I agree with this distinction. It’s the same as those who are labeled liberals but are anything but. I think Americans are simply more comfortable with only having to think about two sides.
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What legislation, specifically, would you say they’ve been particularly obstructionist on so far?
They stopped Obama from selecting a Supreme Court Justice. Does that count?
Quite true. I also dislike these labels, and think we’d be a lot better off we considered the message rather than the messenger. Both sides already have decided they are absolutely against a proposal by the other side before even looking at its contents.
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Agreed.
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
-John Adams
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The mouth-breathers are shouting so loudly, they’re drowning out the true conservatives, unfortunately.
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I heard an interesting description recently. Somebody described themselves as socially liberal, fiscally conservative and on the populism-libertarian spectrum more libertarian. I see a similar distinction in the point you’re making. Just because you are conservative doesn’t mean you are a populist, but there are populists who are conservatives.
I don’t think populism = conservatism. The left has mouthbreathers, but I certainly think the GOP has a populism problem right now and potentially that is what the OP is seeing.
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Ya, I think the GOP has a militant populist problem tbh, but I don’t think conservatism does.
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I tend to agree. I think a more meaningful political spectrum would have at least two axis, probably three: authoritarian/non-authoritarian; capitalist/collectivist; socially or religiously liberal / socially/religiously conservative.
Most notably, both progressives and moral majority types tend to be “authoritarian.” They know better than you, and will use the power of government to make you believe and behave as them.
Modern progressives, ironically, tend to be more authoritarian than even the moral majority types in recent years, so much so they don’t even acknowledge that they are authoritarian, in that they have a effectively religious conviction that they are correct (just like the moral majority types).
Many of our political problems would go away if we could simply move to non-authoritarian government and stop trying to social engineer our fellow citizens to our point of view.
For the record, I am extremely non-authoritarian, extremely capitalist, and extremely religiously conservative in a distinctly non-proselytizing sort of way. It’s absolutely none of my business how other people want to run their lives.
But just as I don’t want the moral majority forcing Je-Zus on my kids, I don’t want progressives forcing Mary-has-two-mommies-and-white-men-are-the-Devil.
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I tend to agree with the OP, but I think there is a pretty simple explanation. Much of the left paint being offended as equivalent to violence against them and claim they have the right to not be offended. Since this is idiotic, many on the right take pleasure in causing the unbelievable violence of offending people.
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Are you not also possessed of an ‘effectively religious conviction that you are correct’? Because that is how you come across to me. (Intended as an observation, not a personal attack.)
Which is even worse. Offending someone for the sake of offending them is more childish than complaining about being offended.
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Eh, matter of opinion. Sometimes the trolling is funny. It’s only really dumb if there is no comedic value or it might start a war (see presidential tweets).
Several times my reaction to presidential tweets has been “AHAHAHAHAAHA!!! … Oh, man, we’re all going to die.”
It’s funny until the person get DOXed and loses his job. They then realize what freedom of speech isn’t.
I don’t do twitter, I’m a grown man not a teenage girl, so I really can’t comment on that.
I think we agree. I would consider saying something to someone bad enough to get fired for (like racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever stuff) to be decidedly unfunny.
I would agree that people have a right to invoke consequences but, I also believe that people are too sensitive to the point that they don’t understand (or simply refuse to see) things like context, intent, subtlety, nuance, etc. They also have unreasonable expectations. I wouldn’t expect a 90 year old man to be accepting of gay marriage for example. But unless he were to say that gays should be oppressed and/or killed, I wouldn’t call him a bigot (although the regressive left makes exceptions when it comes to racism, sexism and bigotry) This attitude does not promote an open dialogue.
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This has been sad to see but expected. After Republicans obstructed Obama on most everything it was likely that they would return the favor. Didn’t work with us we won’t work with you or whatever.
Compromising or working across the aisles somehow became working with the enemy and we can’t elect anyone who would work with the enemy. Not conservative enough or not liberal enough.
Not sure I see the pendulum swinging back. It would behoove us to elect moderates and not purists as the fringe is where the lunatics have always lied.
I’m probably just a deep state plant.
We need to elect people with integrity who, regardless of their ideologies, do what is best for the nation. The clowns we have today care about re-election (because they don’t want to get real jobs) and who funds their campaigns.
Yes and when this type of shit might keep someone from re-election you know we have gone full loony.*
The working with and hug part not Christie himself. Somehow not stabbing Obama’s eyes out when near him could have been a reason to elect someone different.
Did I miss the occasion when the GOP invited the Dem senators to work with them? Because Obama all but begged the GOP to work with him on HC. (Grassley in particular played him for a fool on that score.)
Hell, the GOP senate crafted its anti-ACA and tax bills so quickly and secretively, they didn’t even let everyone in their own caucus participate, much less Dems.
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