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I think we need more conservative voices to balance out the intense liberalism of tildes
Should we try to invite more respectful, reasonable conservatives to tildes to foster some decent discussion? I feel like I’m the most conservative person on this site and I’ve voted Democrat in every election up until the most recent one and I voted for Bernie Sanders. How am I the most conservative person here? It’s very much like an echo chamber here and I’d like to see it get better instead of worse. Any thoughts on this?
Just invite people you think can contribute positively, regardless of their politics.
A balanced community takes time to build and these are early days. I'm hoping that in time the US-centric flavour of politics will be diluted and a more international view can surface in discussions. I'm looking to invite people from outside the US, and to a lesser extent the UK, irrespective of their views and opinions. As long as I think they'll be a good fit with the goals of the site, that is.
I hope so too, I have been tired of how US-centric Reddit is ever since I joined.
Mind you, OP's concern is unlikely to be addressed this way because here in Denmark, the American Democratic party is considered center-right at best (in terms of social issues) and far-right at worst (in terms of economic views). Which is why we think the Republican party is so out there...
With that said, I don't really mind that people on here think largely the same way about politics. As long as everyone knows and is aware that it's an echo chamber, I don't see a problem with it.
Couldn't have said it better myself. There's a whole wide world of political views out there and it's essential to be exposed to ideas and opinions that don't necessarily mesh with your own, as long as the policies they're advocating for can be discussed with civility and aren't founded through hatred or discrimination.
This is what I came to Tildes for. I intend to do exactly as you suggest, invite people of different cultures and view points. It's the only way to keep Tildes from becoming an echo chamber.
Why? Simply for diversity sake. In my opinion, diversity of ideals is extremely important to quality discussion. We don't want to become another liberal echo chamber, do we?
I completely agree. I still think diversity of thought and ideals should be praised here. No, that doesn't mean we should allow racist, sexist or any other ~ist comments, but as far as social, political, and economic policy, we absolutely should invite and converse with those holding different ideas. It's the only way to grow as a human.
Why should diversity of opinion have to take place on the standard right-left axis? There are much more than two sides to any debate, and far more positions still on an issue writ large; and that's without getting into issues like free trade that don't really hew closely to a left-right divide at all. If keeping out *ist views happens to exclude far more of the right than the left, then so be it.
Not to say that a platform should reject conservative voices outright; rather I see no reason why it should try specifically to be welcoming to ideological groups like conservatives in the same way I'd expect it to be welcoming to various marginalized groups.
While you've said nothing that any fair-minded person can disagree with, let's not pretend as though there is a large contingent of William F. Buckley-esque conservatives out there anymore, as a proportion of all conservatives, especially online. They exist but they are vastly outnumbered by people who (to be accurate and to quote GOP Senator Jeff Flake) are in a "cult-like situation." And while there are certainly left-wing people who could be described in the same way, the proportion is much smaller, and I think any fair-minded person should be able to recognize that, too.
Also, while there's a serious contingent of Americans already on Tildes, keep in mind that the political situation is vastly different outside their borders, where conservatives in many European countries, Canada, Australia, and the rest of the world don't carry (or deserve) the negative connotations that the Republican party in the US is associated with. It's important not to conflate small 'c' conservatives around the globe with what's currently going on in the United States.
Any English-language web site is going to have US citizens and residents overrepresented just by virtue of the demographics of first language English-speakers the world over. I agree that non-US conservatives shouldn't necessarily be tarred with the crimes and bigotry of the GOP, but we also can't pretend like general English-language forums will ever not be dominated by US politics.
It’s been said many times, but what is considered conservative in those countries is basically the moderate/centrist Democrat in America. So I’m glad you made the distinction between conservatives in America and conservatives elsewhere. The difference is massive.
Hi, token antifa socialist here, I like guns and free healthcare and am currently wearing a shirt that says "sometimes antisocial, always antifascist" with the 3 downward pointed arrows. AmA!
Hello timedigger. I'm a libertarian leftist and glad you're here. Can I get a pic of that shirt?
https://i.imgur.com/K87ctA9.jpg
Love it!
I'm a 60y/o woman. You make me feel like a unicorn!
I think digital media masks a lot of differences. The assumption is that everyone is in their early 20s, but that isn't necessarily the case. I think there may be many more people actively participating in these forums that aren't the expected demographic. I know that I have more in common with people younger than me than my own age group. I suspect that I am not in that rarified of a group.
What do you think we have to gain by allowing, for example, racist people to explain why they are racist? Given that:
I don't think "racist" is a point of view that we need to include for the sake of diversity. There are a lot of others that are similar; they bring nothing to the table and are not worthwhile. Generally, these all come under one umbrella - views which want to limit people based on intrinsic qualities.
I think that we should have no tolerance for anything of that type, because that kind of diversity is damaging and does not promote any quality of discussion other than "low".
Please see my other reply in this comment chain. I'm not saying that we should give racists, sexists, or any ~ist a platform for discussion.
Sorry, it's just a big confusing because in the comment you replied to, it lists some -ist platforms, so it looks like you're also addressing those points with your own point (and I see someone else also had the same confusion).
I think that we probably could use more conservative voices in here; moreover I believe that there are lots of conservatives that aren't racist, sexist or any other -ist. Unfortunately, they do tend to get lumped in as such, which is somewhat unfair, but when the living incarnation of one's party is sexist, racist, etc. and has a huge approval rating from his constituency, it's difficult to separate the points.
For diversity's sake is stupid and is part of the problem with the "fair and balanced" attempts that media companies such as CNN try and do. You want to talk taxes? fine. Bring in a conservative and we'll talk about the social benefit of taxes vs their perceived harm that it does on businesses. You want to talk about astrophysics and bring in a flat earther? Or you're talking about gay marriage and bring in a guy who is using the bible as justification? There is a massive limit on how far one should go in the name of balance.
Oh hey, die-hard democrat here. Just wanted to give some rational counterpoints I've heard to some of these. Note that I don't actually hold these positions.
I'll try to come back to this when I have more time to add some more. Just trying to show that there is some room for legit debate in some of those topics.
A fetus is very much alive by the very definition of life. It is a parasite in side the woman, but very much alive. You could argue that it doesn't have a conscious, or that because it's not fully developed it's life isn't worth anything, but that is a not the same as alive. As far as denying the right to abortion the argument that I've heard is not that you are being denied your right to control your body, but that you made your bed and should live with that. If you did not want a baby, you should have used birth control. By deciding to have sex, you are deciding that you accept the consequences. According to MRAs by denying the father his paternal rights, you are being sexist and matriarchal. It takes two people to create a fetus, should you therefore also require the father's consent when getting an abortion?
