Is this board “liberal”?
Sorry for the question, but it seems like everyone here thinks that becoming a liberal is part of leaving the cult. Am I wrong?
I believe there are liberals, leftists, conservatives and many other views among the lds members. I am open to read your comments.

It's heavily liberal with a few conservatives. The board tries to discourage political discussion unless it's tied to Mormonism.

The recent Roe v Wade dustup has triggered a lot of threads. Liberal causes tend to be given more leeway.

There's also a John Birch fanboy ankle biter that I find amusing.

What does "liberal" mean.

Barry Goldwater, who called himself a conservative, and I believe him, was pro-choice, because he thought the less the State interfered with an individual's freedom, the better.

In other words, he thought the State had no business telling a woman what to do with her own body.

You go Goldwater!

If there were more Republicans following in your footsteps, I might become one.

I've been all over the place over time. I was from a conservative house until I had some world view changes between ages 40-50. Then I spend a few years considering myself a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. By that time, heart and compassion over social issues was beginning to override what I came to realize was actually trickle UP economics.

I have been an Independent ever since. I don't agree with everything liberal, but I vote against whatever is doing the most damage.

You have to realize we are having something happen that hasn't happened in 50 years. Rights are being removed for the first time in 3 generations. Are you a woman?

Are you the same person who posted basically the same question a couple weeks ago?

I’m not a woman, neither posted this Sam question before. I may be interested to check that post.

...and eventually wander away. Look over the abortion threads--can you imagine a pro-lifer posting there?

Maga tears

Too bad. But you don’t need to be a Christian to find abortions repulsive.

I don't find abortions to be repulsive. I find comments like yours to be repulsive.

I find forcing a woman to bear a child against her will, then refusing to help provide the help she might need to raise it repulsive.

And of the two, I find abortion to be the much less repulsive one.

It seems to me that if you are very conservative, you would tend to not question authority and go against the grain as much while in a very conservative organization.

If you were liberal, you could more easily let your brain go to the questioning side that you were warned away from doing.

Therefore, it seems natural to me that the more liberal members would become the Exmo's generally.

In general, yes.

But there is also a cohort of conservatives who leave the church and then divide into those who, like liberals, learn to question their previously reflexive attitudes and then dismantle all sorts of thoughtless beliefs; and those who don't abandon the inclination towards herd-like behavior and jump right into the next available bus to command-and-control land.

Of the various categories--the TBMs, the NOMs, the liberal dissidents, the conservative dissidents, and the conservatives who embark on a top-to-bottom re-evaluation of everything they once held sacred--it may be the last who are most courageous, the most honest.

Liberalism and conservatism are methods of reaching a decision.
It's not as typically misconstrued i.e. left/right/politics.

Most folks here are foundationally evidentiary, not dogma/beliefs based.
With eyes open they welcome data, then apply reason to forge an understanding on the nature of the universe and life, which is what makes the place interesting, because it's alive. These are foragers of information, Lebenskünstlers of life. I'm always learning stuff, they kindle my own thinking/understanding/curiosity. Only reason I hang out. It's purely selfish on my part.

If the reader is looking for definitive hard-core un-malleable beliefs upon which to hang a hat this place will disappoint.
If the reader is looking for "isn't that curious how the universe seems to work" this place is brain candy.

Conservative - Latin conservare, to keep, to guard
Liberal - Latin liberalis, free thinker, freed man

I thought of posting a response to caffiend's post earlier but decided to hold off. Your offering, however, aligns with some of what I wanted to say--particularly the evidence-versus-dogma angle. So here it is.


---------------
Reply to caffiend:

You guys aren't conservatives. Conservatives try to conserve things.

You, by contrast, want to overturn elections, eviscerate the constitution, prevent others from voting, and impose your moral views on a country that isn't like you. You trumpet states rights until you achieve power and then expand the power of the state at the expense of individual choice. Rather than conservatives, you are populists seeking to replace a political constitution with a religious one.

