Why Does NationStates Seem to Attract Liberals?

[Matanceros]

Sorry for being naive, but how would an American describe a liberal?

[Wamitoria]

Sorry for being naive, but how would an American describe a liberal?

Someone who supports Social Liberalism and Keynesian economics.

[Andorianus]

another question....why does nationstates seem to attract Anti-Americans?

Two reasons:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Unamerica
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/George_Dubya_Bush

[Goober Kingdom]

I'm not a liberal....

[Katganistan]

This is funny. Just today, I was asking, "Why does NationStates seem to attract neo-Nazis?"

Really, the only group around here that I can see that's nearly completely pervasive is hard atheists. Not too many religious, or even spiritually-minded folks, and the majority of those that are are idiots. Quite sad.

So, you're calling me an idiot. Nice.....real nice thing to say.

No, he used a vague term as "the majority" to avoid offending particularly anyone. You put yourself inside said "majority", I wonder why. You could have thought you were one of the minorities that aren't idiots.

So, you're trying to pick a fight or what? Bad mood today?

No, I'm just tired of shits like you.

Watch it. Name calling is NOT an answer to an argument, and you've just made this personal.

[Eternal Yerushalayim]

I think Liberals are more open to having their beliefs challenged, for the most part. Extreme bias and generalization, there. But I also think that many on the right also have hardcore religious beliefs thrown into the mix, so they have their beliefs coming down from a higher authority - what is there to argue? Like I said, extreme bias.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/byu_study_conservatives_are_more_likely_than_liberals_to_read_opposing_view/

[Wamitoria]

I think Liberals are more open to having their beliefs challenged, for the most part. Extreme bias and generalization, there. But I also think that many on the right also have hardcore religious beliefs thrown into the mix, so they have their beliefs coming down from a higher authority - what is there to argue? Like I said, extreme bias.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/byu_study_conservatives_are_more_likely_than_liberals_to_read_opposing_view/

My rebuttal: Fox News.

[Eternal Yerushalayim]

I think Liberals are more open to having their beliefs challenged, for the most part. Extreme bias and generalization, there. But I also think that many on the right also have hardcore religious beliefs thrown into the mix, so they have their beliefs coming down from a higher authority - what is there to argue? Like I said, extreme bias.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/byu_study_conservatives_are_more_likely_than_liberals_to_read_opposing_view/

My rebuttal: Fox News.

I don't even follow Fox News, and I'm not an American. But anyway, how does Fox News rebutt the study? Just because conservatives like watching Fox News doesn't mean that they can't see opposing views to. In fact, they have to know liberalism in order to defeat it. That Reagan did well.

[Wamitoria]

I think Liberals are more open to having their beliefs challenged, for the most part. Extreme bias and generalization, there. But I also think that many on the right also have hardcore religious beliefs thrown into the mix, so they have their beliefs coming down from a higher authority - what is there to argue? Like I said, extreme bias.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/byu_study_conservatives_are_more_likely_than_liberals_to_read_opposing_view/

My rebuttal: Fox News.

I don't even follow Fox News, and I'm not an American. But anyway, how does Fox News rebutt the study? Just because conservatives like watching Fox News doesn't mean that they can't see opposing views to. In fact, they have to know liberalism in order to defeat it. That Reagan did well.

Reagan didn't defeat Liberalism. He just drove it underground for 8 years. Most conservatives don't give a shit about reading the other point of view, that's why their arguments are steadily getting less coherent.

[Satirius]

NSG is a cesspool of scum and villainy both left and right

[Ifreann]

I think Liberals are more open to having their beliefs challenged, for the most part. Extreme bias and generalization, there. But I also think that many on the right also have hardcore religious beliefs thrown into the mix, so they have their beliefs coming down from a higher authority - what is there to argue? Like I said, extreme bias.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/byu_study_conservatives_are_more_likely_than_liberals_to_read_opposing_view/

http://www.livescience.com/culture/0906 ... ssage.html

But the new Ohio State study took that a step further by observing how 156 college students spent five minutes reading online magazine articles on a computer. The computer recorded the time each student spent looking at pro and con articles about four issues that included abortion, gun ownership, health care and minimum wage.

Study disregarded.

[Greed and Death]

Well the book, while I wouldn't call left leaning was anti extreme right (solely economic sense).
SO I imagine a forum founded by the author of said book to promote said book would lean a little left.

[Anemos Major]

Because I still believe.

[Areopagitican]

The books man.... It's all about the books.

[The Congregationists]

Reagan didn't defeat Liberalism. He just drove it underground for 8 years. Most conservatives don't give a shit about reading the other point of view, that's why their arguments are steadily getting less coherent.

This is true of the left as well. Ever try disagreeing, even in serious good faith with a radical socialist or feminist hereabouts? You'll get more Trolls than an assault on Minas Tirith.

And yes, Reagan (and Thatcher) did slay leftism, at least as a mainstream agenda setting political force. As evidence of this, compare post Reagan "liberal" presidents like Obama and Clinton to their pre-Reagan counter parts, LBJ and FDR. Likewise, compare Blair with Attlee or even Wilson. Deindustrialization has destroyed the one force that can really truly challenge capital: organized labor. With the unions defeated, the left has been reduced to a loose constellation of puritanical social reformers, who have no program to appeal to the majority and frankly have more interest in cultural influence than political power anyway. Anyone see a radical feminist political party on the ballot anywhere in the English speaking world? Social leftists have retreated into academia and cultural production and have no care for economics or winning elections - relying on the courts to implement such political agenda as they have. As such, moderate neo-liberal conservatism has completely and utterly triumphed in the English speaking world. No political or economic philosophy can presently or will in the forseeable future (our lifetimes at the very least) pose a credible threat to it.