A fetus is probably alive. That should not render abortion immoral or illegal because the fetus lives in a persons body, and a person should have the right to decide whether they want to allow that to continue. By extension, given raising the kid is not much different than carrying a baby in one's womb in essence, it should be allowed to the mother to decide to end the life of a fetus before it gains personhood by being born. Again, by extension, while terminating a pregnancy should be a right freely usable by the woman, deciding to not terminate a pregnancy should not be at the sole will of her, for the born baby does not only regard the mother, but also the father. So, a father-to-be should have the right to request the abortion of the unborn baby. One can affirm that having had sex he is responsible for the consequences, but that affirmation is invalidated by the fact that we have no method of contraception that is perfectly reliable.
The essence of what I am saying is that, abortion is a logical thing to have as a right and morally quite defensible; but affirming its moralness based on controversial or possibly erroneous axioms (i.e. fetus is not alive) will not help much. A human is not a person while it's within another person, because a person is a reasoning individual. A baby is a part of the mother's body, not much different from say the appendix. Yes I do acknowledge and share the affection for born/unborn babies with most other people, but that's something completely different.
I've heard an argument against allowing teens and even younger to begin to transition because their brains aren't fully-formed and they can't make certain decisions that require critical, high-level thinking. A friend of my sister's had a 12 year-old who decided she (she's now he, but I'm not sure how to refer to her pre-transition) wanted to transition: her mother allowed it; her father vehemently opposed it. So s/he was basically he at Mom's, and she at Dad's. It's still that way, but he is he now, and we refer to him as that. No medical procedures as of yet because he's only 16, but plans surgery at 18. I'm not sure how to feel about that, based entirely on age. I've seen 18 year-olds get some seriously idiotic tattoos that they later regret; I'd hate to see a major surgery be regretted later. How is that addressed?
I definitely agree but know that 40-50% of the voting population votes R and there are plenty of those old conservatives still around. There can be meaningful discussion with them because the great many of those people are not bigots.
Not the guy you responded to, but when you come at me rationally, I'll come back at you rationally.
anti-abortion: I personally would be a shitload more okay with it if said people were actually pro life. I.E. fighting for the end of the death penalty, fighting to end homelessness, fighting for more money for schools and for the ACA. Fighting for life. But they aint. They're anti-sex and misogynistic is what they are.
Anti-diversity: I mean, ontop of that there are nordic countries that have benefited culturally from simply being one race. And naturally we in the USA have a lot of self-segregated communities that do so to form a sense of community and to (more importantly) help each other. You have a couple of blocks where everyone is relatively recently from India? Well (hopefully) everyone is speaking the same language and dialects, they can relate strongly to each other, and they can help each other out with things like clothing, furniture, and work.
Trans: the bathroom stuff could be argued to making it easier to sexually assault. But since sexual assault is illegal its a weird arguement. passing by my house makes it easier for a burglar to case my house and try and determine if someone was home. Should walking past peoples home then be illegal? Obviously not.
I've definitely met Christians with this view. So just FYI that there are people with pro-life views that maintain that congruency through their other beliefs.
I don't think the sexual assault argument holds water so that's why I didn't offer it.
Your anti-diversity argument is interesting. I've heard it offered by those who are pro-multiculturism in the sense that strong immigrant communities help to ground new arrivals and provide community. I'm actually not sure that's an example of an anti-diversity argument TBH.
The point of my post was to point out that there are some rather rational arguments for several conservative positions.
It's an interesting argument, and I think it's somewhat neutral in terms of diversity and multiculturalism. It's more anti-forced integration of neighborhoods. Not that we should allow "<racial/ethnic group> only" neighborhoods (or prohibit/discourage people who are not members of <racial/ethnic group> from moving into an area primarily made up of people from that group, nor encourage moving out because a person not from <your racial/ethnic group> moves in), but that we shouldn't require x% of an area to be a specific ethnic/racial group.
"I've definitely met Christians with this view. So just FYI that there are people with pro-life views that maintain that congruency through their other beliefs."
ehhh...knowing one or two moot. I appreciate that knowing a few a few people from any group can change your views on percentages, but they're in what I would call a super minority. Athough to make me eat crow, you can look up "Democrats for life" which is a Democrat group that is anti abortion (was reading about them on politico today).
"I don't think the sexual assault argument holds water so that's why I didn't offer it."
I mean, agreed. I did my best to present their argument, but it really doesn't hold water.
"Your anti-diversity argument is interesting. I've heard it offered by those who are pro-multiculturism in the sense that strong immigrant communities help to ground new arrivals and provide community. I'm actually not sure that's an example of an anti-diversity argument TBH."
lol so this had an interesting effect on me. At first I said "well this anti-diversity argument isn't ACTUALLY my viewpoint" but then I thought about it for a few minutes and said to myself "you know what? fuck it. It's not that politically correct drawing that we were all shown in the 3rd grade with a bunch of crudly drawn people of different nationalities all holding hands and smiling... but that's not life." So yeah. I freaking hate the phrasing "anti-diversity" and hate "self segregation" but yeah...sticking to ones own people can be really beneficial (at least at first).
I'm a strong Christian who is against abortion but vote democrat because of the social policies you mentioned above. I never comment on these posts because of the view you just espoused. Instead of encouraging you just dismissed my view because I'm a 'super minority.' I find what is advertised as Christian/evangelical (in the political sense) as hypocrisy too, but there's not much I can do but to live my life out.
We are in a post talking about being open minded about other views, but the parent comment of this thread just listed out topics that are not even open for discussion.
Also, I like your movies, Mr. Vader.
"I never comment on these posts because of the view you just espoused. Instead of encouraging you just dismissed my view because I'm a 'super minority.'"
I find your comment very weird. You're making it out like I did some personal attack when all I did was...well to put it harshly, I dismissed you due to lack of power. I'm not saying I'm ignoring your points, I'm saying you have no power over anything and so what you believe is moot until the power dynamics shift and people with your take have a say. lol I'd love for you to have power. Personally, unless I was going to have a kid with down syndrome or something, I wouldn't abort. Point is that I (to a degree) relate.
"We are in a post talking about being open minded about other views, but the parent comment of this thread just listed out topics that are not even open for discussion."
That's how these threads work. Thread is about ice cream...go a few comments down and eventually someone will get compared to Hitler.
So this was the sort of discussion I was hoping to provoke :)
hahah cool! Glad you approve of my post! ;-)
I honestly don't think I understand what being a 'transaphobe' or 'homophobe' really means. In the person's heart, are you afraid of the individual, afraid of this happening? I personally don't care for the idea of being trans with the whole mutilating your body parts to fit a different mold. By that I mean, its not for me and I don't understand why someone would do it. This doesn't mean I would deny the person to do it...just makes me ask a lot of questions about how that person feels or if they are mentally healthy (not saying they can't be).