The biggest issue here, however, is that you present as truth propagandistic lies. You used to deny COVID was serious, then espoused crank cures. You insisted that the January 6 rioters were Antifa and BLM activists working hard to incriminate peaceful conservatives. No matter how much proof of your errors emerged, you just kept repeating the same mantras. It was the lies that the admins banned. They were explicit about that: post misinformation and it'll be deleted.

My personal complaint, though, is that you have discredited an honorable movement. There was a time when conservatives argued--often rightly--about political issues within a constitutional framework to which they were dedicated. Those days are now long gone. There is no conservative movement or party in the United States anymore.

And the country is worse off for that.

"You, by contrast, want to overturn elections, eviscerate the constitution, prevent others from voting, and impose your moral views on a country that isn't like you."

But that's not what a conservative is, except maybe that last part. I don't like Trump either. He's like the valet that dings your car so you take away the keys and give them to a monkey. Now the real trouble starts. With results like these, I'll take the moron.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "You, by contrast, want to overturn elections,
> eviscerate the constitution, prevent others from
> voting, and impose your moral views on a country
> that isn't like you."
>
> But that's not what a conservative is, except
> maybe that last part.

That is precisely my point. The populists that emerged from the old GOP claim to be conservatives but they are not; they are political radicals bent on destroying the institutions of constitutional government.

Calling them conservatives is Orwellian.

I don't identify as either. I have personal values and form my views from those, not on whether something is "conservative" or "liberal". I don't give up my autonomy to a label.

It would take a lengthier essay than I'm willing to write with my thumbs in order to describe the whys and hows, but believe that if the majority of people were independent, we could take back a lot of the power that both parties have siphoned from the people into the corporate tanks. But in short, don't let either of them know your vote is in their bag. Make them earn it. Decide on your own values and act accordingly. Don't try to live a label.

The arc of humanity that spans from the most progressive to the most traditionalist is heavily populated in the center section.
The ones at the polar extremes are the ones who are the loudest as well as the most judgmental of their opposite. If both extremes went quiet, there would very likely be some calm, thoughtful discussion.
Unfortunately, it’ll never happen.

> The ones at the polar extremes are the ones who
> are the loudest as well as the most judgmental of
> their opposite. If both extremes went quiet, there
> would very likely be some calm, thoughtful
> discussion.

That makes sense in most situations, but is that the correct attitude when one side suddenly assumes a much more extreme position? Was neutrality the right position in 1928 Germany? Was it still in 1940? How about at the height of the Holocaust in 1942-3?

At what point did "just obeying orders" cease to be centrist wisdom?

Stuck in the middle… Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The arc of humanity that spans from the most
> progressive to the most traditionalist is heavily
> populated in the center section.
> The ones at the polar extremes are the ones who
> are the loudest as well as the most judgmental of
> their opposite. If both extremes went quiet, there
> would very likely be some calm, thoughtful
> discussion.
================================

The extreme progressive and the extreme traditionalist are exactly the same people.
See for yourself how these behave. Mirrors both.

These differ only in the text they source as Authority:
by analogy
-- one holds the Bible
-- one holds the Koran (or Das Kapital or etc)
(the point is that there is an external authority and belief: only that the authority differs)

But they are structurally exactly the same person otherwise.

Neither
is open to actual observation/data.
Neither
applies reason.
Both
are blinded by and beholden to dogma.

For both the extremes it is all belief.
This is why the loud, the absolute conviction/certainty, the self-righteousness, the intolerance, and why negotiation (which requires openness to data and reason) fails.

Dr. No, what is "extreme" in standing up for the constitution and the integrity of the electoral process?

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

Barry Goldwater

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. No, what is "extreme" in standing up for the
> constitution and the integrity of the electoral
> process?
===============================
Extreme is in reference to far ends of the left/right spectrum.

Not talking American politics; this is conceptual.

Now, this cognitive framework MAY be applied to politics, and so explain the "cancel culture" with which both sides accuse the other, and explains also the blindness to their own acts of "cancellation" - because though both do it, these see it only in the other. It is true blindness.

