I'm becoming more conservative by the day, and it is blowing my fucking mind. the one thing I always hated about republicans was their refusal to deal with dissenting opinions and their penchant for mocking those that did not readily identify themselves with their politics. I feel like I'm living in fucking bizarre-o world all of the sudden
[–] Mporter9341 ago
I 100% agree, a few years ago if you asked me how I identified I would have told you I was a liberal lefty through and through. I dont know exactly when things started to change, it was subtle. Things becoming more and more absurd, strange pronouns and feminist policing of my hobbies were what cinched it for me. I felt really bad about how I had become so different from the movement I identified with and found unexpected friends on the far right and right leaning libertarians.
[–] IdeologyIsHuman 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
This is fine, Breitbart isn’t my comfort zone, and its best aspect is being far removed from an echo chamber because I disagree with Breitbart’s key audience on almost everything. They seem unified with me on the most important issue which is their libertarian stance. I’ve figured out that authoritarians are a true fucking nightmare.
Through my years in college, leftist associates would always seem stupefied that I would spend time on sites like WorldNet Daily, Breitbart, InfoWarriors, etc. because they were told all their lives that to be a conservative was to be insane and crazy. Then they said that only the wingnuts wanted to control you. What really happened all this time is that a cultural divide was being formed to keep millions of people afraid to engage each other in honest dialogue.
Sure, there are a lot of crazy people out there. But most people are reasonable, and if you catch them when they aren't angry and give them respect, they'll hear you out. But your view of them won't be that they are merely wingnuts. You'll grow to see that politics is very rich, tangled, messy and often hard to understand.
This view, however, is nuanced and makes people harder to control with polemics and stereotypes used by the authoritarian left and right in their personal moral crusades of good versus evil. That's why you are either for them, and recite their ideological points correctly, or you are an enemy heathen who needs to be converted or killed.
What do people make of this? have I lost my mind? or am I right to feel disenfranchized with the current state of things?
No, far from losing your mind, you are having it opened to the complexity of the political world. Liberals and conservatives have a lot of common points and culture between them in America, because they are people and want what's best for themselves and their families. It is the individuals who use polemics who benefit from tearing us apart, keeping us at each others' throats so that we never see our common ground.
I have a feeling that this divisiveness is intentional, a kind of balkanization of our country along political lines, but I have no way to prove this.
[–] TheBlueGhost 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
Hi, centre-left liberal here. I have to say, the way that the authoritarian left bastardized the word "liberal" and has set out to destroy free speech has driven me a bit more right than ever before. I disagree with more conservative and right wing people on here and on places like 8chan but I have to say I usually enjoy the following conversations far more than people who scream "oppression" as soon as I begin to question them. I believe in individual liberties and democracy above all and that means I occasionally have to hop between which "side" I find myself supporting, though a preference for some socialist ideas gives me a bit of a left bias. Sometimes I find myself debating alongside ancoms and sometimes I find myself alongside neo-Nazis, it really helps when it comes to understanding how other people think.
But to answer the question, I think it's perfectly normal. Kinda like the situation in British politics for myself, no liberal party which supports equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome.
[–] gabrielmodesta 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
and resistance to the authoritative nanny state
This is a priority typically held by conservatives, my friend.
Welcome to the middle.
If I argue with a liberal/democrat, they'll see me as a conservative/republican. If I argue with a conservative/republican, they'll see me as a liberal/democrat. I hold very strong beliefs, but as a group, they don't fit at all with either party.
[–] 4 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I wouldn't say that the civil war is between authoritarian progressives and libertarians. I identify with neither.
The war seems to be between traditional liberals (eco-friendly, secular, education, etc. proponents) versus the new wave of young liberal extremists who care primarily about social identity and oppression.
[–] dijitao 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
I was just having this thought the other night. I'm a leftist, I'm not that old, but I feel completely disconnected from people 10 years younger then me. I care about the environment, education, prison reform, ending American imperialism, getting 'god' out of the state, healthcare reform, the social safety net, closing the wealth gap, etc... but all the 'kids' seem to care about is the right to never be offended by anything ever, and the latest shit show of the police shooting a minority. On first point, I don't think I'll ever understand, on the second no matter what you say you can't get them to look past the individual issue and towards the bigger picture problems that caused it to happen in the first place. Politically I've felt like a man on an island for awhile now.
[–] ixlen ago
A vocal minority will always support free speech. Conservatives and Left-Libertarians are on opposite sides of the (false) right-left scale, but both are a minority in the media. Conservatives get drowned out by loudmouth nutjobs like O'Reilly, Beck, Bachmann, Palin, etc. Left-Libertarians have to deal with the SJW crowd and the attention whores on Twitter. So they have that in common.
Regarding Sweden. I live next door to them. It's a beautiful country run by idiot fascist hippies. Sad.