The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

god! it is HILARIOUS how wildly authoritarian you guys vote when in fact you're actually all libertarian!

can't you see you've been tricked/thrown on a loop by trump?

EVEN BERNIE SANDERS IS WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY less libertarian then any of you fearmongering drones actually are in truth :

Candidate placement seems to be 90% bullshit. For PoliticalCompass' general election chart they put Trump to the left of Clinton, which I'm sure we can all agree is nonsense.

They claim to have put Sanders where they put him because he supported drone strikes or something.

this guy

he seriously has all sort of respect for arab emirates putin but the german chancelor??? the devil!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...angela-merkel-shake-hand-refuse-a7635911.html

we're CLEARLY not looking at the same picture could you please give a second look-see at the picture I linked?

I guess a quick 6 pages asking a few questions can only get so far with figuring out how a person ticks politically.

@cola_colin

Nah what you're looking at on wiki is actually what we call today classical liberalism. The enlightenment period was one of civil liberties and free markets relative to the "unenlightened" world.

What progressive refers to now adays is an ideology that masquerades under the banner of progressivism. One thing you'll come to learn is that it likes to cloak itself under false pretenses in everything it does, just like it stole the name "liberal" although it is was anything but interested in liberty. The "progressive" party within the US was started by very real card carrying communists in the US after they became disenchanted by actual liberals on the left at the time. There is alot of lingering heavy marxist influence in their ideologies centering around ideas of class warfare, which has over time expanded into race and gender.

If you're interested in the roots of modern progressivism, you should watch this for starters from a high level KGB defector talking about cold war Russian ideological warfare.

I thought we agreed about free speech, civil discussion, and a free market place of ideas? Wouldn't the proper course of action be voting with your wallet and using your free speech to convince people of the merit of your ideas? Fining people is forcefully imposing values on people who caused no harm nor infringement on anyone else. I get that you want to punish them, but is this the right way?

What defines treating someone like a "normal person"? If I scowl at someone while i sell them the cake, will I be fined? Will you fine the pet store that refuses to sell puppies to the snake breeder? Will you fine the Islamic grocery for refusing to sell pork to a bacon lover? Will you fine your neighbour for not lending you a pound of sugar? Just for the record, that bakery was fined $135,000.

The reasoning you present is a rather dangerous slippery slope. It spawned the destructive oppression olympics game played by the progressive left and other intersectional feminists by creating political value in being a victim. The aim of the game being to think of ways to identify oneself with an oppressed category in order to create a social injustice which I am now obliged to use violence to rectify against those "hateful bigots". This is why there are now a thousand and one invented gender pronouns, because if you don't call someone by the right one you've infringed on their right to be treated like a normal person.

Be very careful about initiating force against others - it can come back to bite you. The power that be may not always be the one you agree with and may turn around one day and fine you for doing something you think is normal but it doesn't.

yea, the political compass test is not very good. It can get the broad strokes but the questions are not nuanced enough to really capture a person's true position.

For example the very first question

It sets up a false dichotomy between left and right economics when no-one is for the interests of transnational corporations over humanity. Both sides have arguments that the other is anti-humanity, whether it be "exploitative free market robber barons" or "crony government enforced monopolies and licenses".

I think a better way to do these tests is first test for the person's method of conflict resolution. Are they authoritarian or libertarian in their approach? At what point will they use coercive force that infringes on another person's body and property?

Only then would you test for economic position - redistributive/centralised/mixed/free market.

Racists, homophobes, bigots (in general, bit of a catch-all phrase there), fascists, Islamophobes, Nazis (modern variants thereof) and misogynists are all types of real people that spend time arguing with people on the Internet.

It's really ironic that you got mad at me for potentially calling you one of the above names (repetitive point for the thread at large: I didn't), and then you go and label all of these as an analogy for beating a "liberal" (when I think we've already established there aren't many "liberals" in this thread). Isn't that, effectively, calling people names? The perjorative associated with the term "liberal"? No?