Is it? I've never heard that used as an argument against the death penalty. What I have heard (and agree with) is that although some people do not deserve to live due to their actions (mass murder, torturing victims, etc), we cannot trust the state to execute the right people (for example, the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongful because the evidence used to convict him of triple homicide via arson has been shown to actually be proof it was started by natural causes). In addition, it has not been shown to be effective in reducing crime, the cost to execute someone can be higher than keeping them incarcerated for life, and it is too susceptible to jury bias (especially racial bias, but even having a lawyer makes you look guilty to jurors who don't understand the absolute necessity of counsel, especially when you are innocent).
Democrats and republicans exist on a spectrum. There are tons of reasonable conservatives out there. We just don't hear from them because they're mostly drowned out by the qanon and the like.
And lots of decent conservatives who reach across the aisle and work on bipartisan legislation are being booted out by large PACs who dump tons of money into hard-right candidates (often with little prior political experience) and drown out voices of reason, often airing misleading or outright lying in attack ads. (As a North Carolinian, our state has practically been turned into a war zone with all the out-of-state money flooding in.)
For the same reasons that liberals, myself included, think that diversity is a universal good. It leads to multiple points of view, and the opportunity to inform people and possibly change their minds on any given topic.
My personal belief is that many GOP folks are fine people who are visiously, and purposely, misinformed by others. While it might be uncomfortable, we should be open these people In conversation. That is the only way I can see out of the divided mess that much of the western world finds itself in currently. I am not asking for my account to be deleted like OP did, but tbh I can sort of understand why he did that.
Edit: I’d like to add an analogy.. lots of US conservatives say “all Muslims are evil” while liberals say “no, Muslim extremists are evil, painting all of these folks with a single brush stroke is lazy and ignorant” it also works to polarize the non-extremist Muslims in with the extremists.. “see, they hate us all, even your children.”
While I sometimes find it extremely tempting, I don’t think that calling all US conservatives evil is any solution.
Edit2: just to be clear, I am way too emotionally invested in the success of Tildes to ask for my account to be deleted becuase of a single thread :)
Except the money they are supposed to be able to decide to give or not does not come out of thin air. It is material representation of purchasing power that emerges from the presence of a society that agrees on using such symbolic material in exchange for services or goods. The information, in any form, that those people will be using to decide whether or not to make said payments come from the rest of the people. The institutions that you affirm lack the right to force people to accomodate others are, quite obviously, made up of a part of those others, and entrusted with certain rights and missions by the general community. The society is basically people accomodating each other.
Basically if you don't want to pay for a school that represents the values of a society because you don't share the said values, you should also be ready to not accept the reverse allocation of resources anyhow to you. Which means you don't send your child to such a school.
Everybody benefits from public education, even if one does not have kids, for others' kids being educated is still useful to such a person. When those kids are useful to the society, everybody benefits. That's why everybody pays, not for our kids, but for the coming generations.
You having property is just another instance of the rest of the society accomodating you, which automatically renders you indebted to them, because tolerance and laws protect and empower you to own certain things. Otherwise, a random bunch of people could've just occupied your property and called it theirs.
Material value you own comes from the rest of the society, and exists because they agree that it exists and you own it. Ideally the government is just the tool that implements taxation, which basically is the individual's appreciation and participation in such a value-formation.
Then you are morally obliged to abstain all the benefits of Statism, including using the Internet which works on the cables that states of the world run. You should not consume the goods that the state ensures the means of production and/or distribution. You should not recourse to the courts for justice, etc etc.
Govenment is the tool with which the people orchestrate systems essential to a given society. All societies will need one form of government or another, because decisions will need to be made. That one instance of one sort of government is corrupt does not invalidate the concept of government just like that some brains suffer from Alzheimer's does not invalidate all brains. The thing to do is to go to somewhere where the grass is greener. At least that's what I'm planning to do in the coming years.
Your view of conservatives alone proves that there is a need for more conservative opinions to be heard publicly. You sounds like you're parroting MSNBC, CNN, New York Times...
A lot of what you said above is simply incorrect.
I don't read or watch the news and I agree with @Cocoa's assessment, simply from interacting with conservatives online and in real life.
I'm not the commenter you're replying to. First of all, I'm sorry for your loss, please accept my condolences.
Returning to the topic, I wanted to say this: consensuses change. Consensus was that disinfecting yourself before a surgery is not required. Consensus was that homosexuality is a disease. The current consensus about transsexuality might well change in future. I'm all for supporting trans people, and acknowledge the troubles they endure, but that should not impede philosophical and medical discussion on the topic.
WRT identity being immutable, I outright refuse this. Identity, in all its apects, is something we form and reform continuously all throughout our lives. We should not confound biological gender with sexuality, and identity with any of those two.
This might be a little of topic, but I always wonder why being "right" needs to be a component of discussion. I always see a discussion on a divisive topic as such:
Sometimes, differing opinions stem from a differing set of beliefs, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, mere discussion isn't going to change a person's core set of beliefs. But all people involved learn a lot by exploring topics in this manner.
Speaking to your comment, I think the apparent inspiration for the socially conservative positions you mentioned may not be the whole story. For example, I was talking to a socially conservative friend of mine not long ago, who is anti-abortion. After a long discussion, it came to light that it wasn't the concept of abortion as a whole that he opposed. He opposed the widespread use of the medical procedure before the long term societal impacts could be assessed.
As an aside, boiling positions on complex societal issues down to "For" and "Against" makes true discussion impossible. It makes people dig their heels. Discussing the topic sans-naming might yield better results.
Edit: formatting.
A point of order seemingly not mentioned elsewhere: the "conservative" label has been seized by reactionaries, who do not seek to maintain a balance in favor of the current corporate capitalist, socially liberal order. This order tolerates a degree of social liberty as long as it can be exploited profitably.
The reactionaries are demanding abolition of these liberties by restoring frameworks of political and economic rights that are a century or two old.
There are conservatives who desire an orderly expansion of economic liberty and don't demand forcible reduction of social liberty, however distasteful they find it. They're not expecting a return to the mythologized past, but are willing to engage with the world as it exists. I'm happy to engage in genial converse with them.
But I'm not sure the reactionaries, whatever they're called, deserve a broader forum here. Tildes exists as a manifestation of social liberties, and the paradox of tolerance is fully applicable.
A couple comments to this as a right leaning moderate (I don't know if I can call myself a conservative).
Anti-Abortion: This topic needs to be narrowed down greatly. To say 'Pro choice' or 'Pro life' often includes a lot of different reasons. If the fetus is pretty much dead (still growing but no brain or brain activity for example), I mean, its not really much of an abortion. Someone chose to have sex and due to irresponsibility got pregnant (or got someone else pregnant), own up to your mistake. Mistakes have consequences, the child didn't make a mistake, don't pass on the consequence. Rape pregnancy...tough topic, but in general, I'm for not aborting the child but don't feel a need to keep the child. Having the chance to live is greater than issue of being a parent.
