The Glade 4.0

No need, but in case you need the definition:





Semantics are important, particularly when it comes to labeling people into groups. This is doubly true, in my opinion, when the purpose of the groupings is "Othering."

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

A lot of candidates label themselves as conservatives or liberals. It's not always "othering".

How is it an interesting question? It purposefully avoids giving any useful information that I would consider when choosing a candidate.

In addition, it implies that the two are mutually exclusive. The candidate who self-identifies as conservative could *also* accurately self-identify as a liberal.

It's as interesting as asking me whether I would be more likely to vote for a Presidential candidate whose favorite color was maroon or one whose favorite fruit was bananas.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

The options were not presented as being collectively exhaustive. Moreover, to the question "Would you be more likely to vote for a conservative or a liberal?" there are only two answers, and so the dilemma is not false.

You're calling it a false dilemma by subtly expanding the scope of the question to "Who would DFK! vote for?" which is not the question asked. If it had been asked "Does DFK! vote for Conservatives or Liberals?" that would have been a false dilemma because it is asking who you vote for with only 2 choices considered, not simply asking you to prioritize two of all the possible choices.

In other words, your claim of false dilemma rests on a very subtle and probably unintentional strawman on your part because you are changing the nature of the question being asked. Had the question been very slightly different, you would have been correct, but it was not. You're all about semantics being important and words having meanings, so presumably you can see this distinction now that it's been explained.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's still a bad question from the get-go. Unlike the question of choosing between two pizza places, or two archaic projectile weapons (pizza hut and longbow, to those two), choosing between two politicians when all you are given is a vague conservative/liberal distinction is unanswerable. Certainly there are people who would be happy to vote based only on those distinctions. Those people are morons. Or perhaps being paid to cast votes in the place of dead people. Any which way you slice it, though, liberal and conservative are not descriptive enough to make a choice.

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Sure they are. Blue people are the devil, and need to be run out of the country in favor of decent, God-fearing red people.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

It may very well be a shitty question but that doesn't make it a false dilemma.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

A false dilemma needs to set up a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives where in reality those alternatives mentioned aren't the only available.

The key there is that the stipulation "has to be made" is required for there to be a dilemma.

TheRiov asked which alternatives were "more likely" to be selected and didn't stipulate that they had to be made, nor did he exclude the possibility of others.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Duuuuuuude, COME ON!

You obviously have something to inject into the conversation, it's probably interesting, it's probably relevant, and could potentially even bring most people onto the same platform when it comes to liberal/conservative classifications.

Asking one guy on a board of many if he's aware of it doesn't help the group discussion at all, whether he's familiar with it or not. It is unreasonable to expect that the board as a whole will run out and read that before continuing with the discussion. So summarize it for us. Throw that info out - if it's mind-blowing, more will go and find this work.

Help us out, man - throw out the info.

Arathain:

Actually, it's simply a good faith question before I start providing links to books most of you probably haven't read because most of you don't spend your days studying sociology, political science, and social hegemony in the United States post-World War II. Although, Aethien might ...

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I'd say there's a fairly good chance most people would understand what you mean by the "progressive/liberal conflation". I see a marked change in the character of the Democratic party from Harry Truman until the present.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I know. But what I'm getting at is this:

1) It's likely your target has not read about the topic, or at least knows what you're getting at without you stating it.
2) It's nearly 100% likely that there's a large portion of the posters that have not read the topic.
3) Even if your target has read about the topic, he's not going to be harmed or offended by you summarizing the info.
4) Asking a good faith question requires the conversation to stall while we wait for his answer - a wait that could last hours or days (or he may never respond). Then we need to wait hours or days (or never) for you to continue with your info. The conversation could be derailed, rerailed, or dead by then.

For efficiency's sake alone, don't you think it would just be best to summarize the info and make the reference?

There's no specific "work" needed; a general knowledge of history, as it relates to the subject, will do - as DE pointed out. That's what Khross really needs to know: what level of knowledge is possessed by the recipient.

If looking at Khross' stated points of interest taken with Riov's declaration of what is implied by "liberal" doesn't give you the general idea of Khross' point, then there's a lot of reading you'll need to do to get up to speed. It's guaranteed to take you days (or never) to get there, if that's the case.

edit: ahh, you edited out "work" and replaced it with "topic"...sneaky

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Yeah, I caught myself speaking more generically. This is something Khross does often.

Hell, even beyond that, a good teacher can summerize and condense the essential bits of information so that most anyone can at least get the gist of the position.

Khross hasn't questioned any definitions in this thread. He merely asked which definition(s) of 'liberal' and 'conservative' that Aizle was using with respect to his claim. That's a perfectly valid and good-faith question considering the long and confusing history of those terms. Contrary to what you (and it would seem Aizle) believe - there really isn't a "commonly understood" meaning to either of those words. That only holds marginally within specific political contexts and fora; I say 'marginally' because the terms are usually employed a very non-specific, gestalen sort of way. They're used more as a whole-form impression than as a technical definition.

Neither has he denied any terms. On the contrary, he merely pointed out quite rightly that Aizle was, well, owned by his own definition. Allow me to be more specific:


This definition hardly fits me at all. To begin with, the traditional institutions of American federalism are deeply flawed. Perhaps you fail to grasp just how far back things went horribly awry in my opinion. It's fair to say that on the whole, the last 200 years of federal legislation, judicial action, and executive policy have been a net negative for the republic. Certainly, it was all down hill since McCulloch v. Maryland (1813), which essentially nullified the 10th amendment and, even worse, effectively gave Congress unlimited power. The Civil War merely drove the final nail in that coffin.