And no, words are still important. Which makes the abuse of them all the more of a transgression. However, this doesn't mean that there isn't validity to these "liberal" (read as: anything left of trophy on the political spectrum, as I think it means in this instance) accusations. You're positing what elodea usefully highlights (correctly, I feel) in his post above (these tests do lack a large amount of nuance and the questions that prompt the results are overly-restrictive in their available options) - a false dichotomy.

It isn't either "words are useless because they're overused", and it isn't "all of these accusations are always 100% correct". The truth is somewhere inbetween, and needs to be judged on a case by case basis. If we had actual cases to debate, then maybe we could move beyond hypotheticals.

i.e. Republican states are currently rolling through anti-transgender bills that will affect the livelihoods of LGBTQ individuals in those states. Now, we can pontificate on "how the Democrats are just as bad", but that's a diversion. A sidestep. Democrats aren't the ones running these kinds of bills, and if they are then I will absolutely group them in the following statement:

The people responsible for these bills are transphobic, and therefore, by definition, fall under the loose grouping of "bigots" (because they're bigoted against the transgender demographic).

I define "discrimination" as something that can do harm. There is harm when a baker gives "special treatment" to a person because of their sexual orientation. Yes as long as only a handful of bakers do this it's not a big deal. But what if it becomes standard behavior? I guess gay people will just have to make do without cakes?

Treat them the way you'd treat all customers in the case of the baker. A more general definition of this is certainly not easy.
And yes 100k+ sounds pretty wild for not baking a cake. At least assuming the baker wasn't absurdly rich. $$$ fines ought to reflect the income of the person fined.

It certainly is a slope. Finding the right spot on it is important, but if you want to protect actual minorities from quite real discrimination you have to do something about it and find the right spot on that slope.

On the flip side allowing a baker to not bake a cake for a gay customer also can be a slippery slope. What if other bakers see that example, see how it has no consequences and decide "I'll do it too"?
An example of negative behavior that gets away without any consequences is like an invitation for more negative behavior.

Yeah as I said I don't agree with the vast majority of that stuff and think most of it is nuts. I also am now completely uncertain about what "progressive" is supposed to mean. Who to believe: A person on a internet forums or wikipedia. Both not the most reliable source. I guess the takeaway is: It is a bad idea to use a single word to try to describe the political opinions of people.

This way of describing attempts to improve social justice, as misguided as those attempts may be, sounds a lot like a brain child of people who have a clear discontent for any form of social justice. A creation by conservatives, the alt right, authoritarian, whatever the right word to describe people is who basically do want discrimination and who do not care about social justice.

Yeah that's true. But no force at all still means anarchy. You need some rules to have a functional society.
"Do not put people at a disadvantage because you don't like their sexual orientation" should be one of them.

So 29 years ago, a few years before the collapse of the USSR and the end of the cold war, some ex KGB guy talks stuff in the US television about how the USA will be the victim of russian propaganda and lose the war. And apparently even 29 years ago the USA already was ripe for the start of the faster stages of that "plan". Also don't forget the USA is at war with a communist conspiracy!

Fascinating, but I don't see much importance to this discussion. Yes Russia is trying their best to do propaganda stuff since forever, but claiming that is where the people come from who form that "modern progressivism" is a pretty wild hypothesis.

My hypothesis is a completely different one: You've unburied an example of the anti-communistic, anti-socialistic propaganda the USA was subjected to during the cold war whose effects we could observe at the start of this thread somewhere when some US citizens thought "but he is socialist" is a totally logical and easy to understand explanation of why Bernie Sanders is not a good choice to vote for.

EDIT:

The KGB guy suggests people to educate people in "patriotism", to explain the danger of "socialist, communist, whatever, welfare state, big brother goverment" and how those things will destroy freedom.

Yeah... that really reminds of the behavior of some people in this thread. Who were educated within maybe 10 years after this video.