Anti-diversity initiatives: I'm unsure what you mean, but if you are talking government initiatives, then its probably more of a financial reason why conservatives disagree...I (as well as most conservatives or people that work for the government) believe that the government can't do anything efficiently (except spend money poorly). In other ways, diversity initiatives alienate people, which is kind of the whole point of having diversity in a social or work atmosphere. I'm a white male, and most of my forefathers had it a lot better than those that weren't, but that doesn't mean that I should be 'punished' in a way to not have access to programs that I would love to be a part of. In essence, it brings together non-white people instead of integrating white people into them. I would assume that a lot of white supremacists would change their attitude if they were integrated into a more diverse atmosphere earlier in their lives. Hopefully a lot of this changes cause I think diversity movements are great but cause a lot of hatred as it becomes 'us vs them' thing instead of creating a common goal.
LGBT Rights: I find this to be more religious base and being religious myself, I'm not offended (who cares even if I was), or 'anti-LGBT' rights. It just feels weird about calling a religious ceremony resulting in marriage then LGBT using it in a non-religious way...although that happens with M/F couples.
As for others, time will work these down if people are nice to each other. Rome wasn't built in a day, the slaves weren't freed in a month, communism still isn't defeated (joke).
I wouldn't say modern conservatism is unable to have respectful discussion...but the alt right could just be chopped off and no one would miss them...just like the alt left. I am very unsure how people feel they are being denied the right to exist. If it is more of 'feeling unhappy', I think we can both agree that right now, no group of people feel happy.
“the intensely-unpleasant social right-wingers, a la the Republican Party” ugh, are you even being serious here? I find that kind of rhetoric extremely off putting but typical of this site. You trash entire groups of millions of people but put it in a nice enough way so you don’t immediately sound like a jerk.
I think (and correct me if I'm wrong) that Belds is unhappy about labeling all Republican Party supporters as intolerant alt-right bigots, when in reality there's a significant number of Republicans that are socially progressive and economically conservative (small c), and are more than happy to have a meaningful, respectful discussion on public policy.
Are there? How do you square this claim with Donald Trump's 87% approval rating among Republicans?
Yeah, that's a pretty damning stat from a fairly rigorous polling entity (Gallup), but approval rating doesn't equal support for each and every policy of that administration. That approval rating includes individuals and business owners who may have seen marginal improvements in their tax burdens that otherwise have no interest in the government's social policies. This poll is also conducted with registered Republican party members, and based on the 58% turnout during the last election, that leaves another 42% of the country that didn't even bother to vote. Out of that remaining 42% of abstaining voters, there are definitely some that lean towards the conservative spectrum, and some that lean liberal.
I assume some of them are good people.
edit - I incorrectly said voter turnout in 2016 was 55%, when in reality it was closer to 58%.
Cinemax Racism is still Racism.
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/11/10/the-cinemax-theory-of-racism/
I 100% agree, Republicans and small c conservatives that voted for Trump in the presidential election are by definition complicit with the current administration's policies, which again brings up the ever-relevant Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which MLK argues that moderates who tacitly accept an unjust system stand in the way of justice as much as those who openly and actively work against it. However in the moderates who tacitly accept unjust systems, unlike those who actively support them, you also have the opportunity to explore the root of their inaction and potentially change their mind. I'd argue that it's easier to have a discussion with a political moderate and convince them to change their view, rather than trying to argue with someone whose heart and mind are already devoted to making things worse for others.
Nice backtracking. Oh I wasn’t calling all Republicans bad people. Just the intolerant ones. I specifically said in my post reasonable respectful people.
Even if you do think they're backtracking, this comment serves mostly to inflame. @Kat did a great job in their reply.
I notice you're responding to the "intensely-unpleasant social right wingers" and calling it trash talk, but you don't respond to the "I doubt there are that many people here interested in discussing whether queer people deserve fundamental rights."
Do you think queer folk might not want to coddle the feelings of those who would rather they not exist?
Even if I wasn't queer, I would say that individual rights should be subject to neither debate nor majority vote. I don't want to hear that LGBT people, atheists, non-white people, women, etc. don't have the right to exist. Such sentiment does not belong in the America I was taught to love and believe in.
This sentiment doesn't belong in the world, period. It's a plague that begets violence and suffering. It solves nothing and only causes problems.
I don't know about @Kat, but I as far as I'm concerned, GOP = KKK. This is the party that has followed Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy since 1979. I'm talking about the same Lee Atwater who said,
Using Atwater's methods, the Republican party began courting racist white Democrats as well as conservative Christians (such as Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition) and pandering to both white supremacy and Christian dominionism.
The Republican party ceased to be the Party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower in 1994. As far I'm concerned. your party is now the Party of Jefferson Davis.
This paints with too broad a brush to the point of being off-putting, even though I'm really left. Most of the people I know who voted for Trump did so because they saw perceived corruption issues and spending philosophies as being more important than focusing on minorities and LGBT. Hell, some of them are really convinced Trump's policies benefit minorities, and they are in favor of that. One voted for Trump partially because he has issues with how he thinks liberal policies hurt the black community. I disagree strongly with all of those folks, but I'm just saying, some of these people I know personally are considerate, kind, and intelligent, and would contribute well here.
It isn't just Trump. Trump is a buffoon far out of his depth, and while he probably wouldn't even admit it to his wife in the dead of night, I wouldn't be surprised if he knew he had grabbed a tiger by the tail, and was now just hanging on because the consequences of letting go would be far worse. I think he's being used. I just don't know who's pulling his strings:
You've got people running as Republicans in the rural US using slogans like "Make America white again". You have a Republican President, George H. W. Bush, who may have said the following in 1987 just after announcing his candidacy:
The rot predates Trump. It might even predate Lee Atwater and his Southern Strategy. Personally, I think the rot started to set in 1960 when people watching the Kennedy-Nixon debates on TV viewed Kennedy as the winner because he looked good on TV.
We're having separate conversations here. I'm saying not all republicans are actively bigoted and intolerant, and you're saying there's a lot of bigotry in the republican party. Should I just assume that we agree on both of these points?
Sure. It'll save some time, but somebody recently posted John Scalzi's blog post about Cinemax racism. In brief: the Republicans who voted for Trump because they wanted to "drain the swamp" might have been voting Republican to vote against corruption - but they also voted for racism.
They did, great point. And I voted for Hillary, and by the same logic, I would consider that a vote for corruption to some extent. But that doesn't make me pro-corruption, I just evaluated it to be the lesser of two evils.
