This thread is inspired by a couple of posts by Seaver, Ustwo, roachboy, and politicophile
in this thread.
Specifically,
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Originally Posted by Seaver
Ok. So the question was thrown out whether the Democrats are "left."
Lets look at it rationally. The Dem's have lost the VAST majority of elections in the last few years. The Republicans (for the most part) are to the Right of the Dem's.
Thus if Republicans are winning elections, the "center" has shifted "right".
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by politicophile
I personally would consider this view to be so far to the left as to be unworthy of anything resembling serious consideration. But that's just me, millions of miles from the political "center"...
I can't even imagine what it would be like to live in that reality.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by roachboy
nothing about these interpretations is credible:
that it reflects something like a socially acceptable logic indicates, once again, significant problems with conservative discourse as a political formation.
there is no reason to take these posts seriously
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by politicophile
Exactly my point. It seems like your immediate response to near-universal disagreement with your position is to accuse those who disagree with you of being delusional.
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and
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
I made two replies to this thread last night and did not post either. The theme in both there are times in life when you see you don't have debate, but you are speaking with mad men.
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Now that I've pulled these things out of context, I hope that you guys can see that what you just read is a problem. While people may be posting ideas without violating the
letter of our forum guidelines, clearly writing each other off is in violation of the
spirit of this place.
I think we need to have a conversation that has been a long time coming around here - namely about how we are relating to people that disagree with us. I've noticed both sides mark a territory around which they're willing to converse. If someone falls outside of these bounds, they're just "liberal" or "lumpenconservative" or some other label, and fair game for generalization or ignoring.
Honestly, I think this willingness to push someone's ideas out of bounds and then treat them differently once they are there is one of the most destructive phenomena here at TFP. It directly threatens our ability to have reasonable discourse, and has led to many a banning.
This forum has always been on the edge of acceptable TFP behavior - it goes back and forth, but never far from unacceptable behavior. I think clearing the air and agreeing about ways that we talk to each other might help. For quite some time, I’ve been beginning to think that Politics simply is not worthy of being hosted on TFP, as the discourse here runs counter to our forum’s stated goals of evolution, communication, and bringing people and ideas together. I'll be honest and say that it worries me that we hardly ever discuss anything here - only debate. The goal of understanding has not been taken to mean "understand other people's ideas" as much as "make others understand MY ideas". We can do better than this.
I'd like to initiate a sort of conversation about conversations - a meta-conversation about these modes of dialogue. Of course, this thread will be moderated, so don’t get any ideas about slinging mud in a safe place. If anything, I’m hoping we can learn something from each other here that might begin to put this place on a better path. I don't know exactly where to start, so I'm open to what people have to say here as long as it leaves room for others to have differing opinions.