I wonder what the source of that video was. Was that stuff you could see in American TV 30 years ago?

I think neither of you are latching on to the fact that that meme is clearly making fun of liberal's opponents not liberals look closely...

Can be used either way - you wouldn't believe the amount of people who take such things very seriously, across the ideological spectrum

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One tiny point on "a thousand and one gender pronouns", if you can't muster the effort to refer to people with the correct naming conventions, that is definitely either because you don't respect them as a person, or because you simply can't be bothered. I'm not sure which is worse.

It's like calling someone Adamom instead of Adam. Even after being told their name is Adam. Pronouns being obvious linguistic substitutes for names in-context because they're used as a term to refer to the person as a whole. You don't say "he Adam him the man", you say "he", "Adam", "him", or "the man". They're all separate phrases referring to the man called Adam.

Nevermind the fact that the English Dictionary has had the fallback of "they / them / their" as a neutral term for years - far longer than cultural conservatives would have you believe. And this satisfies a lot of people in terms of their gender pronouns. Not to say that exceptions don't exist, but these people will normally make you aware of said exceptions before you talk to them.

At which point, your refusal to do so is intentional, and not some form of "gotcha" made by people trying to win the "oppression Olympics" (another right-wing and / or culturally-conservative buzzphrase).

this. the internet exists @elodea

why does everytime you opiniate it looks like you've spent your life's education on cold war era books???

I havn't, but even if i did since when did learning about history and reading books become a bad thing? Don't you think it's important to know how people could be capable of slaughtering millions in gulags and work camps so that we can avoid it ever happening again? Since when did the will to ignorance become the social norm? Are you against reading books, or only if they are books you disagree with?

Remember to keep context - it was in explanation of the very real origins of the "progressive" movement, how it's founding principles are antithetical to civil liberty, and how marxist ideology influences american politics. If you want to understand something you must understand its history. Obviously the KGB is not still doing this and progressivism is growing all by itself.

Marxism is about violent revolution (class struggle) between two categories of people. At first in terms of economics - the oppressed proleteriat rising up and killing/stealing from the oppressor bourgeios. Read any book written by people persecuted under such communist regimes of the time and it will literally break your heart with the amount of needless human suffering that was inflicted. The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn is a a very good compilation I suggest you read.

It has subsequently wedged itself into race, gender, and culture with "white male" being at the top of the oppressor hierarchy. "oppression is power plus privilege". Therefore you can be violent against another person as long as you are less privileged than them. It is an ideology fueled entirely by hatred disguised as tolerance.

@cola_colin
Agreed that people shouldn't dismiss bernie simply because "he's socialist and socialist is a bad word". He should however be dismissed for seeking to implement his ideas on an unwilling minority through government using a monopoly on force. Small government is compatible with both right and left libertarian economics.

We can have our differences about whether free markets or the marxist "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" are better systems and to what degree if any we should mix them. People should be totally free to create and join their own voluntary social collectives (or not) as part of a market place of ideas, but the only way you can do that is in turn to protect underlying civil liberties and the freedom to choose. If i like chocolate icecream and you like vanilla, why would we vote to have only one flavour imposed on the other?

I guess that depends on whether you think he was a real KGB defector or not. If you think he's fake, then it is anti-communist propaganda of the time. If he is real, then what he exposes about soviet cultural warfare of the time should have significance. There is nothing wrong with being patriotic about your country because it upholds civil liberties. Hundreds of thousands of American Union soldiers died to abolish slavery - they are the only country in known history to have done such a thing against an immoral institution that has been practiced throughout time.