And then there's me - one of the very few who wrote in Bernie Sanders for the general election. I didn't compromise on my vote but in a sense you could say I voted for corruption or racism because I wasn't "pragmatic".
Eh, while there's definitely a debate to be had over the effectiveness of protest votes, I really think the ones responsible for Trump are the ones who voted for him, not people who wrote in Bernie.
A few of my family members are republican social conservatives who support Trump and can still have a considered conversation about politics.
They exist, the question is: how do we find them, and do they want to participate here?
For some reason I don't have any invite code =(. I'm pretty new - perhaps we get them after a bit of time?
Honestly my family members probably wouldn't be interested, but I'll keep my eye out.
You should message @Deimos. He mentioned a while back that we can just message him if we run out. Not sure how true that still is, but it's probably worth a shot, so you don't have to wait until the next time he replenishes our codes.
Edit: I still have some codes too, if you want, you can PM me.
Thanks! I'll wait for someone who might be a good fit to reveal themselves and then might follow your advice
Thanks! I'll wait for someone who might be a good fit to reveal themselves and then might take you up on that =)
I mean... Voat already exists.
We got a real funny guy over here
Yeah, but Voat has all of the conservatives that are deeply toxic. You must have met enough people to know that tons of conservatives aren't like that and many would find voat to be entirely abhorrent.
/r/conservative is a mixed bag of some pretty awful people (in my opinion) and some seemingly decent people that I disagree with. /r/libertarian too, but fewer true conservatives. Don't really know where else I'd look.
I don't unfortunately :/ I'm not super social on reddit. Also I don't have any invite codes. Maybe because I'm new.
Bingo, exactly. Tildes being liberal is fine - a community doesn't want or need irreconcilable conflict of opinion to thrive happily.
What's the point of discussion if everyone has the same or similar views?
Not all of us will have the same views - like how marxists debate about Trotskyism vs Stalinism. Or how we should approach people with different views than us, or how we should moderate the forum, yadda yadda. I think that the frame 'opinions must be wildly different for the discussion to be valuable' is, imo, not accurate - or even wanted - most of the time.
This is the kind of attitude that proves we need more conservative opinion. Not shit posting hate, but real and valid view points.
I'll offer a couple of thoughts on this.
First, I'll reiterate that I consider myself right-of-center, at least by the standards of my home country (Canada). I am also an executive at an off-shore hedge fund, which should adequately establish capitalist bona fides. I'd say I'm to the right of the OP.
That said, who exactly are we talking about? Is it someone who is capable of carrying on a polite conversation from a conservative point of view; a sort of poster-equivalent of Anna Applebaum, Andrew Sullivan, or David Frum? Sure, absolutely, we should have those voices on here.
That said, there's a commonality among the three people I just named - they're all anti-Trump conservatives, and that puts them on the outs with the current conservative establishment. If I wanted to refer to a Canadian perspective, I could cite people like Doug Ford, Ezra Levant, and Jordan Peterson (or posters who are fans thereof)? Do I think we need those voices here? Frankly, no. I think they have limited ability or motivation to carry on a civil conversation, little of value to contribute, and a demonstrated history of co-opting platforms such as this.
Frankly, the site does not need to seek out these people in order to fulfill a "diversity quota", to borrow from the conservative lexicon. I think people who are intellectually curious will seek out sites like this on their own.
Where do we find them? Even the old school ronpaul/libertytree forums have soured. I honestly can't even name any good conservative communities anymore.
This is what I was wondering. I have no idea where one would even find a reasonable, respectful conservative community to recruit from.
Well I guess the same way you would find anyone else. My go-to would be reddit. You wouldn’t just invite anyone from r/politics because you’d end up with a lot of jerks. You’d have to pick and choose individual users who would fit in here and the same could be said for r/conservative.
Your comment did kinda make me realize that If I want more conservatives then I should invite some and have them invite more.
I'm all for it. Frankly, I have to believe the sane conservatives on reddit are as fed up with the red vs blue circlejerk there as everyone else.
Best one I knew was the Liberty Forest. It's heyday is long past, however.
"respectful, reasonable" and "conservative voice" do not currently work in the same sentence.
Well assuming they meant "republican" when they said "conservative" is why I said what I did. The conservative party no longer remotely represents actual conservative ideals (like small government, etc) and anyone who continues to identify as republican (in its current state) is either actively choosing to be ignorant of all the atrocities republicans commit on a daily basis or in support of them. For more, see https://tildes.net/~tildes/4bf#comment-196z and https://tildes.net/~tildes/4c1#comment-19hr
That can't be farther from the truth. I have politics conversions all the time with people who have different points of view from me. They notably mostly take place on the real world, but I've had decent online conversations as well.
Fomenting polarization is a disservice to everyone who is taking part.
I'm pretty far left, but I'm very frequently put off by comments here on tildes. It seems the extreme left is as intolerant as the extreme right. Lots of bashing cis hetero white males, lots of talk about white privilege, lots of "you wouldn't understand because you're not a PoC", lots of talk about excluding people based on their race, gender, and sexual orientation. There's several examples in this thread saying we can't invite those people because the whole lot of them is bad, period, end of story.
There's been several times I just close the website and walk away, wondering if I'm ever going to come back. I really hate identity politics. To me, everyone on the internet is a colourless shapeless blob, to be judged only by their words and actions. It's somehow become normal to care what race people are, what gender they are, and exclude them or pre-judge them based on this. That's not what the internet is about to me, that's not what inclusiveness or tolerance is to me. And it frustrates me. On a daily basis here.
Ok I'll bite, I don't think this stuff happens lots it's just that when it does the posters are totally unashamed in their opinions. No hedging no need to back things up with an explanation never mind references. Anyone who posts outright racism will certainly be nuked by admins unless their target is whites ditto sexism & men. People who post anti-male, anti-white stuff can even be highly upvoted.
This makes it very clear that Tildes 'default' opinion is "American left wing Soc Jus". As a Brit this is often jarring, as a liberal left wing Brit it's kind of heart breaking. In my view the 99% need to be brought together to avoid being utterly crushed by the increasing concentration of capital. Men vs Women, Whites vs Minorities is all just rather tragic.
Anyway examples:
https://tildes.net/~life/3td/choosing_to_not_have_children#comment-14ec (note Bleds was in this thread).
That will probably seem quite minor to you but I certainly felt I had to censure myself to avoid an argument & perhaps some feud? It felt especially jarring to me because minority parents in the UK insisting that their kids marry within their group has led to communities with very high incidence of genetic disease. To simplify it down to white supremacists seems just a bit... shallow & again very USA-centric.
https://tildes.net/~games/3xz/gaming_s_toxic_men_explained_experts_tackle_the_phenomenon_of_angry_men_trolls_racists_and
This is the 2nd most upvoted thing on ~gaming in the last 10 days. It's chock full of references to the problem of "white men" in video game culture which as a rather old European gamer is just weird. I still feel like gaming is something we imported from Japan! :)
Yes multiplayer gaming culture is toxic. But there are noticeable differences in the toxicity of different communities! Dota vs League vs L4D I read far too much of it hoping it would at some point touch on anything with some rigor or substance but... The influence of game mechanics on toxicity? The influence of community management? Community toxicity plotted vs objectification of women? Nope. So this very fluffy article gets hella upvotes in ~games without really talking about games weird.
