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I've heard that before: that conservatives slur leftists with ugly labels as much as the left slurs the right. I don't think that's actually true. If it is, I'

by judah 10y ago

I've heard that before: that conservatives slur leftists with ugly labels as much as the left slurs the right. I don't think that's actually true. If it is, I'd love to be proven wrong. What is the right's equivalent of SIXHIRB[0]? What are the labels conservatives regularly use to shut down debate and engage in ad hominem? [0]: The labels the left commonly uses against the right: sexist, islomophobic, xenophobic, homophobic, intolerant, racist, bigot.

dmix 10y ago
I believe the difference is that people online on social networks that dominate conversations are typically younger. And conservatives, on average, are older. For example: far more young people voted Hillary, far more 45+ yr olds voted for Trump: http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/13D5D/production/_92354218_us_elections_2016_exit_polls_age_624-2.png http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/13D5D/production/... The distribution for Bernie is probably even more young. Additionally, there are ~3x major 24/7 news networks leaning left and only 1x that is right. Online newspapers have a similar distribution. So it's easy to believe that hyper partisan nastiness is more popular on the left. But I'm not sure that's the case. Otherwise I'd be much more inclined to agree with you. I'm neither mainstream left/right but regardless I've noticed a definite trend on the internet towards left wing slander and villianization of anyone on the right. But I associate that with the media distribution bell curve pushed far to the left. Especially on places on Twitter and Reddit which largely regurgitate media to validate peoples views and the subsequent hive-mind that generates.
- judah 10y ago
  It would be good to examine this assumption. A ripe, and quite fair ground, might be the 2 recent Women's Marches. - The (leftist) Women's March (for abortion, LGBT rights, etc.) - The conservative Women's March for Life (against abortion) Do we see equal amounts of slurs and vitriol at each march? One might examine the signs held by protesters, the videos taken, the violence that occurred.
  - heurist 10y ago
    You would need to account for differences in group size. An equivalent number of slurs out of both would amount to a larger proportion for the smaller group.
  - dmix 10y ago
    Study: "Young More Likely to Believe Protest Is Effective" http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/12/18/many-in-emerging-and-developing-nations-disconnected-from-politics/pg_politicalengagement-3-web/ http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/12/18/many-in-emerging-and-dev... Study: "Extreme Protest Tactics Reduce Popular Support for Social Movements" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911177 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911177 You'll likely hear about more vitriolic protests on the left. Again this is mostly influenced by media coverage - protests don't necessarily translate to being representative of whole populations. Protests are largely something young people do (which means more liberal) and the kind of extreme protest tactics that get in the press push more people away than helps - so it's not necessarily drawing wide support, even from within the party. The media also loves a good protest, regardless if only 100 people show up. Which is again further tilted by media biases. There's also the generalization that the left is better at organizing while the right quietly shows up in strength at the voting booth. The exception to this rule recently was the Tea Party, which largely took a page out of the left's political handbook and created a visible protest 'movement'. But again that's the exception. Some people on the right like to joke that people at protests are all unemployed or students, while the conservatives are all adults too busy working or taking care of a family. So I'm not sure how much you could gather from looking at protests or issue movements. It's possible that young people are just less mature and don't know better than to use slurs and vitriol, which is reflected in group dynamics. Not to mention education and social class.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    The March for Life [0] is not now, and never has been, "the Women's March for Life", even in its own organizer's propaganda. [0] http://marchforlife.org http://marchforlife.org