Regardless, his predictions certainly line up with the reality of those times and what we see today. Unfortunately a huge proportion of university professors identify as left/far left. It isn't entirely accurate to say that people were educated into anti-communist thinking. Economics is the only department you'll find on a University that has somewhat balanced proportions.

http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/09/professors-moved-left-but-country-did-not/



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/6/liberal-professors-outnumber-conservatives-12-1/

Tatsu. You know I've said like 20 times, someone please count for me, 20 times, that I really crave a democratic-socialism option in the US because Europe is doing it without being crass about it, while the US is simply not doing anything comparable. Really, even Europe is too authoritarian, but they're FUNCTIONAL about it, they mandate healthcare and convert your income into raw healthcare, but the US mandates healthcare and takes your income to do it and then leaves you hanging. If we had a politican exchange program, the US would be electing social-liberal politicians left and right, while Europe would... sadly, they'd probably definitely elect Trump before Hillary were they in our shoes, I swear I really think it true.


I'll even say it again for you guys in the nosebleed section, I HATE liberals, good riddance they lost the election, I'm STILL glad they aren't in the White House. I would LOVE to replace the Democrat party with a different 2-party, and stuff democrats into the back-burner of the 3rd party status they deserve.

You want me to fondle the nutz of the authoritarian right because "I'm really a liberal", when I refuse to elect those authoritarian right sobs. You can motorboat those nutz all day long bruh, I'm simply not going there.

1) Conservatives aren't transphobic, liberals are just oppressive of women, and are rape-sympathizers. Which is what Conservatives believe. I personally HATE that women even think they need special bathrooms, whites felt segregation was for their safety too when it was just as obviously the same tripe. We need unisex facilities.

2) When you staple this ****, against healthcare, then you argue healthcare and civil rights simultaneously, and when someone argues against healthcare, you switch it to civil rights. A LOT of conservatives are NOT against civil rights, ONLY healthcare. "But they voted healthcare, so they have to be transphobic". Everyone, Gorbles argument. Move along, nothing to see here.

3) I will not say this again: I and in fact a huge portion of conservative citizens, are NOT transphobic. That's a pocket agenda of the christian extremist. We just had a discussion on THIS PAGE about politicians all aligning in that top right box of bubonic plague, when their voters align closer to ANARCHY, much less Libertarianism, than they do a god-damned Liberal. If we're voting by belief, we'd vote Libertarian, but we're not, so we're all shitwits. Except me. I actually DID vote libertarian. I guess I'm a shitwit for even believing this last election, they had a chance to reach more than 10%, when they fell just shy of 5%. Go figure, ******* zombie braindead voters...

4) Political jokes are political, dark humor is dark, and the further this cesspool of a thread continues, the weaker my effort to filter is.

Knowing history is all and well.
But you still make this wild jump from "somebody implemented political concept X in a bad way Y, so X is generally bad". Just no. No.

This very well puts your wild jump into a single sentence. You massively simplify things and disregard so many factors that your conclusions become meaningless. Yes bad things happened in the past. But those bad things had much more complex reasons than somebody following some "evil" (I still refuse to use your redefinition of progressive values) progressive concept that somebody is at fault for everything.

No it isn't. It is people ignoring some pretty simple basic ideas. Ideas of human rights for once. "Do not kill and torture people" is a pretty simple rule to understand. Any arguments based on people who did not follow this rule in the slightest are meaningless as they align not at all with any form of "progressiveness" as I understand it.

Like any democratically elected leader would. Somebody always will be unwilling.

The world doesn't work like that. People get born in some random place and they can't just chose to go somewhere else. Mostly because of all these darn nationalists building so many walls instead of bridges.

I strongly prefer chocolate icecream over vanilla, so we can still be friends.

No it does not. Even if he is real and Russia had exactly that plan it still massively over dramatizes what Russia can do and what not and the existence of some general "communistic conspiracy" belongs into the real of the dreams of people who probably also believe into the flat earth theory.
Not to mention even if he is real he still just might be the real ex KGB "Alex Jones" of his time. A crazy person with the KGB happy to be rid of him.

So put value into civil liberties you uphold yourself. By your own action. No need to put your nation into the mix.