If we go to the comments we find the top voted comment starts:
Which on a site aiming for highbrow debate with de facto acceptance of American Soc Jus logic is... well kinda amazing! We have a self proclaimed white man distilling a massive collection of expert opinions (many from women) into his personal trite explanation! But whilst other stuff in topic was nuked by admins (no doubt fairly) that was upvoted to the top.
If you have a problem with what I post, take it up with me instead of griping about how it gets upvoted by people with whom it resonates.
I don't really feel I have a right to specify what content is appropriate on Deimos' site. I was engaging with /u/Kat's comment above.
While the items and comments you post are in my view uncivil and damaging to the causes of developing a more just society. I don't see it as my place to police you. If Deimos doesn't think you're being uncivil who am I to judge? If his site does become an American Soc Jus echo chamber it also doesn't matter to me. I'll help get Tildes developed then fork it and run my own instance.
I haven't personally seen any bashing of cishet white males, but what's wrong with discussing white privilege? It's a very real, demonstrable and documented phenomenon. You can present evidence against the idea if you have them, but to deny the very concept any discussion at all is anti-scientific.
I'm replying to you but this could've been a reply to any of a number of comments on this thread: I really like that the quote you gave specifies it's about White people in North America. I often see generalizations like this made about the entirety of white(ish, drawing lines is done at random and to further your own argument, e.g. are spanish people white?, etc) people, and the argument doesn't tend to hold up. Do we have a lot of race issues here in the Netherlands, for example? Yes, fuck yes, we do. But are our minority groups anything like the ones in the states? Well, no. We've got a lot more people that are from Turkish or Moroccan backgrounds (now often 3rd gen immigrants), so the racial tensions here are very different than in the US.
All that to say I think that's important to keep in mind, someone might not live in the same cultural setting as you do (and therefore have different issues—like some eastern europeans I know who's parents, though white, are subject to racism every single day of their lives; this is, especially according to a certain brand of leftism in the US, officially impossible), and therefore lessons or statistics or generalizations don't translate.
Anywho, I guess this is just to say that context matters, and since we're all on the internet we don't know the other person's context (although white fragility seems to be a thing here in the NL as well)
For what it's worth, I'm a bona fide leftist (DSA) and I find it unpleasant to read some "liberal" (whatever that means) comments here; they're as frustrating to read as any "conservative" (whatever that means) equivalent comment. Example from this thread alone. I don't think that I'm more conservative than this commenter, and I don't even disagree with their general disposition, yet it is an uncomfortable read.
I can't imagine someone who's actually rightist would want to be here, and so the internet enabled endogamy continues and we all suffer. Don't think I'm criticizing tildes here, this kind of userbase filtering will happen on any platform where humans are allowed to express opinion.
A diverse range of opinions is desirable, but I'm not sure that it's going to be that easy to achieve given the demographic facts of the site. My perception based on this fact is that the most right we're going to get is probably people of the "neo-liberal" persuasion. Ultimately people will come to the site on their accord and the general range of acceptable political discussion will shift accordingly.
This entire post and the replies are scaring me. I came to Tildes for open discussion from multiple viewpoints. There is a surprising amount of generalizing and vitriol coming from this community. How can you dismiss entire viewpoints you don't agree with and expect to have an actual conversation? I think a lot of what I am thinking right now has already been said, but I want to reiterate the importance of this.
Without dissenting opinion Tildes is little more than another echo chamber with a left leaning slant. I've seen multiple people here either strongly imply or directly say that people who are (USA type) republicans, right wing opinionated, or libertarian are simply not welcome here because they are all the true sources of hostility and vitriol. The only thing I'm seeing here is the opposite. We need to promote tolerance, even if the "other side" doesn't value tolerance as we do.
Tildes already has an established societal norm where hostile commentary, bad faith debating, and other forms of negative communication are frowned upon, will eventually get you banned. The thing about this societal norm is it needs to apply to both sides. I've seen a lot of hostility in this post which I personally frown upon and I hope others here do as well. When someone comes here, if they do not meet the Tildes standard in their communications, then they will most likely be asked to leave or improve. This should be no matter their opinions or affiliations.
Inviting people of other opinions will not magically make that process disappear. The checks and balances in place to make sure the discussion in Tildes is high quality will still apply to everyone.
We need people of all origins, alternative opinions, etc. If their opinions are of violent or hostile origins, we should use that to foster discussion with said opinion holders. If they refuse to discuss in good will why one may disagree with their opinions or be offended, and then continue to do so, in my opinion that would be grounds for dismissal. Simply assuming that people of other opinions are bad, hostile, violent, etc is incredibly unhealthy and needs to cease.
I will be very disappointed if there is an organized backlash against people of conservative, republican, libertarian, or other viewpoints. If they are criminalized simply because of their beliefs. It is tantamount to guilt by association. Just because this one person on the internet claims to be of this opinion and identifies as some party, doesn't mean the next guy to claim identical party affiliation is of the same opinion.
I am a liberal, a democratic socialist. I intend to invite people of high standing that have different opinions than my own. I will accept them into Tildes with open arms and I hope you all do too. Treat others as you would like to be treated, that doesn't mean wait for them to take the first step. It is YOU who has to tolerate them, and eventually, we can slowly close the gap that has torn parts of our society apart.
The second most voted comment in this post is one of broad strokes and generalizations.
Then where should that take place? Everyone wants to see change in the world but no one wants to change themselves. It certainly wont happen at anti-fa rallies or alt-right protests, nor on Reddit or some chan board, some Facebook comments our Youtube comments, where do we take on the hate? If you simply ban the hate, they don't go away. They find their own platforms and further the divide, magnify the hate.
You also omitted the following verbiage from your quote:
That said, thank you for the link regarding the paradox of tolerance, it makes sense and I am considering all of its merits.
We could alternatively combat the liberal-dominated discourse by inviting leftists, who are in general probably more likely to engage in good faith and not spew hatred.
This sentiment right here is what will drive me and probably many other users away from this website. Assuming Left == good and right == bad is a surefire way to never grow as a human.
This is the team politics that, I'd assume, many of us here are trying to get away from. Let's try to have rational conversations about ideas and not make wide spread generalizations about people.
Oh I agree with you and that's why I'm still here! It seems most people on this site, so far, are very rational and willing to have real discussions!
