I wish I could talk politics

Good conversation guys! Keep it going. A pefect way to spend an otherwise dreary Sunday afternoon.

 

There was a sub forum called Random Thoughts up till about 2-3 months ago. Think of it as the stoner's lounge but 20x the traffic and 20x the drama.

 

drama...got ya...say no more.

thanks.

 

Odon


Thing is that the politics forum started quieting down here a long time ago – and there have been commenting on it before.

Here is something I said in one such thread from 2006

There were a lot of confident and sometimes arrogant right wingers, neo-cons, Bush Republicans, Christian republicans etc. Most were supporters of Bush and the war on terror. As the Bush admin’s deficiencies become clear and its popularity plummeted so these republicans left the scene.

They went from actively seeking out ‘liberal’ forums to just saying nothing.

Those with right wing views that remained were mainly from the libertarian/free market camp and the conspiracy group.

Then with the conspiracy element being directed to the Conspiracy Forum what was left were mainly the right wing libertarians and the free marketeers. But a lot of their thinking and ideas were undermined by the financial crash.

Basically it hasn’t been a good 5 years or so for the US right.

So apart from assertions they seem unwilling or unable to debate they remain rather quiet (although some do seem to have become a bit bitter and spend their days in bitching or name calling against those that have opposed them, which I find rather sad)

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The left wing, anti-God, liberal Democrats, were the ones who were arrogant. Any time a republican gave a point of view, they were 'gang tackled' by 5-10 arrogant left wingers. They attacked you with insults, then when you insulted them back - the mods banned you. I should know because it happened to me.

And that's just one of the reasons why no debates in the political forums. I know that's why I don't. I didn't even know the political threads were dead, because I don't talk politics here no more. Or religion. The haltered of Christianity is humongous here. But it doesn't really bother me. It just shows how miserable some people are inside.

And another reason the political forums are slow is, some people don't want to say bad things about Obama without the left wingers calling them a ''racist'' - who have been brain washed by the Fox News Channel, as I stated before.

 

Now that Fox New is exposing the dangers of Obama, and Obama's job rating is sinking, it' time to watch the liberals squirm. The next 3 years won't be good for the US left. The tide quickly turned on Obama. Not even a year. wow.

 

I'm not seeing this. I say bad things about Obama constantly, in fact in the rank the Obama thread in the poll section there's tons of bad things being said about him. Like there is a very strong quasi anti Obama effort here as there are quite a few of us who are free market liberals who greatly disagree with his economics. In terms of social policies though, well this site tends to attract people who are pretty liberal, so anything that's conservative on social policies(minus guns which seems to go 50/50 here) is going to have to put up one hell of a debate for their argument.

I remember the old days though, here's a forgotten secret, in 2004, I was one of the people posting in defense of Bush in the election. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, knowing what I knew at the time, and knowing what I know now, I'd still vote for Bush, well Bush over Kerry anyways.(though I couldn't vote period in 2004)

 

Let's keep this Thread on topic please.

 

I think we can lighten up a bit Aris, I mean the title of the thread is - I wish I could talk politics – and that’s what we’re talking about – talking politics.

Pull up a chair or do you want me to begin another thread, if so I’ll move these posts over to a new one, but anyway….

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I wanted to debate politics with Americans back after 9/11, and basically I got thrown off virtually every forum I went on. Many banned me in others all I received was a torrent of abuse that made debate impossible.

Then I found hipforums, where alternative voices were at least allowed so that debate could in some way happen, but that was the thing this site was always meant to be a liberal/lefty place.

But still in those days there were lots of right wingers ready to give it a go.

In fact the only reason the politics forums didn’t get swamped with them was because Skip did some pretty tough moderating and brought in the 100 post rule (people couldn’t post in politics until they had posted 100 posts elsewhere in the forums).

But as I said there always seemed to be many with right wing views that were willing to come to the forums because at that time the right wing view seemed to be in the ascendant, the right’s views, it seemed to them, had ‘triumphed’ over the ideas and philosophies of liberals and lefties. Some came to gloat and others to explain why right wing ideas were so much ‘better’ and had won out in the end.

But then things started to unravel, they slowly came apart, and with each step along that path the confident triumphalism of the right disappeared, some people literally disappeared, others turned on the Bush admin, calling it incompetent or of turning against its right wing ideas (or of never having them).

As I’ve said the right that did remained were mainly of the libertarian/free market branch. (However there was one thing both the rational right and left here could agree on and that was that conspiracy theory wasn’t politics.)

The thing is that the laissez-faire philosophy that underpins much of right wing libertarian and free marketeer thinking has been somewhat undermined by the financial crisis. It makes it harder to defend.

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It seems to me that many that were roused from their apathy by Bush, have now descended back into apathy, others on the left have just decided they don’t need to say anything because they ‘won’ (just as the right thought they had ‘won’ before, thing is there really isn’t a win situation in politics, it’s an on-going thing, ups and owns).

As to Obamamania, I don’t think it reached the politics forum, the most we seem to get was a rather cynical but cautious optimism, which has served me well since I’ve not been disappointed. His administration is better than that of Bush but it hasn’t exactly wowed me.

As to being called a racist for attacking Obama’s policies – has that happened here?

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So what is the point of my ramble?

Talking about politics - Political debate is a dialogue between those with differing political ideas, it might be right against right, right vs left or left against left, - it is about conflict hopefully leading to some greater understanding on the part of the participants or others (and in my time here I’ve learnt a lot).

Thing is if people are not willing to debate their ideas and just want to make pronouncements or assertions which they don’t want to talk about or defend then we don’t have political debate.

 

Now Balbus haven't we already proven that state intervention has always been the cause of most of this. *cough* freddie and fannie *cough*

 

deleted by me. nevermind.

 

Oh come on Mad, that is way of topic want to discuss Fannie and Freddie, start another thread or go here –

Fannie Mae In 2004
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328058

But you could read –

Fannie, Freddie and You
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The GOP Blames the Victim
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1222...googlenews_wsj


Don't blame Fannie and Freddie
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf.../usa.mortgages