Are you Progressive?

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Nov 25, 2013
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^^^ again, only by you folks indoctrinated into the cult of extreme left.

It really is like a religion, and anyone not in it is to be pitied.
Anyone who speaks against it is "evil".

This also explains why most of its followers just repeat the same slogans and catchphrases over and over again like scripture, without really analyzing what any of it means or why. Not a lot of actual discussion either, just shouting down any disagreement with charged word insults like "woman hater" "rape apologist" "bigot" "racist"... words that used to mean something before the progressives started using them to describe anyone guilty of even the tiniest of "microaggressions".

So, no, I'm not "sick". If anything, I'm still sane while those in this new cult are chanting together, "one of us! one of us!"


...and, yes, a few of our forum members above likely fall into the "loathe" category and will take every opportunity possible to get their licks in. ;)

Amazing how that reads like something in a 6 year old Onion article.

You're just a newer version of the '90s culture warriors. A caricature of a caricature.

SocialMediaWarriors fighting the good fight on the front lines of twitter and youtube. Booyah!

ROFLMAO
 

lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
13,314
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The very fact you can be unsure of something means you're a progressive. Remember, there is a survival benefit to having a know it all ego. You leap out of the frying pan at the first intimations of heat, sometimes directly into the fire, as opposed to potentially waiting too long to leap.

So are you saying that America is secretly a majority-progressive nation? If I am not mistaken, a close-to-plurality of voters identify themselves as neither progressive nor conservatives. By your definition those people are all progressives, so that in turn means, combined with self-identified progressives, more than 60% of American electorate is progressive?

Edit: I see you try to split liberalism and progressivism. To me that is a semantic. The left started using "progressives" when the "liberals" had acquired negative connotation during the 70's. Things have changed a bit now and I see "former-liberals" now calling themselves proudly liberal instead of progressives.

Edit 2: I see a lot of know-it-all type @Breitbart comment section. I do not necessarily agree with your diagnosis that such attitude has a survival benefit. ^^
 
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alien42

Lifer
Nov 28, 2004
12,867
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This also explains why most of its followers just repeat the same slogans and catchphrases over and over again like scripture, without really analyzing what any of it means or why. Not a lot of actual discussion either, just shouting down any disagreement with charged word insults like...

lol, look in the mirror bro, you just described yourself.
 

swamplizard

Senior member
Mar 18, 2016
690
0
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Greeting fellow discourse posters,

A lively debate ensues among you, tis interesting to watch and learn.
 

thraashman

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
11,112
1,587
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Not the Cult of the Extreme Left?!? :eek: Wait till the Feminist High Command hears of this!

We'll need to arm the Social Justice Warrior 101st brigade and deploy them!

Blue_max is a fantastic parody. I feel like he must frequent Return of Kings and have his Married With Children NO MA'AM shirt on at all times.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,737
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lopri: So are you saying that America is secretly a majority-progressive nation? If I am not mistaken, a close-to-plurality of voters identify themselves as neither progressive nor conservatives. By your definition those people are all progressives, so that in turn means, combined with self-identified progressives, more than 60% of American electorate is progressive?

M: I did not intend to imply that a majority are progressives. By my definition only a small fraction of people are, maybe 2%

l: Edit: I see you try to split liberalism and progressivism. To me that is a semantic. The left started using "progressives" when the "liberals" had acquired negative connotation during the 70's. Things have changed a bit now and I see "former-liberals" now calling themselves proudly liberal instead of progressives.

M: My definition of progressive is not the usual one. There are many liberals that I suspect who have changed names just as you suspect. I never changed my opinion of myself that I am liberal when being so was unpopular. I seem to be a contrarian in many things.

l: Edit 2: I see a lot of know-it-all type @Breitbart comment section. I do not necessarily agree with your diagnosis that such attitude has a survival benefit. ^^

M; You are looking at the down side, not the up side evolutionarily or the psychological function certainty performs.

When you burn your hand it withdraws before you can think. You will leap out of the window of a burning building. You'll climb a tree to escape a lion with little thinking. The instant reaction to threat has a survival benefit. I explained this with the frying pan analogy. Sometimes an instant leap clears you from a hot pan and sometimes you land in the fire. Before the evolution of analytical intelligence the odds favored the instant leap. An unknown danger in area x is a better bet than a known one at your present location.