To me, Liberal means conservative. As in lassez faire economics, privatisation of all industry and services etc.
It's a funny old world, where the same word can have opposite meaning, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on
I was more just musing on the vagaries of language than saying anything particularly relevant to the discussion. I'm easily sidetracked.
I probably need a definition of 'conservative', as left and right in politics is reversed in my country, and I don't have time nor inclination to understand exactly how US politics is set up.
However, I probably do fall into the conservative pool.
I'm theologically trained, and have preached in several Christian churches, notably (for this discussion) the Anglican and Presbyterian denominations.
When the vote for gay marriage came up, I had some quite serious reservations, particularly that the proposed law would compel any religious minister to marry a gay couple, even if they disagreed with that lifestyle. (Though I myself have decided the issue is too difficult, with too little theological basis [a whole two verses, which may be referring to promiscuity rather than actually homosexuality] to actually decide anything. Leave that one to God.)
I have other strong views, but don't tend to be comfortable sharing them. The above is controversial enough amongst my circle of friends, who tend hold opposite viewpoints.
Now, that all established...
I don't see any reason that the community should seek anyone out, beyond their ability to hold a decent conversation, and show respect to both the community and themselves.
If you seek out a group, then you tend to end up with the worst of the bunch. Unfortunately, that seems to just be the way biased selection works. The loudest of a group, tend to be those with the more radical views.
Time and time again, in the (admittedly soft, and weak) sciences of sociology and psychology, they find any bias selection, always selects for the most radical viewpoint.
A more practical example, would be YouTube's play next lists. It tends to seek out controversial or intensely popular videos, which has ended up with any child's video being seven videos away from the kind of thing you would have thought would be banned.
Let's not become that.
If you can find some, by all means invite them.
Why was their account deleted?
Hm. Thanks.
The anti-conservative rhetoric was too much for them i suppose.
Well then.
Bit of an overreaction but I understand this site's not for everyone.
I asked for my account to be deleted and wasn’t banned for posting this thread or any comments that go against the majority of users here. You guys enjoy, but this site just isn’t for me.
(Don’t want anyone to think I was banned for posting this thread or any of my comments.)
I urge you to be the change you want to see here.
If you go, then we've reduced what you want to see here.
I've already deleted their account (but left their posts up, as they requested).
Very few people will want to try to "be the change." There aren't many people that want their interaction with a community to feel like a constant debate where they have to defend themselves all the time. If people feel like that, they'll just go find a different community where they can actually feel like a part of it because they don't need to do that.
That's unfortunate.
I understand that it's difficult to deal with "everyone's against me" but it's also easy to just avoid topics that everyone would be against you in and continue to use the site.
It's a golden example of why a "politics" group is probably a bad idea. Politics has become so divisive that it is intensely difficult to have a non-polarized conversations. It's disheartening, since I think one of the most important things we need to do (in North America at least) is to reduce the intensity of the polarization that we're experiencing.
Yeah, it's difficult. The ideal of "we should have a community where everyone is welcome and everything is discussed civilly" is great in theory, but I don't know if it's actually possible in practice. "Safe space" has become a ridiculously loaded term now, but it really is important for people to feel like they're "safe" in a community to truly be able to feel like they're part of it. You can't feel like you need to be on the defensive all the time, that's just not enjoyable.
It's a bit of a contrived example to move it away from political topics, but if you take a group like ~anime, there's really no good community value in allowing people that explicitly hate anime and think it's awful. The people that enjoy anime don't want every thread to be a debate against the "anime sucks" users, that doesn't make a good community. They just want to discuss something they enjoy with other people that enjoy it as well, and if there are too many "dissenting voices", they'll go find a different community where they can actually discuss it with other enthusiasts.
That is the point I have reached on Tildes. I haven't posted in a couple weeks if I am remembering correctly. Today has been my first visit in the same amount of time, and I had a hunch what I would find once I logged into my account. Sad to say, I was not disappointed in that regard. In my opinion, Tildes does feel very antagonistic if you are not lockstep with the rest of the group. I do try to remind myself it is just the internet, and ignore the things I dislike so that I can enjoy the things that I do find interesting, but it becomes tiring to feel like I am constantly on eggshells. I am not quite at the point of asking for my account to be deleted, but I think its safe to say that day is probably not far in coming.
I will admit to being lazy today, I don't feel much like wading through the many posts to lay out a spread of examples, but for discussion sake I will provide a couple comments from different threads. I know you can search and figure it out, but I am purposely not linking to them directly because I don't want anyone to feel like I am calling them out. They are merely being provided as an example.
Sometimes I wonder if comments like these are bait. Is this person sitting there rubbing their hands together, waiting in rapt anticipation for someone to come along and dare to disagree with them? Even if its not, there will undoubtedly be a dog-pile should a person choose to wade in there and offer up some dissenting commentary. There is simply too much emotion involved, and many cannot detach themselves enough from the topic being discussed.
Because of the infrequency of my visits to Tildes, when I see posts like the "being trans is not a choice" I find that sometimes a person has decided to disagree, which is immediately followed by a littany of posts telling the person how wrong they are. It's never a response like "I understand that is your point of view, but I disagree." You get "Transphobic attitudes and beliefs are insulting, humiliating, and degrading and they need to stop. No platform should ever allow people to bully a huge demographic of people until they blow their brains out."
I've mentioned it previously in another thread, I am politically agnostic. While many of my beliefs/opinions are on the conservative side I do have some which would be considered quite liberal. Abortion for example. My parents are against it completely while I think a woman has the right to decide with a caveat that the father of the child also agrees or is unknown. Another example is they think marijuana is a drug while I think that it is the same as tobacco since they are plants and not some synthetic compound of chemicals. They think I am wrong, and these are topics we don't discuss anymore. I am already prepared for the numerous replies here telling me how wrong I am in both regards!
It is not the debate, it is not that people disagree, it is the volume and the - I am hesitant to use the word, but for immediate lack of something better - venom in the responses which makes it discouraging to post here. So much so that when I do log in feel compelled to just scroll thorough the recent pages and skim the comments before just logging out again without posting anything of my own. I think the world would be a very boring place if we all agreed on everything! I welcome opinions different than my own, it helps me to grow as a person, but it can also become unhealthy.
I don't want to ramble, so I will wrap this up with some Tolstoy:
I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I wanted to focus on this discussion because I think it motivates some important goals for what I (and hopefully other users on Tildes) want discussion here to be.
I've spent some time thinking about what specific aspects of the comments posted by @CR0W would be discouraging, and the following phrases from those comments jumped out at me:
While I'm going to refrain from passsing judgment on the facts or the strength of the argument of these comments, I think that @CR0W's point, if I have interpreted it correctly, stands: the above types of remarks carry an (understandably) emotional tone and may indicate to some users a lack of good-faith willingness to discuss. That being said, I do think this emphasizes the responsibility of each user to strive to (1) consider these comments based on the points and arguments they make, without getting too caught up in the tone they take, and (2) interpret these comments with the best possible intentions.
To focus on the last comment (about trans being a choice), I think that @dubteedub has raised a good point and shown a good faith effort to have a thoughtful discussion, but I do think that the sentence in their comment that I highlighted above was a bit strong. There is a great deal of nuance that can be discussed about that point.
For example, what evidence indicates that trans may or may not be a choice? To what extent or under what circumstances should parents let their children be who they want to be? What factors, including bullying from others, hope for societal change (or lack thereof), suppressive policies, etc., cause trans people to attempt suicide? How can we contribute to the minimization of those factors, or provide better political/emotional support to trans people?
Despite the possibility for rich discussion, it seems that @CR0W may have interpreted the comment as arguing that if one does not vehemently oppose parents who don't give full freedom to their children's trans identity, then they are contributing to trans suicide. Again, while we should try to interpret these comments in the best possible way, it's easy to see how such an interpretation could make one feel hesitant to, or actively discouraged from, discussing these points.
This is sad to see, I wish OP hadn't asked for their account to be banned. I am brand new here, but I lean right and I consider myself a moderate conservative. I certainly have opinions that fall into the liberal/libertarian and probably even "far right" label. To be honest, I like tilde a lot so far. However, the few political threads i've seen not only have a hard left vibe, but also contain vitriolic comments against the "other team", so i've just kept myself out of them entirely. I have plenty I can contribute to less divisive topics like tech & games and I think I will likely start filtering out political/identity tags as I find them.
Appreciate it, I definitely enjoy discussing politics but I think reddit has left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like to confine myself to "safe space subs" for the right, but if I post my opinion in general/left leaning subs I get "piled on" so quickly that it kills the enjoyment of debate. Perhaps I just need to give tilde politics a fair shot and drop my reddit-based preconceptions. :)
As an aside, I really like that I can recognize you from the spotify thread from earlier. Reminds me of the early days of reddit.
I think those voices are sticking out here, but there's also a ton of disagreement in this thread with any comment that unilaterally equates conservatism to hate
I really hope you come back. I think having this site not be an echo chamber is important too.
Yeah, this sequence of events makes me pretty sad all around.
Right there with you. I'll be deleting my account as well.
It took me a while to read this whole thread. There are certainly some interesting viewpoints held by certain users here. I consider myself more conservative than liberal, more right than left, in most things. I live in California, so it's not hard to be considered a conservative in this state. If you disagree at all with the majority you're labeled a conservative. It's a shame. I'm used to it though. It's hard to have conversations with people from the Bay Area and/or Los Angeles and not get ridiculed for holding beliefs that go against the norm. It's unfortunate that the same seems to be close to the norm here. Unfortunate, but not unexpected.
T_D and most every other Alt-Right outlet are not the norm. They're just the loudest voice. I speak with a lot of conservative people and groups and I have yet to run into someone I would actually consider alt-right. Most people are reasonable. Especially if they interact with actual humans and not with words on a screen. Interpersonal interaction promotes empathy in almost all people. Talking to/at a screen does not. I think we've all been conditioned to assume the worst about the other side. I try to be reasonable and have at least a logical explanation for my beliefs. I know people won't always agree with me, but I don't want them to be able to find fault in my reasoning.
know what would be kinda cool? To invite a bunch of conservative economists and the like (people who are respected in conservative media) to join Tildes and make some posts here. Have them join the community, they could submit articles that they or others have written, and add a conservative but reasonable discussion on things.
I'm still pretty new here and pretty left of most people I know, but most posts and topics I've seen this far seem even handed to me. Keeping bias out seems unrealistically utopian. Let whoever is on bring up whatever they want and the market place will decide what has more merit. Bring some worthwhile topics to the party.
Be the conservative you wish to see. 😉
There is absolutely a need for more conservative opinions to be heard publicly. And judging from the comments posted here, it proves the case even more so.
Since the 2016 election, conservatives have been labeled as literal nazis, bigots, and racists by anti-Trump media outlets. And for the most part, it's simply a lie! That doesn't mean there aren't actually those types of people on the right, the same as there are leftist fascists on the left.
It's tough, but if you cut out Twitter and reddit entirely, (and stop blindly reading the sensationalist headlines from CNN, New York Times, and MSNBC) there are valid arguments on both sides. Most conservatives are not out to get the gay and trans people. Most do not want to see less fortunate people struggling, most are not trying to bring back Jim Crow... and I feel bad for the people on both sides that are truly caught up in the hysteria and tossing shit over the wall at each other.
The common ground is that we're all American, and we all want whats best for our country and our people. If you simply keep the ideals of liberty and freedom in the front of your mind, I think most people would begin to find common ground and some very important compromises will be reached.
I'm not :)
I'm unfamiliar with the "leftist fascist" term. Would you mind explaining it in more detail, perhaps with an example of someone who fits the description?
Could you share an example of a news article you thought was sensationalist, along with an example of better, more even-handed coverage of the same news story?
Tildes is already fairly right-wing, how is it "intensely liberal?" That's intensely misleading.
As a non-American, I find the constant political soapboxing on Tildes very irritating. This is why politics should be kept out of a forum environment. Deimos may not wish to implement a ~politics, but right now it's just causing all the political bullshit to stream across the site instead of dissipating it.
As an American, I find the constant political soapboxing everywhere very irritating. In 2016, people claimed to be sick of politics and just wanted to get the presidential election over with. But then the wrong person won and now everyone has to hear the complaints for at least the next 4 years.
I am fairly conservative, although I am also very liberal (in the international sense).
I don't think it serves anyone's purposes to try and fill quotas, especially partisan quotas. Right now it's a small enough community where I'm not concerned about voices in the minority being drowned out. Most discussions I've read through, so far, take place on an individual level; in that case partisanship hardly matters. What I don't want to see happen is the emergence of a kind of factionalism that drowns out those real interpersonal debates.
I don't really consider myself liberal. I live in a rural mountain Colorado community, have guns and hold a decent amount of libertarian views. I personally think, for the most part, the modern political spectrum doesn't truly exist in my generation (millennials). Maybe it's just in my state, but the majority of people I know are centrist and do not make decisions by party affiliations.
I wouldn't necessarily call mountain towns "deep rural", we actually tend to lean more liberal traditionally and our population fluctuates wildly due to tourism. Granted, I guess even Denver is pretty small when compared to other metropolitan areas.
This belongs in ~talk not in ~tildes
There's far too much description of people as "liberal" or "conservative"
I'm a commie, but honestly I don't see the problem. Just invite the people you want.