minded conservatives.

It's often the fight over social conservatism (and the role of the military, which is typically strongly correlated with this value) that animates the Politics thread. It isn't as if people on this thread don't see the difference between various nuanced political ideals. But those differences have not generated nearly the amount of change and conflict as has the difference between Western social liberalism, and Western (principally American) social conservatism. To see this world as black and white, Democrat and Republican, is basically a reflection of that largely bipolar struggle. You can see this as only American, but that gravely understates the impact that this struggle has had on the world (E.U./U.S. relations, wars, and the braod allocation of resources among the wealthiest powers in the world).

I wish it were different, but that's where the fight is -- and the politics forum represents that fight.

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Lash wrote:

"Squinney and Blatham, Soz and me, and Thomas ..."

All considered liberal re American politics. On this board, re political threads, that's homogenous.

Certainly, among you, there may be nuances of difference, but I find it hard to believe that you'd attempt to negate the glaring, basic similarity.

The glaring, basic similarity!? What in heaven's name are you talking about? We span the entire political spectrum!

For example: in Germany, Thomas's home country, he votes for one of the most rightwing parties. I would vote for the most leftwing one. We're at the very opposite ends.

In Thomas's list of answers to my What would you vote thread, there is all of one choice (out of 8) that I would make too.

So what glaring, basic similarity?

I suppose if you come from far enough towards the edge of world politics, everything else may soon seem the same. Like communists famously grouped together all the other parties as "bourgeois" parties. Radicals often prefer to define the world in monochromic ways, and its easy to lose depth detection from afar.

But it is that tunnel vision that mostly chased me off the Politics forum.

In reality, of course, I'd bet that there aren't all that many countries that Blatham and I would vote for the same party in, either. Beyond a shared distaste of the American President and US neoconservatism, we disagree about at least as much as we agree on (and even our assessments of neoconservatism widely diverge).

(You once posted something about Blatham "leading the pack" into a certain direction. That betrayed a telling misperception. There is no such guided herd. If anything, Blatham's posts tend to bounce me right back into a sceptic critic of the American left. Its exactly the other way round: its the posts of McGentrix, Foxfyre and yourself that chase me back into strident, leftist tones.)

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Lash wrote:

All considered liberal re American politics. On this board, re political threads, that's homogenous.

Plus, of course, this is not an American board.

Most posters are American, but there's significant numbers of others. It's far from, eh, homogenous.

Thing is, in order to attract more people from around the world, to diversify the range of points of view and perspectives on A2K, we'd need to rise above this Amerocentric framing of all debate.

The us vs them, libs vs cons, Dems vs Reps flamefests Dag mentioned may be tiresome even to you Americans - imagine how discouraged people from elsewhere become!

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In the Sept 12 issue of the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin quotes Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy reflecting on his post-graduate time at the London School of Economics,

Quote:

"...where he was struck by the range of student opinion and the vehemence of politcal debate. 'At the political union, you had to sit in the room according to your place on the ideological spectrum, and, to give you an idea of what it was like, the Communists - the Communists! - were in the middle. It was a different world, and I loved it.'"

Vehemence we still have, thank goodness. But range we do not.

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nimh wrote:

Lash wrote:
[...]All considered liberal re American politics. On this board, re political threads, that's homogenous.[...]

[...] For example: in Germany, Thomas's home country, he votes for one of the most rightwing parties. I would vote for the most leftwing one. We're at the very opposite ends.

I am amused as well as bemused by both these comments. About Lash's 'American politics' part: As a German liberal discussing American politics, my perspective is that in your country, the enemies of liberalism have appropriated its name early in the 20th century. As Parados spotted, I have always been somewhat uncomfortable when Americans called me liberal. But I remain comfortable enough to go along with it out of common courtesy. (Adding to that comfort is my perception that American liberals tend to approach political questions quite similarly as I do, even when we reach very different conclusions.)

About nimh's 'most right-wing' part: the FDP, which he calls 'one of the most right-wing parties', isn't considered particularly right-wing in Germany. 'Right-wing' here implies political Christianity, xenophobia, or both, either of which the FDP is opposed to and working against. We usually classify the FDP as in the middle between the two large parties.

Of course, this only confirms Dagmaraka's point about how boring it is to project every political disagreement onto one dimension -- just because people conventionally use it to characterize the politcal landscape of one particular country.

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Thomas wrote:

About nimh's 'most right-wing' part: the FDP, which he calls 'one of the most right-wing parties', isn't considered particularly right-wing in Germany. 'Right-wing' here implies political Christianity, xenophobia, or both, either of which the FDP is opposed to and working against. We usually classify the FDP as in the middle between the two large parties.

One could start arguing now, who exactly is "we" - I only can think of some leftish FDP-members here. Laughing

I admit, however, that persons like Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Hirsch are left of the CDU (and especially the CSU). There influence is to be neglected.

Generally, "we" speak about the FDP as the "party of the well-to-do", economic liberals.

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Now I can better see why you folks are so bored when we Americans talk about our politics and our politicians. Twisted Evil

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Frank Apisa wrote:

Now I can better see why you folks are so bored when we Americans talk about our politics and our politicians.

Go away, damn librul. Twisted Evil

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Thomas wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
Now I can better see why you folks are so bored when we Americans talk about our politics and our politicians.

Go away, damn librul.

Hold your tongue, Thomas.

On a scale 1 to 10...with extreme Liberal at 1...and extreme conservative at 10...

...I can be found at position "p."

I'm a registered Independent....and I am an iconoclast outside the mainstream.

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Nuances, Frank, just nuances.

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Thomas wrote:

Nuances, Frank, just nuances.

Well...you liberals would feel that way!

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If it is so that the range of political thought/options is, in America at least, much reduced, then the question presents itself as to how and why that has come about.

Quote:

Religion, for many individuals or groups, may be an expression of serene belief, personal peace, and charity of mind. But for more militant spirits it may also be a source or an outlet for animosities. There is a militant type of mind to which the hostilities involved in any human situation seem to be its most interesting or valuable aspect; some individuals live by hatred as a kind of creed, and we can follow their course through our own history in the various militant anti-Catholic movements, in anti-Masonry, and a variety of crank enthusiasms. There are both serene and militant fundamentalists; and it is hard to say which group is the more numerous. My concern here is with the militants, who have thrown themselves headlong into the revolt against modernism in religion and against modernity in our culture in general. We are here dealing , then, with an ever small but still far from minuscule portion of the whole body of the evangelical tradition - a type which has found that it can compensate with increasing zeal and enterprise for the shrinkage in its numbers.

The two new notes which are evident in a most striking form in Billy Sunday's rhetoric, the note of toughness and the note of ridicule and denunciation, may be taken as the signal manifestations of a new kind of popular mind. One can trace in Sunday the emergence of what I would call the one-hundred percent mentality - a mind totally committed to the full range of the dominant popular fatuities and determined that no one shall have the right to challenge them. This type of mentality is a relatively recent synthesis of fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist Americanism, very often with a heavy overlay of sever fundamentalist morality. The one-hundred percenter, who will tolerate no ambiguities, no equivocations, no reservations, and no criticism , considers his kind of committedness an evidence of toughness and masculinity. One observer remarked of Sunday that no man of the time, "not even Mr. Roosevelt himself, has insisted so much on his personal, militant masculinity." Jesus was a scrapper, and his disciple Sunday would destroy the notion that a Christian must be "a sort of dishrag proposition, a wishy-washy sissified sort of galoot that lets flabby-cheeked , brittle-boned, weak-kneed, thin-skinned pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate ossibied three-karat Christianity." Sunday wanted to kill the idea "that being a Christian takes a man out of the busy whirl of the world's life and activity and makes him a spineless, effeminate proposition." He struck a Rosseveltian note in his assertion: "Moral warfare makes a man hard. Superficial peace makes a man mushy"; and he summed up his temper when he confessed: "I have no interest in a God who does not smite."

1962, R. Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, p 118-119

If you can't smell that rising up through the present, then you ain't got any business owning a nose.

I find Hofstadter's description of the one hundred percenter utterly compelling and it sure goes a long way towards fleshing out part of the story as to why the range of political voice here is so diminished.

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Is the Politics Forum Winding Down?

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