As for the question at hand, the 'net is an easy and cost effective way for people to get their views across. You see, progressives don't have the capital to buy up television stations, finance think tanks, lobby politicians and so on. Internet blogs have replaced pamphlet publishing as the means whereby communists get their message across.

[Reodika]

As stated here already, my guess is that it's probably a matter of demographics. NationStates being a game, it most likely attracts a younger crowd. Teens and young adults, particularly those whom have been educated, tend to lean/fall left for a variety of reasons.

Speaking as someone who identifies as a Republican and a conservative of sorts (although NOT, I must add, with the current Republican Party - I voted for Obama in 2008), I should add that individuals in that younger demographic who happen to lean right tend to reflect quite poorly on conservatism. They have skewed views of liberalism which are defined by straw men which makes them appear ridiculous when trying to debate liberals. Their ignorance of the positions against which they debate undercuts whatever valid argument they might otherwise make. My theory is that this tendency presents itself for one of two reasons. For many, they have been raised with the views and opinions they currently hold and simply accept them without any serious reflection on their part. For those not raised in such an environment, my theory is that they were largely politically apathetic for some time, considered themselves "liberal", and then had their attention grabbed by some right-wing source and later assumed that all liberals are pretty much as misinformed and apathetic as they were before their "enlightenment."

Unfortunately, when such individuals interact with and debate real liberals they tend to make their own positions look ridiculous as those positions are neither borne out of experience or a serious consideration of both sides of the argument. Those positions might even ultimately be "correct" but they are not correct for the reasons the people in question believe and their cause in that particular debate has been irreparably harmed. It follows that more reasonable people who might be lurking about have little desire to A) come to their rescue and bail them out and B) be active in a place where there is risk of being associated with such people with the possibility of having to come to their rescue down the line.

The younger liberal demographic, on the other hand, does tend to be a bit more educated and also tends to have more experience than its right-leaning counterpart. That is not to say that I consider them to be correct on the issues, but they certainly appear to be in a place where they have done more critical thought on the matters in question. Such individuals naturally attract people from outside the younger demographic to join the debate in order to back them up, even people from the more critical-thinking right.

That would be my guess, at any rate.

[Redslavia]

It's the internet with a bunch of youngsters, isn't that self obvious?

As always though, I am a young person addicted to the internet and am not liberal, but I never fit in anyway, so I don't care.

[South Asia Minor]

Completely ignoring every post in this thread and going by the title question:
You won't find as many right-leaning types as there are left-leaning types on a site such as this simply because they have less of a reason to be here. Think about it, this is a nation simulation site. Most rightists don't need to dream up a nation, they already have the vast majority of nations on Planet Earth to live their crazy right wing dreams in. Liberal types, on the other hand, have no such luxury. Most of the left-leaning people on this site come from countries that fit right wing specifications very well (eg, France, US, UK), and thus need to escape to the internet to find their own suitable homeland.

I probably could've put that a lot better. But I'm tired and I probably have swine flu.
You'll all ignore this post anyway, that's what happens to me on NSG... :P

[Katganistan]

Because NSG posters are intelligent, and like freedom. We just disagree on how to achieve it. Im pretty sure nobody that is intelligent or freedom loving believes in religion though, so thats probably why social conservatism is rare on NSG.

You are incorrect, sir or madam.

[Thinkopia]

Yeah, sad but true.[/quote]
i know its horribly wrongly "racist" (european isnt a race) but it seems that our european posters are either very liberal by american standards or utter racist assholes. there doesnt seem to be anyone in what would be the american "center to sanely conservative" range.[/quote]
Thing is, Europeans especially do not get their news exclusively through for-profit commercial outlets as so many Americans do. They are therefore somewhat less exposed to the propaganda that pervades U.S. news outlets and more exposed to stories that are completely censored out.

[Katganistan]

...Canada.
Unless you think they are still British?

*facepalm* lol, It appears I got my facts wrong. I knew it was made by Max Berry and that he currently lives in Britain, so I just assumed the web site was there was well.

The name is spelled BArry and you may wish to research where he actually lives.

[Katganistan]

NSG is a cesspool of scum and villainy both left and right

Thank you, Obi Wan. But it was "wretched hive".

[Katganistan]

Completely ignoring every post in this thread and going by the title question:
You won't find as many right-leaning types as there are left-leaning types on a site such as this simply because they have less of a reason to be here. Think about it, this is a nation simulation site. Most rightists don't need to dream up a nation, they already have the vast majority of nations on Planet Earth to live their crazy right wing dreams in. Liberal types, on the other hand, have no such luxury. Most of the left-leaning people on this site come from countries that fit right wing specifications very well (eg, France, US, UK), and thus need to escape to the internet to find their own suitable homeland.

I probably could've put that a lot better. But I'm tired and I probably have swine flu.
You'll all ignore this post anyway, that's what happens to me on NSG...

What's that again, SAM?

[South Asia Minor]

NSG is a cesspool of scum and villainy both left and right

That is not the phrase you're looking for.

[Angleter]

Because NSG posters are intelligent, and like freedom. We just disagree on how to achieve it. Im pretty sure nobody that is intelligent or freedom loving believes in religion though, so thats probably why social conservatism is rare on NSG.

Whatumafujja- ocean, ocean, ocean, calm down Angleter, ocean...