Also see:
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2012/05/quotes-on-american-wars.html
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2012/11/quote-democrats-vs-republicans.html
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2014/07/quote-govermorations-repubmocrats.html

http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7433199&cid=49726947

The Demographic Future of America's Political Parties

Re:One Assumption (Score:4, Interesting)

by eheldreth (751767) on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @12:25PM (#49726947) Homepage

You've made a basic error in your argument.

Your are confusing social liberals with social progressives. Specifically right leaning social progressives. One can be fiscally conservative (believing that we should limit and control increases in spending) but socially liberal (believing that we should not limit individual liberty beyond the limits of absolute necessity).

As one example moderate libertarians who don't go in for some of the more inane free market worship fit this bill. Remember left leaning indicates a dislike of governmental structure with the ultimate extreme being Anarchy while Right leaning indicates a desire for more, stronger government with the ultimate extreme being authoritarianism.

Traditionally the term conservative only implies that one is opposed to change, or more often sudden and untested change while the term progressive indicates one wishes to encourage change in the pursuit of what they deem progress.

In this day and age Republicans are in fact just as progressive as Democrats they simply have different ideas of what progress is.

Dems are right wing social and moral progressives while Repubs are right wing religious and corporatist progressives. There are very few true conservatives in our government these days and perhaps fewer true liberals.

Redefining these terms is one of the ways the two parties maintain control of there base. It allows them control the narrative with artificial divisions intended to alienate voters who may be allied on many other issues from each other.

I suppose if any two ideologies are opposed to each other it's social liberalism and right wing social progressiveness. After all how can you believe in limited government interference in private affairs but also believe you have the right to force others to behave in a fashion consistent with your own moral beliefs. Let each live in accordance with there own conscience in so far as their actions do not unfairly infringe on the basic rights of others.

==

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7422789&cid=49703911

Re:hardly surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

by rwa2 (4391) * on Saturday May 16, 2015 @01:45AM (#49703911) Homepage Journal

The link is that the conservatives blame everything bad that happens on liberal ideology when there's a Democrat in the White House, and the liberals blame everything on the conservative ideology when a Republican is in the White House, irregardless of what the rest of the government is actually doing.

Conservatives are stereotypically the party that wants to take the direct approach to solving problems, and prefer to spend tax money on helping winners: military, business, churches, prisons, etc.

Liberals are stereotypically the party that wants progressive solutions to problems, and prefer to spend tax money on helping losers: through education, labor unions, health care, environmentalism, community centers, etc.

So they both want essentially the same things... peace, prosperity, they just go about it different ways. Liberals would like to eliminate poverty by helping poor people become less poor; conservatives would prefer to eliminate poverty by eliminating poor people.

Because of things like this, conservatives view liberals as weak, and liberals view conservatives as afraid. And they like to point that out whenever they can.

==

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7482575&cid=49802071

Professional Internet Troll Sues Her Former Employer

Re:Professional trolls (Score:4, Informative)

by swillden (191260) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Friday May 29, 2015 @05:35PM (#49802071) Homepage Journal

This is wrong. As is the use of the word "troll" in the summary/article. Trolls and shills are distinct, and the difference isn't whether they get paid. You can be a paid or unpaid troll and a paid or unpaid shill.

Trolls post messages written specifically to generate responses. The term derives from fishing where trolling means to drag something through the water to catch fish. Internet trolls post baiting comments trying to get people to respond to them. Flamebaiting is a subset of trolling, where the aim is to generate angry responses.

Shills post messages to talk up some product, service, etc., trying to make it look good and its competition look bad.

Both categories also assume that the writer likely doesn't fully agree with what he or she is writing. If two people write the same words but one believes them while the other doesn't, the former is not a troll or shill, but the latter may be.

Note that paid trolls are pretty common on the Internet, but they tend to write the articles (or, on /., the summaries) not the comments. "Clickbaiting" is almost the same as trolling in this respect, except that a clickbait article is to collect clicks, while a troll article is intended to generate comments.

IMSID11C81FA018918DBEBEE6ADD8E2DF8788AE672E9F