Logical analysis, and especially the ability to suppress reactiveness in a dangerous situation is a late comer to the evolutionary scene.

Psychologically, certainty is emotionally comforting. The conservative practices low level thinking and gut instinct certainty to achieve that emotional state. Conservatives self report an happier people than liberals. It also makes them emotionally insensitive and blind to suffering. These are generalities and apply with statistical significance, not as absolutes.

The chief difference it appears is that in conservatives the right Amygdala that specifically is involved with fear is enlarged and the cingulate is less developed than in liberals, that part of the brain that is involved in the suppression of fear thus allowing logical reason to function.

In an environment filled with constant dangers, conservative brains are superior, survival wise, but dangerous in a world of safety, because they generate their own altered, imaginary dangers, and run like lemmings off cliffs.

It is theorized that the conservative brain defect begun to manifest in American society with the fall of the USSR. With the loss of that external threat, they turned on their fellow liberals.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
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So are you saying that America is secretly a majority-progressive nation? If I am not mistaken, a close-to-plurality of voters identify themselves as neither progressive nor conservatives. By your definition those people are all progressives, so that in turn means, combined with self-identified progressives, more than 60% of American electorate is progressive?

Edit: I see you try to split liberalism and progressivism. To me that is a semantic. The left started using "progressives" when the "liberals" had acquired negative connotation during the 70's. Things have changed a bit now and I see "former-liberals" now calling themselves proudly liberal instead of progressives.

Edit 2: I see a lot of know-it-all type @Breitbart comment section. I do not necessarily agree with your diagnosis that such attitude has a survival benefit. ^^
There very much needs to be a split between liberalism and progressivism. Western liberalism has given us individual liberty such as the world had never seen. Progressivism seems hell bent on removing that individual liberty in favor of group politics. Western liberalism has been in large part about empowering the individual and removing power from authority, making government serve the people rather than the reverse. The entire concept that each man owns himself is a construct of Western liberalism, and to the extent that this is now enshrined in law, we have Western liberalism to thank. In stark contrast, the progressive movement is in large part focused on removing that hard-won individual liberty in favor of once again empowering government to establish arbitrary rules of behavior, "safe zones" and "hate speech", with appropriate penalties for uttering the newly profane. Western liberalism promotes tolerance; progressivism is as viciously intolerant as the Taliban.

Perhaps even worse, where Western liberalism has focused on making government the protector of the weak, progressivism concentrates on making government the protector of the approved groups. We see a terrible amount of acceptance of pedophilia within the progressive movement, for example, yet even pedophile adults are highly empowered compared to children.

In short, virtually everything good about the American left is due to the Western liberalism movement, virtually everything bad about the American left is due to the progressive movement, and virtually everything good about the American right is due to its opposition to the progressive movement. I'm not saying that the progressive movement is wholly wrong - like any popular movement, they are morally correct on a lot of issues. I am saying that we desperately need a differentiation between liberalism and progressivism on the left, much as we desperately need a differentiation between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism on the right. We have libertarianism, which is currently the closest to my own philosophy and often touted as the true successor to Western liberalism, but libertarianism is still significantly different from Western liberalism on the proper role (and therefore size and power) of government. To truly be a liberal means to expect more from government than simply benign neglect.

tl/dr: Like Moonbeam, I too am a wordy old contrarian, just more conservative and less poetic. :D
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
37,355
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There very much needs to be a split between liberalism and progressivism. Western liberalism has given us individual liberty such as the world had never seen. Progressivism seems hell bent on removing that individual liberty in favor of group politics. Western liberalism has been in large part about empowering the individual and removing power from authority, making government serve the people rather than the reverse. The entire concept that each man owns himself is a construct of Western liberalism, and to the extent that this is now enshrined in law, we have Western liberalism to thank. In stark contrast, the progressive movement is in large part focused on removing that hard-won individual liberty in favor of once again empowering government to establish arbitrary rules of behavior, "safe zones" and "hate speech", with appropriate penalties for uttering the newly profane. Western liberalism promotes tolerance; progressivism is as viciously intolerant as the Taliban.

Perhaps even worse, where Western liberalism has focused on making government the protector of the weak, progressivism concentrates on making government the protector of the approved groups. We see a terrible amount of acceptance of pedophilia within the progressive movement, for example, yet even pedophile adults are highly empowered compared to children.