Probably Aizle thinks this ("maintenance of traditional institutions") applies to me and anyone with Constitutional leanings. If so, there's been a grave misunderstanding as to why I support that document. It has nothing to do with it being either old or traditional. And, furthermore, I would argue that it never was traditional to begin with. The nacent Constitution was soundly beaten to death very shortly after its birth, and the tradition of American politics has been anything but constitutional ever since (see above). I support it for a lot of reasons that are too complex to get into here, but in short: I support because I think that limited government is the best form of government yielding the best quality of life for its constituents and because I believe that clear, consistent rule of law is necessary for a society to be successful and sound. In the Constitution, I find a document that does a fairly good job of providing that -- but only fairly. So even to the extent that I might be described as a "constitutionalist", I'm not much of a traditionalist. I think there are number of significant changes that would need to made to that document to establish a truly ideal form of government.

Moving on, then, we have: "[...] supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity". It's probably fair to say that I have in mind, as an end, a stable society. However, the rest of this is almost the complete opposite of what I believe. The status quo is absolutely the last thing I want to preserve. I want to see drastic (as to scope), and at this point, fairly precipitous (as to rate of) change in society. I'm convinced that things are going to get very, very dark and quite soon if we don't reverse the course of tradition in American politics. I am practically a revolutionary. Continuity is only good thing when you have a good form of government.

Finally, I do not modernization in the slightest. On the contrary, the United States desperately needs to modernize in many key areas if we don't want to be utterly steamrolled by certain emerging economies with sound(er) monetary policies, among other things. Really, it's only been our modernization which has managed to stave off complete financial collapse over the last ~100 years or so. If we're going to come out of this alive on the other side, modernization is a crucial component.


Contrary to what Aizle apparently things, I agree with pretty much everything in this definition. There are only two points I might place a caveat upon, and those are "regulated capitalism" and "liberal democracy".

As to the first, I support free markets. This is simply part and parcel with supporting human rights and fair trade. However, a free market is not to be confused with a free-for-all market nor, even worse, the horrible collusion of business and government pervasive in contemporary America, which is neither free nor capitalism. I do support regulation of capitalism inasmuch as the government has an obligation to protect the rights of its citizens in all spheres of life. For instance, it is an entirely proper function of the government to ensure that private contracts are enforced. Similarly, laws prohibiting fraud and deception (whether by commission or omission, and whether by the buyer or seller, corporation or indivial) are both proper and beneficial to protect the property rights of its citizens. If I stopped and thought about it, I'm sure I could come up with plenty of other instances of economic regulation that are necessary for good government. Indeed, there is a good argument to be made that the primary motivation for the drafting the United States Constitution was precisely the regulation of economic activity, as definitively put forth in Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (with a nod to Khross for recommending this -- it was an interesting read).

The second caveat applies to "liberal democracy". This is at best a nebulous phrase and, to point out the obvious, a circular definition (to be 'liberal' is to support that democracy which is 'liberal'?...) If we're talking about "flat democracy", then I object. However if we're talking about a republican form of government which incorporates democratic principles per the constitution (and I'll remind you again that support of constitutions is one of the criteria of being liberal per the above definition), then I support it.

So:


I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that most of the people on Aizle's list of "conservatives" would agree at least in the most part with what I've just said. By the given definitions, they are more accurately described as "liberal" than "conservative". A simple tally then confirms exactly what Khross stated. It is an eminently supportable position that the board is indeed weighted liberal, per the provided definitions. If you still don't see that after this much explanation has been given then there are really only two possibilities: your definition of 'liberal' differs significantly from the one given by Aizle (which, ironically, makes you the one challenging and denying definitions), or else you have no understanding whatsoever of the beliefs and positions of most of your fellow posters, thus persisting in the belief that they are something other than what they are.

So the question still stands:

"What about this place is particularly conservative?"

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

This is the point where we should be cutting off hands.

This basically amounts to saying "most the board is liberal" (Knowing full well that to most united states population this implies a general bent to a specific set of beliefs. When that assertion (that most the board is liberal) is challenged, you're saying "AH HA! But by this other definition of liberal, we are!"

And while true, that the other definition of liberal *IS* completely valid, it is NOT what most readers would take away from the statment as given.

The fact of the matter is that in the current lexicon, "liberal" DOES imply favoring policies that the majority of this board sees as distasteful.

So, let me conceed the following:
If you chose to use a less common definition of "Liberal" then I'm SURE you can find a way to make it so the vast majority of the population of the board can call themselves Liberal if they really want to.

I still maintain, however, that as the word is most commonly used, at least 75% of the board does NOT fall under the category of Liberal.

We get it Stathol. You're a reactionary. Not a conservative, or liberal or Revolutionary.

So, TheRiov, define liberal for our use here, so that we can keep up with your expectations.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

These conversations have crossed the border between annoying into the surreal.

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Not particularly, no. Evidentally "we" (i.e. "you") don't get it at all. Because, you know, TL:DR.


That's lovely. Maybe we should start with yours?

Oh wait, you mean everyone who disagrees with you should have their hands cut off. My mistake.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Honestly, it seems the only way one would assume that this board is predominantly conservative, is using our dear departed Montegue's system of classification, which went like this:

"I'm a liberal. Anyone and anything that disagrees with me even a little bit on any point is an extremist fascist heartless conservative racist republican sexist nazi oil company schill."

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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How interesting for you then that your own poll is showing that the majority of folks here lean to the conservative side.

I'm really not seeing that, although I haven't tallied them up. The only thing I noticed is that you listed Lenas and Kirra as conservatives, when they were on the "extreme" liberal side of that poll, and khross was actually dead center.

Also, some people are answering based on assuming things in the questions that are not in them (like whether it's referring to federal or more local levels of government, etc.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

FTFY. You omitted the false dilemma by implication that conservative and liberal are even on the same axis.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades