The New, More Right Wing, Forum Posters...

As much as the majority of you hate the new posters, who always seem to bring up more "right wing" side on things, i have to say that it really gives the forums more realism. Instead of a bunch of liberals agreeing with eachother on everything, now we are forced to supply evidence of our statements, and have actual real deabtes...

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

without dissenting opinions, you have no discussion, you have a pep rally. both have their place, but i never was the "Rah Rah" pep rally type.

 

Hey I'll second you there Hipster, having the other end of the spectrum around makes for more lively debates. I'm just curious, what brought all you right-wingers here, this being a "hippy" forum?

 

because it's no fun just talking to people who agree with you all the time.

 

Same, plus we're not conservative on everything. On some issues we may diverge widely, on others we may be pretty much in line.

Also every society needs vibrant opposition movements, and as has already been said a vibrant opposition is not formed by an insular group that spends most of its time preaching to the converted and discussing how much they agree with each other.

 

I noticed something about 'Right Wing' or 'Left Wing' thinking in here and I have to admit it bothers me a little.

In another thread I was arguing that history, facts and common sense demonstrated there was no 'Nation' called Palestine.
But Wait!

Forget the debate itself because Im just using that as an example.

Several members replied with assumptions or accusations that I must be a 'Right Wing' supporter.
Some even suggested I was a 'Right Wing Zionist' Supporter.

Now Look people. This is dangerous games when people who are not 'Anti-Bush' or 'Anti-any Bush policy' must somehow be 'Right wingers'

Lets try and all be 'Truth-wingers'

If you believe capturing Saddam saved lives then good!
If you believe Palestinians should have the land back - good!
Dennis Kucinich for President... Good!

What im saying is - stand for what you believe is true (maybe its not but YOU believe it) and do not worry if its 'Right' or 'Left'.

Personally, I happen to agree with a John Kerry idea, where he thinks the US should swallow some pride, make ammends with the UN and then ask for help in Iraq.

Because Im 'more left-wing'?
NO!

Because (based on what I know) I think THAT is a good idea. period.

If Rush LImbaugh had the same idea then it would still be one I like.

know what im saying?

 

Right On Man...

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

i lean more to the left but i dont consider myself ANYTHING but me. i think for myself and i make my own decisions on a case-by-case basis.

and yeah, i agree with much of what was said on this thread.

 

some areas i'm conservative, some areas i'm not. i don't think everything bush is doing is great, but i don't think he's the ultimate evil, either. i don't hate the usa, i'm a christian, and i like living by older values, but i don't believe the government has any right to interfere in certain areas of people's lives. i don't like being called a right-winger, because i'm not always, i just try to go with what makes the most rational sense to me.

 

This is a hippy forum?? Hope none of my friends catch me here. As an oldster and a member of the establishment, I enjoy the thoughts of you young people (though some of your music is pretty bad). Keeps me looking at things with a fresh perspective. May not agree but I do give some thought to what is said here as they may or may not have some bearings on my final opinion.

 

Good topic. I think Lewis Black puts it best: "The difference between a democrat and a republican is that a democrat sucks and a republican blows. The democrats have no ideas and the republicans have bad ideas."

I agree. Find your own stance on something, and hold that stance no matter who else supports it, be it Bill O'Reilley or Michael Moore. Personally I lean "left" on economic issues and "right" on social issues, but I don't go to the point of being conservative or liberal on either front.

 

Wow, I guess I'm the most conservative person here. And it's fun to argue with people who don't see it your way. Albiet how dumb they may seem, it's their right.

 

The trouble with these new bigots in our midst is that they do tend to limit debate. The old "America Attacks" forum seemed to be a haven of enlightened and informed progressive debate whenever I visited it. Now any thread that gets posted without fail gets mired in first-principle slanging matches. I mean, having to explain to somebody what's bad about torturing prisoners? It ought to be a given that torture is unacceptable if we are to call ourselves civilised. So it becomes a problem when all we ever do is defend first premises - you never get to the truly interesting and advanced debate.

Explaining international law or the basic principles of liberty to people who don't have a clue gets tiresome pretty quickly.

 

bigots? lol.

 

Just curious but how do you get a truely interesting, enlightened, progressive and advanced debate if your only wish is to have one side of the issue debated? Seems to me that the outcome of a debate done in such a manner would be a forgone conclusion from the very first posting with little reason to discuss it further other than to chime in with each others approval.

 

A good point well made. But there really were some interesting debates on the old forum. It was never simply people agreeing with each other, liberals patting one another on the back, there certainly were fascinating differences of opinion which sparked lively debate.

The idea I was bringing up was that most debating issues rarely get past very basic first premises when you have neo-conservative apologists disputing even the basic assumptions of any progressive debate.

I'll have to think a bit harder to come up with some examples, but perhaps one to think about might be Israel / Palestine. There are people on this forum who dispute that Israel is illegally occupying the sovereign territory of Palestine. This might be the basic assumption of a debate about how to solve the problem of the middle east conflict. However, if you spend all your time quoting UN resolutions demonstrating the basic facts of the situation (which I seem to have been doing a lot tonight) there really is no time left to debate the advanced issue - the possibilities for resolution.

Hope this made sense and answered your question.

 

well, if the first premise is never fully agreed upon or convincingly put forth, then there will never be any further reason to carry on the discussion. you can't skip over faulty logic and further build upon the discussion.

 

KC, the two examples I used above are clear cases where the basic premises in question are perfectly sound foundations for further, advanced, debate. These being "torture is wrong in a civilised society" and "Israel is in contravention of UN resolutions regarding the occupation of Palestine."

There may well be a time and a place for disputing these foundations, but if all you ever do is disagree with these perfectly reasonable and sound foundations for further debate, then you miss out on the possibility for advanced discussion. Surely you can see the point I'm making?

If you only ever have black arguing with white, you totally miss the interesting shades of grey.