soundwave106 10y ago
Oxford has a handy link on liberal versus conservative insults: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/11/political-insults/ http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/11/political-insults... (2014) It's rough, but it gives an idea of what both sides are hurling at each other. :) It's doesn't have too much that is as pointedly specific as the SIXHIRB meme. If I had to pick what Americans conservatives tend to use that's kind of equivalent to SIXHIRB, it would be either allusion to country ("real American" type memes / unpatriotic / traitor) or allusions to certain stereotypes (such as "elites" or "hippies"). It's interesting in the Oxford link though that "bigot" and "racist" are hurled from both sides of the fence roughly equally.
heurist 10y ago
Off the top of my head: libtard, cuck, shill, godless, communist, hippy, thug, welfare queen, other assumptions that their opponent has no job or no work ethic or smokes a lot of weed. "Intolerant" is a bipartisan insult now as well.
- judah 10y ago
  I don't deny those have been used against the left. (Although some terms, like shill, aren't left or right wing, and godless could describe an atheist whether conservative or liberal.) The difference is cadence. Do conservatives label virtually all our opponents with slurs? No. But the inverse is true: the left almost invariably labels its opponents with SIXHIRB. For example, go to FoxNews.com and find articles about leftists. Is there name calling? How often? Now do the same on HuffingtonPost.com and find articles about conservatives. Is there name calling? How often?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Do conservatives label virtually all our opponents with slurs? Yes. That is, for any opponent of the right, you'll find someone on the right that has labelled them with a slur for their politics. Of course, many on the Right see themselves as individuals and the Left as a single faceless collective, so while they will take it as "the Left" using a slur if anyone on the Left does so, they will dismiss it as an isolated subgroup if someone on the Right, but not the whole Right, does so for a particular target on the Left. (The same is true in reverse, of course.)
  - heurist 10y ago
    There's a lot of overreaction on the left but the right does have some real issues with race, religion, and gender. If you create policy that oppresses people on any of those bases without some damn good reasons you should expect to be labeled accordingly. How would you suggest the left approach minority voter suppression? Racially biased criminal justice systems? The rise of religion and race-based hate speech and hate crimes? Perpetual Republican attempts to control what women can do with their bodies? Republican attempts to teach Christian creationism and abstinence-only sex ed in public schools? Hell, how about painfully irrepresentative gerrymandering? Disproven and destructive economic policy? The predominantly conservative military-industrial complex? The financialization of power? Global climate change? Environmental catastrophes? The dismantling of government institutions that serve millions of Americans? How should the left expose people to their subconscious biases in a way that causes change? I agree calling everyone "racist" doesn't help but at least it gets the message across.
imw 10y ago
Special snowflake, 'triggered!', elitist, pussy, pinko, queer, and so on. The difference is that the labels you point to as 'ad hominem' when used by liberals aren't really ad hominem. They are about ideas and behaviours. Calling someone 'nasty', or saying that they are a 'special snowflake' is much closer to the idea of an ad hominem attack as I understand it.