That is a remarkable thing for sure. Although resting on achievements made over 100 years ago isn't exactly a great thing. Which exactly why going on about your Nation instead of your own behavior and standpoints is such a pointless endeavor. No nation that played some role in history does not have some heroic "look what great stuff we did"-story. Just as most of them also have lots of really really dark pages in their history that they like to push under the rug.

Also a random thought on that "we had a war to abolish slavery and that's something to be proud of"-thing:
I dunno the details of slavery around the world, but today it isn't a legal thing anywhere anymore, so most other places apparently at some point managed to get rid of it. Without starting a war over it. So maybe be ashamed instead that some groups in your nation were so invested into slavery they were willing to pull their own nation into a civil war over it.
Or do the reasonable thing: Consider it "ancient" history that is not something to be proud of or ashamed of. Just a plain fact that has nothing to do with who you are today.

But then again maybe there were other wars about this, I dunno. Just writing out spontaneous thoughts about this.

How? The US just elected some crazy authoritarian super right wing guy. He isn't exactly liked, but he got elected somehow. He might be a sign the US political system is in the process of destroying itself, but that's a product of things "Made in the USA". Not somewhere else. Ideologies that are far away from any of the stuff you described about marxism and gulags and the like.

Clearly there is a correlation with intelligence. More intelligent more left

Well not the intelligent elite. But the country just threw out the "evil socialist" in favor of a competition to see who of two candidates can be more right and authoritarian and then elected the more extreme candidate.

Yeah I can see how a department of Gender studies would only accept people with an open mind about gender question. Understandable conservatives are not part of that group. Conservative is all about not being open minded after all. Good thing we have the opposite of that available to use: Progressive. The concept of being open minded to progress.

Depending on time and place you may connect "progressive" to some such groups we would agree on to be "bad", but the general concept of "being open minded to progress", which is the first thing that comes to my mind when I read this word just has nothing to do with that.

Time and place probably is the main reason why, especially in a discussion between people who are from countries all around the planet, general terms like "progressive" or "conservative" are actually really not very useful. When I read "progressive" I connect that with completely different things than somebody in the US or in Australia. We all connect that to some groups of people in our own political surroundings. Which don't necessarily line up in behavior.

And "conservative" really is similar. That's about rather doing whatever you did before after all. So unless all the places we lived in did the same before we don't even have a common base for what "conservative" can mean.

@cola_colin

We're crossing wires. I'm not attacking X, I'm talking about the means (the Y portion). Politicised socialism in the form of modern progressivism seeking to use authoritarian means of imposing one moral solution across the land irregardless of whether any individual agrees with it or not. To put it in terms modern progressives might understand, doing it democratically is oppression of a minority. Just like I might not want to ban people from having abortions, I also wouldn't want to force the christian nun's orphanage for children to fund them via taxation.

Well, those refugees in Germany certainly didn't get there with an all expenses paid ticket courtesy of the German government. If you feel that refugees should be monetarily supported, then create such an aid organisation, donate to one, convince others to do so. If your idea is good (and it is), why do you need to use the state to enforce it?

As for collectives, make your collective on whatever piece of land you own, convince others to join or invest, pool your resources exactly the same way any commercial business or partnership would. I mean, if Jim Jones could do it with Jonestown, I don't see how others can't. Not saying a voluntary collective would be a cult, just that even people with very little means have the ability to go out and create their own commune if they so choose. Look at a place like Hong Kong or any Australian city. They didn't just spring out of the ground in one day. People rich and mostly poor came to make a living and they built these places out of wilderness through hard work.

You are also being nationalistic, only you define your nation as one that prides itself on not having walls. Globalism is a variant of nationalism, it believes in one big nation. Nothing wrong with walls btw, I have fences around my house though I don't begrudge anyone who chooses not to. What matters is intention and you and I will have to respectfully disagree on the intentions of a certain orange coloured man.

Yuri also evaluated how they were effective "beyond their wildest dreams" by "infecting" people in institutional positions of power. He made objective predictions that are observationally verifiable. It's an open secret that weaponised marxist ideology has had a large influence in American history and politics, and like most things American the world generally follows. When Soviet Russia fell, people realised they could weaponise it towards other means - take third wave feminists for example and their heavy use of oppressor/oppressed language.

If you want corroborating sources, look up David Horowitz, a hardcore American communist for 20 years born to literal card carrying communists. In Radical Son, he details his journey of political subversion, his work with the black panthers, and eventual abandonment of the new left. Imagine if you showed me a video of Putin talking about his plan to place Trump into the presidency etc. and I turned around and said it was a communist conspiracy that only flat earthers would believe.

Trump being elected has got to do with Clinton (the corporate candidate) rigging the DNC against Bernie (the progressive candidate) as well a popular uprising within the rustbelt against establishment neolibs and progressives. Ask any trump supporter why they support him and it will more often than not center on three things - Obama and Clinton being terrible, the economy, and Islamic extremism.

I would argue that intelligence and morality are two different things. Either way, I think you would be surprised. The relationship tends to be more intelligent, more for civil liberties, not more left. That is, one would be interested in free speech and the liberty to explore and express one's thoughts without the state saying you can or cannot do this or that. I think it's dangerous to label an entire spectrum on the right as having no value and being overall, the party for dumb people.

Intelligent people have two hallmark traits
1. Dunning Kruger effect. They are more likely to express humility about their knowledge of the world and are open to civil discussion.
2. High verbal and intellectual skill. They are more likely to explore and fight for their ideas with words instead of their fists.

Modern progressives or whatever you want to call them show neither of these traits. They proclaim their morality to be the one and only righteous path and seek to enforce it with their fists. They show no interest in good faith exchange. For example, Rubin constantly reaches out to progressives in good faith to get them on his show to present their ideas in non-combative interviews. In response, they all block him and call him an alt right nazi. Kinda funny actually.

It's great that you want to reclaim the word progressive from the marxist authoritarians and I support you fully on that. However, we need to be open about the very real ideological rot within mainstream modern progressivism. It is the opposite of open mindedness to resort to name calling, lying, libel, and violence to solve ideological conflicts. These people were nicknamed the regressive left for good reason.

As for conservatives and open mindedness. What if I told you conservative could mean to conserve open mindedness? To respect the liberty of individuals to feel and say what they wanted? Just like you point to classical progressivism during the enlightenment, I might point to classical American conservativism as conservation of the principles set forth within their constitution and bill of rights. Protection of free speech and individual liberty from tyranny, both crucial components if one wants to allow people to pursue whatever happiness or good they think is out there for them.

One-line post to add that if you defend transphobic litigation, you're probably transphobic as well.

You're defining "violence" and "oppression" in such wild terms that all you're left with is pretty much anarchy.
There is a big difference between Stalin building his dictatorship and demands of the "benign" left like Sanders.
Yes there are batshit crazy people who go way too far and demand crazy thing. But that's true of all sides. I look at those crazy people in the authoritarian right, call them alt right and then proceed to consider anybody on the right to be "bad". Bad me.

You look at batshit crazy people on the authoritarian far left and do the same I do to the right. Bad you.

I am all for private organizations and do support some, like Moas. But be honest: Nations are the most powerful "players" in the world and their decisions do make big differences. Spent a few dozen billions on a wall? Or spend a few dozen billions on helping people? It isn't about the "state enforcing something to oppress a minority". It is about forcing the state to support the right cause. The state is already there and has big influence on our lives. No point ignoring that. And by definition the state always will be there like that. The state IS that collective you talk of below. You may move to Mars and form a new collective their, but you'll find it'll grow and eventually be called a "state" and it'll enforce rules that will oppress the opinion of some people. The only question is how graceful that will be handled.

If your political party were voted into power in Germany and you went all out on your libertarian stuff I'd consider myself part of an oppressed minority that demands public healthcare, public schools, public roads, etc. You're oppressing people just as much as I do when given the choice to implement your policies. I want a state that provides healthcare. I want a state that provided rules that prevent discrimination. Your policy of not providing such thing would be something I'd disagree with. But I'd also accept it as long as you were voted into place correctly. That's the point of democracy.

The "left", the "progressives" that I support do demand to treat people without discrimination as much as possible. To support personal freedom as much as possible. Yes personal freedom. I just tend to think that for maximal freedom of the individual you have to actually also take a way a little freedom from them. It's an optimization problem: Give everybody no limits in what they do and you get anarchy with people hurting others (and thus their freedom) for their own good. Put a shackle on everybody leg and a spy in everybody phone and you can be sure they won't hurt each other, but they'll not be free at all anymore.

You do realize this optimization problem is there and agree you also have to take away some freedoms when you support the state as an institution that provides basic security from violence. The state enforcing rules like "do not kill each other" is the exact same thing. I just think the optimal solution includes a few more rules than you do. Like "do not discriminate each other".

Your talk of "make your own collective on a piece of land of your own" is great talk for a fictional world were people can do that. But in reality most of us can't. I personally do not even own a piece of land, and you might have noticed that most of this planet is already claimed by somebody. The nation we're placed in is our collective from birth. It's a big and very powerful collective and it'll always have power over us as long as we don't manage to go quite far to other places.

Actually my support of the EU, open borders and that kind of stuff isn't very nationalistic. Nationalism is about the demand for a nation to govern itself, free from outside influence. The EU is outside influence.

I'd think Nationalism doesn't make much sense as a concept when outside of your borders there is only dead empty space. It needs an "outside" that has people whose influence you reject.

I don't remember your opinion on that specific wall, but I assume you're interpreting it completely different than I do, just like in most things orange man.

Now you're starting to sound like Alex Jones. Also I'd love a video of Putin saying that.

"weaponised marxist ideology has had a large influence in American history".

Ok. So. Wtf does that mean. Lots of good and bad things had a big influence on all our histories.

A misguided anger towards certain individuals and a fear of foreign religion abused to make people vote for a person who will definitely not solve their economic problems

Yeah exactly, so stop lableing the left like that. Because the left is all for civil liberties, free speech, personal freedom and all that stuff.

I dunno enough about that specific situation, but sometimes those situations really are people trying to follow that saying with how talking to idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon.

I'd say in politics it is important to engage into conversation even with a pigeon about chess, but I kinda can understand why not everybody would feel good about it and it needs a plan on how to expose the pigeon for not having a clue about the game.

Good there are people who go too far and behave in drastic contrast to their own proposed values.
So who is that in the political party system even? I am not aware of any political party that I would consider to be full of these kinds of people. Few politicians are. For example Sanders: Is he part of that regressive left? It's really the question: Where do you draw the line?

Well. That is a problem.
"Conservative" means to put more value into stuff you already know. Simply by the idea of "Can't be that bad of a solution after all it has got us this far."
That is the exact opposite of open mindedness. Conservative to not be conservative.

One-line post to add that if you defend bathroom rape, you're probably a bathroom rapist as well.

Seriously, the font on the thread title is only getting bigger, Gorbles. I'm not backing down from flippant ignorant backless claims that I am a transphobe because of my political position on literally anything else on the table. You completely ignore what I'm telling you, and focus on spinning that one thing around instead. Like coercion, insults, and telling people what their beliefs are FOR them, is exactly how your political party becomes as relevant as the Whig party. Trump is pissing off a lot of his own backers by not doing some of the important little things, you have a chance to win the next election, don't sabotage it by coming off as unwelcoming to the voter dammit.

Leave it to you to have supported a candidate who worked defense for a rapist and got him off on a lenient sentence. You know where MY stance is on it, because dudes can rape boys in bathrooms too when the stalls are of stupid archaic design and segregated nature. Women can assault women. Bathroom stalls shouldn't be that lacking in privacy from get-go.