In short, virtually everything good about the American left is due to the Western liberalism movement, virtually everything bad about the American left is due to the progressive movement, and virtually everything good about the American right is due to its opposition to the progressive movement. I'm not saying that the progressive movement is wholly wrong - like any popular movement, they are morally correct on a lot of issues. I am saying that we desperately need a differentiation between liberalism and progressivism on the left, much as we desperately need a differentiation between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism on the right. We have libertarianism, which is currently the closest to my own philosophy and often touted as the true successor to Western liberalism, but libertarianism is still significantly different from Western liberalism on the proper role (and therefore size and power) of government. To truly be a liberal means to expect more from government than simply benign neglect.

tl/dr: Like Moonbeam, I too am a wordy old contrarian, just more conservative and less poetic. :D
Can you give me an example of how progressives are empowering government to establish arbitrary rules of behavior with appropriate penalties for uttering the newly profane?
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
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Can you give me an example of how progressives are empowering government to establish arbitrary rules of behavior with appropriate penalties for uttering the newly profane?

He can't/ What he will point to is people who are on the authoritarian left. There is nothing progressive about them. They are ideological fanatics just like authoritarian conservatives. They feed off each other.
 

Blue_Max

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2011
4,223
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Can you give me an example of how progressives are empowering government to establish arbitrary rules of behavior with appropriate penalties for uttering the newly profane?

Start by looking at the Deluth model. I'll quote more later.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
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Can you give me an example of how progressives are empowering government to establish arbitrary rules of behavior with appropriate penalties for uttering the newly profane?
Hate speech laws. Note that in many nations, it's already illegal to say anything bad about Muslims or other protected groups - even if it happens to be true. Hate speech laws are morphing into "anything the whining class does not wish to hear" laws.

He can't/ What he will point to is people who are on the authoritarian left. There is nothing progressive about them. They are ideological fanatics just like authoritarian conservatives. They feed off each other.
They proudly call themselves progressives. Should we not do the same? Or are we back to the "They're not REAL Muslims" bullshit?

Progressives are how I identify the authoritarian left because that's how they identify themselves. They are the self-proclaimed Social Justice Warriors dedicated to stamping out individual liberties in favor of heavily regulated group think, the people on the left who are enraged that contrarian thinking is even allowed. The people demanding "safe spaces" where speech they find offensive (which is ALL dissent from the official position) cannot be uttered. The people demanding the firing of anyone who dares utter speech with which they disagree. Horrible, horrible people.
 

Joepublic2

Golden Member
Jan 22, 2005
1,097
6
76
Yeah, I had a bad case of progressiveness one time. Took a few rounds of IV antibiotics to knock it out. Luckily, there wasn't any permanent neurological damage as is often seen with advanced cases.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,515
17,019
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Did werepossum just say progressives have started accepting pedophilia?

Talk about bat shit crazy!
 

stockwiz

Senior member
Sep 8, 2013
403
15
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The hollywood establishment and globalists that largely run the media are quite progressive and quite out of touch with what goes on among regular people in regular society. They create history as they go with their power, but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone agrees with them, it just means the top 1%, largely progressives, control the media and a large chunk of the government. I'm all for equal rights but some of them are downright authoritarian in nature.. it's their way or the highway type of thinking.

I may support some socialist ideals like national healthcare but I will always remain a proponent of free speech. I'm sitting back watch them get more radical by the week, coming up with something different they scream bloody murder about that needs fixing or changing. They seem to be getting more blatant with their display of power, right down to flooding Europe with refugees. There's things about the left that just don't work, just like the right. That's why I can't take a side and vote for either of these types... rather I sit back and watch the circus play out.

Now our choices are down to Hillary and Trump. Pathetic, really. I don't really believe Trump will do anything of what he says and is just in bed with the top 1% just like Hillary. I can't vote democrat because their stands on guns. I don't want to vote republican because some of them will try to repeal the marijuana state legalization laws because they don't really support freedom like they claim.. that leaves not voting.
 
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brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,872
30,672
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The hollywood establishment and globalists that largely run the media are quite progressive and quite out of touch with what goes on among regular people in regular society. They create history as they go with their power, but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone agrees with them, it just means the top 1%, largely progressives, control the media and a large chunk of the government. I'm all for equal rights but some of them are downright authoritarian in nature.. it's their way or the highway type of thinking.

I may support some socialist ideals like national healthcare but I will always remain a proponent of free speech. I'm sitting back watch them get more radical by the week, coming up with something different they scream bloody murder about that needs fixing or changing. They seem to be getting more blatant with their display of power, right down to flooding Europe with refugees. There's things about the left that just don't work, just like the right. That's why I can't take a side and vote for either of these types... rather I sit back and watch the circus play out.

Now our choices are down to Hillary and Trump. Pathetic, really. I don't really believe Trump will do anything of what he says and is just in bed with the top 1% just like Hillary. I can't vote democrat because their stands on guns. I don't want to vote republican because some of them will try to repeal the marijuana state legalization laws because they don't really support freedom like they claim.. that leaves not voting.

Is Hollywood establishment a dog whistle for the Jews?
 

stockwiz

Senior member
Sep 8, 2013
403
15
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Is Hollywood establishment a dog whistle for the Jews?


Yes, I will bring up the fact that jews have an overwhelming amount of power relative to their population, and tend to take positions in nations that harm their host population, if I'm pressed. I tend to avoid discussing it because not all jews are like that, plus jews have done plenty of positive throughout the last 50 years that many of the anti-jewish posters won't admit too.

I'd rather just say the "international banking oligarchy" ... or the fractional reserve compound interest debt based banking system and the people that run it.... CFR, Illuminati, top 1%, whatever you want to call em. I'm neutral towards them. I see why they exist and understand why some of their policies are the way they are, though my biggest criticism of them is by far the refugee forcing, like I've already mentioned. First world nations don't need refugees in mass numbers. First world nations should remain first world by only letting in productive people, but anyone productive should have an easy path to citizenship (assuming they can speak the native language)
 
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swamplizard

Senior member
Mar 18, 2016
690
0
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Greeting one and all,

Just now got my energy supply up from the trip back home. I see the debate is alive and well. A special shout out to werepossum who is indeed a gentleman.

I am proud to say that I am a progressive Democrat and make no excuses for it. I am tired of the wealthy controlling the elections, I am for UHC, I am for the raising of the minimum wage and I am for Higher Education for all who want to take advantage of it.

I still have hopes for Bernie but will gladly vote for Hillary over The Trump 8 days a week.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,737
6,760
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Greeting one and all,

Just now got my energy supply up from the trip back home. I see the debate is alive and well. A special shout out to werepossum who is indeed a gentleman.

I am proud to say that I am a progressive Democrat and make no excuses for it. I am tired of the wealthy controlling the elections, I am for UHC, I am for the raising of the minimum wage and I am for Higher Education for all who want to take advantage of it.

I still have hopes for Bernie but will gladly vote for Hillary over The Trump 8 days a week.

In California where progressives evolve at hyper-speed compared to elsewhere, this one, like a skyrocket that bursts in a rainbow of phosphors, is voting for Trump. ;) Celebrate,democrats and republicans, the party of Shiva.
 

swamplizard

Senior member
Mar 18, 2016
690
0
16
In California where progressives evolve at hyper-speed compared to elsewhere, this one, like a skyrocket that bursts in a rainbow of phosphors, is voting for Trump. ;) Celebrate,democrats and republicans, the party of Shiva.

Hi Moonbeam,

Tis good to see your words again. I hope that you are joking about voting for the Trump ! o_O How is everything going for you?
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,026
2,879
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So, Moonbeam, it seems that many would be progressives to you who do not identify with that label. It is also interesting, because it would argue against value in attempting to unite and promote a singular platform. Doing so would put pressure on progressives to put aside our human biases/ego defenses in order to maintain objectivity when sharing ideas. I don't think it's humanly possible, but clearly there are people better at it than others, and clearly there are gradiations in valuing doing so.

Anyway, where do said progressives (using your definition) hang out?
 

MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,460
3
76
So I'm an MRA now? Or are you just using that expression because it's the group you loathe most?

Watch the video I linked and take a good look in the mirror. Intolerance and cruelty in the guise of "great tolerance and goodness".

Just embrace it and tell them to fuck off. Men need more open advocates, now more than ever, as our cultural spirals down into the depths of statist gynocentrism.