by judah 10y ago

dmix 10y ago

I believe the difference is that people online on social networks that dominate conversations are typically younger. And conservatives, on average, are older. For example: far more young people voted Hillary, far more 45+ yr olds voted for Trump: http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/13D5D/production/_92354218_us_elections_2016_exit_polls_age_624-2.png http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/13D5D/production/... The distribution for Bernie is probably even more young. Additionally, there are ~3x major 24/7 news networks leaning left and only 1x that is right. Online newspapers have a similar distribution. So it's easy to believe that hyper partisan nastiness is more popular on the left. But I'm not sure that's the case. Otherwise I'd be much more inclined to agree with you. I'm neither mainstream left/right but regardless I've noticed a definite trend on the internet towards left wing slander and villianization of anyone on the right. But I associate that with the media distribution bell curve pushed far to the left. Especially on places on Twitter and Reddit which largely regurgitate media to validate peoples views and the subsequent hive-mind that generates.

judah 10y ago
It would be good to examine this assumption. A ripe, and quite fair ground, might be the 2 recent Women's Marches. - The (leftist) Women's March (for abortion, LGBT rights, etc.) - The conservative Women's March for Life (against abortion) Do we see equal amounts of slurs and vitriol at each march? One might examine the signs held by protesters, the videos taken, the violence that occurred.
- heurist 10y ago
  You would need to account for differences in group size. An equivalent number of slurs out of both would amount to a larger proportion for the smaller group.
- dmix 10y ago
  Study: "Young More Likely to Believe Protest Is Effective" http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/12/18/many-in-emerging-and-developing-nations-disconnected-from-politics/pg_politicalengagement-3-web/ http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/12/18/many-in-emerging-and-dev... Study: "Extreme Protest Tactics Reduce Popular Support for Social Movements" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911177 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911177 You'll likely hear about more vitriolic protests on the left. Again this is mostly influenced by media coverage - protests don't necessarily translate to being representative of whole populations. Protests are largely something young people do (which means more liberal) and the kind of extreme protest tactics that get in the press push more people away than helps - so it's not necessarily drawing wide support, even from within the party. The media also loves a good protest, regardless if only 100 people show up. Which is again further tilted by media biases. There's also the generalization that the left is better at organizing while the right quietly shows up in strength at the voting booth. The exception to this rule recently was the Tea Party, which largely took a page out of the left's political handbook and created a visible protest 'movement'. But again that's the exception. Some people on the right like to joke that people at protests are all unemployed or students, while the conservatives are all adults too busy working or taking care of a family. So I'm not sure how much you could gather from looking at protests or issue movements. It's possible that young people are just less mature and don't know better than to use slurs and vitriol, which is reflected in group dynamics. Not to mention education and social class.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The March for Life [0] is not now, and never has been, "the Women's March for Life", even in its own organizer's propaganda. [0] http://marchforlife.org http://marchforlife.org

soundwave106 10y ago

Oxford has a handy link on liberal versus conservative insults: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/11/political-insults/ http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/11/political-insults... (2014) It's rough, but it gives an idea of what both sides are hurling at each other. :) It's doesn't have too much that is as pointedly specific as the SIXHIRB meme. If I had to pick what Americans conservatives tend to use that's kind of equivalent to SIXHIRB, it would be either allusion to country ("real American" type memes / unpatriotic / traitor) or allusions to certain stereotypes (such as "elites" or "hippies"). It's interesting in the Oxford link though that "bigot" and "racist" are hurled from both sides of the fence roughly equally.

heurist 10y ago

Off the top of my head: libtard, cuck, shill, godless, communist, hippy, thug, welfare queen, other assumptions that their opponent has no job or no work ethic or smokes a lot of weed. "Intolerant" is a bipartisan insult now as well.

judah 10y ago
I don't deny those have been used against the left. (Although some terms, like shill, aren't left or right wing, and godless could describe an atheist whether conservative or liberal.) The difference is cadence. Do conservatives label virtually all our opponents with slurs? No. But the inverse is true: the left almost invariably labels its opponents with SIXHIRB. For example, go to FoxNews.com and find articles about leftists. Is there name calling? How often? Now do the same on HuffingtonPost.com and find articles about conservatives. Is there name calling? How often?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Do conservatives label virtually all our opponents with slurs? Yes. That is, for any opponent of the right, you'll find someone on the right that has labelled them with a slur for their politics. Of course, many on the Right see themselves as individuals and the Left as a single faceless collective, so while they will take it as "the Left" using a slur if anyone on the Left does so, they will dismiss it as an isolated subgroup if someone on the Right, but not the whole Right, does so for a particular target on the Left. (The same is true in reverse, of course.)
- heurist 10y ago
  There's a lot of overreaction on the left but the right does have some real issues with race, religion, and gender. If you create policy that oppresses people on any of those bases without some damn good reasons you should expect to be labeled accordingly. How would you suggest the left approach minority voter suppression? Racially biased criminal justice systems? The rise of religion and race-based hate speech and hate crimes? Perpetual Republican attempts to control what women can do with their bodies? Republican attempts to teach Christian creationism and abstinence-only sex ed in public schools? Hell, how about painfully irrepresentative gerrymandering? Disproven and destructive economic policy? The predominantly conservative military-industrial complex? The financialization of power? Global climate change? Environmental catastrophes? The dismantling of government institutions that serve millions of Americans? How should the left expose people to their subconscious biases in a way that causes change? I agree calling everyone "racist" doesn't help but at least it gets the message across.

imw 10y ago

Special snowflake, 'triggered!', elitist, pussy, pinko, queer, and so on. The difference is that the labels you point to as 'ad hominem' when used by liberals aren't really ad hominem. They are about ideas and behaviours. Calling someone 'nasty', or saying that they are a 'special snowflake' is much closer to the idea of an ad hominem attack as I understand it.