Politics and Discourse

I try to not have my blog be political but sometimes I digress and this post is one of those times.  I have made it no secret that I am politically conservative.  I don’t think I am rabidly conservative but I am conservative nonetheless.  If I had to pigeonhole myself I would describe my beliefs as Constitutionally Conservative with a side order or social conservatism.  Here goes.  Why is it that political discourse has become so dissonant?  This question strikes me occasionally and it hit me again this morning.

Image From: The Lexilalia Blog
Image From: The Lexilalia Blog

I comment quite often on the website of the American Thinker (AT), A conservtaive webzine.  This post was precipitated by one of the discussion threads on AT.  The thread was regarding a piece about the difficulty in establishing exactly how many gay men there are in America. I made a comment and as occasionally happens a liberal troll pops up and immediately starts with the insults.  The entire comment thread that got me thinking is below:

Discussion-1

Now what got me is the childish nature of the replies and of course I stooped to such at the end because he succeeded in getting my goat.

The thing is, I sometimes occasionally comment on liberal sites and never stoop to such name-calling and most of the other conservatives I see that comment on liberal sites do not either.  Some conservatives do but most do not.  However, almost invariably whenever a liberal gets into a conversation with a conservative the debate rapidly degenerates into name-calling and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.  I have observed this phenomenon in offline conversations as well.  It is almost as though liberals cannot believe we don’t take the rightness of their positions as self-evident and therefor they have no need to defend their position.  If liberals were interested in changing minds then wouldn’t the try to be more reasonable when engaging in discussions with conservatives?
I would be very interested in hearing comments.

5 thoughts on “Politics and Discourse”

  1. It is almost as though liberals cannot believe we don€™t take the rightness of their positions as self-evident and therefor they have no need to defend their position. I think that statement just about sums it up. Also, as a generalization, most of them like to yell to drown you out. Insults serve the same purpose. It’s a type of intimidation.

    • What gets me the most is that in general I have the impression that most conservatives don’t say anything online they would not be willing to say to someone’s face. I know that is my policy. I get the impression that most liberals use the freedom and especially anonymity of the internet to say things they would never say face to face. I cannot count the number of times a liberal has replied to one of my posts with what I would consider fightin’ words. Yet I have never had an across the table conversation with one where that has happened They get loud and obnoxious but are too craven to resort to the kinds of insults and spitefulness they spew online.

      Lastly, they blame the lack of discourse and political gridlock on conservatives, which I find laughable. It is hard to have a discussion with an unreasonable person.

  2. Not just americans “discuss” like that. Whenever I prove people wrong using science, I get insulted in Germany as well. Especially green party members and socialists tend to use this awesome way of preaching their ways to other people.

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