The voting denial thing is raw power, as is a parcheesi Supreme Court where justices are seated by whim.
There is no moral, ethical, or perceptual foundation underpinning.

not perceptual, but rather no preceptual, foundation.

It's a kabuki dance.

I maintain that the extreme opposites provoke each other and essentially create strife and the response tends to move further into the extreme. It is non-productive because energy is expended by moving away from one another rather than finding common ground that both sides can live with.

Neutrality is stagnant. It is not the same as rational discourse. The extremes have lost their ability to be rational when they went deaf to ideas that are not their own.

Wisdom is easy when it is applied to the past, innit?

The implication of what you say is that there is never a moral issue over which it's worth fighting. Just stay in the middle and comfort yourself with the notion that the idiots fighting the destruction of civilization are no better than the idiots doing the destroying.

And yes, it is easy to see that in retrospect. The heroes in Germany and Italy and Turkey and Hungary and Russia and China and the LDS church, however, are the ones who had, or have, the courage to stand up for values that matter.

I'm quite a conservative person myself. I don't mean politically. I just tend to be a little conservative in my own personal values. The difference in me now is that I don't impose my own standards on anyone else, as I may have done in the past as a religious person. I don't care. Be who you are. Do what you want. It doesn't affect me at all. Maybe that makes me more liberal now? LOL I don't know. I strongly believe in people being allowed to live their own set of personal values, as long as they're not harming anyone else.

As Dave the Atheist asked, "What does "liberal" mean," anyway?

I once worked with a lady from Britain and I asked her what her impressions were of Canadians. She said, "I was so surprised to discover how conservative Canadians are."

I was surprised by her assessment of us. But maybe it's a Canadian thing, for many of us anyway.

Greyfort, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are meaningless today. There was a time when conservatives cared about fiscal matters, strong national defense, small government, and constitutionalism.

As the conservatives moved away from their traditional moorings and embraced populism, people like me who were previously in the middle were forced to choose between compromise with the new extremism and calling it out as the nihilism it has become.

If you were a mainstream conservative 20 years ago and still hold the same values, you are almost certainly a liberal by today's standards.

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1522340335241805824/SzO-naWr?format=jpg&name=900x900

Answering one of your points above, LW, we work-boot populist conservatives, which you denigrate, became fed up with what I derisively call "shiny-shoe Republicans," e.g. Mitt Romney, who preached traditional values but were more interested in winning their seat at the big-government trough. We took a chance on a rogue Republican who actually delivered much of what we longed for: serious control of illegal immigration, SCOTUS justices who held to stronger Constitutionalist positions, reducing the size and power of the "Administrative State," suppressing terrorism while disengaging from wars that America had no vested interest in, and actually fighting back at a hostile, partisan media. (etc.)

How ironic: the political left now serves the billionaires' interests, while the deplorable working/small business class has found a home in the GOP.

To paraphrase the Great Communicator, "Are you better off now than you were a year and a half ago?"

Illegal immigration numbers peaked around 2006-7, when George W. Bush was president. The numbers have held relatively steady since 2016, at about 11.5 million annually, with a temporary dip in the month of January, 2021. So there was a lot of rhetoric during the Trump administration, but no real change.

I think that everyone supports legal immigration. I personally just never thought that building a wall was the best solution. It would be very difficult to build, maintain, and patrol a comprehensive border wall.

I work with immigrant families, and it might surprise you to know that in a number of cases, they have no intention of staying. They come, work for a while, and then go back to their home countries. They don't always think that America is "all that." They also do lots of useful jobs that American-born citizens disdain. So, it might be that more guest-worker visas would be a good solution for all concerned.

caffiend Wrote:
--------------------------------------------------
> Answering one of your points above, LW, we
> work-boot populist conservatives, which you
> denigrate, became fed up with what I derisively
> call "shiny-shoe Republicans," e.g. Mitt Romney. . .

It's unfortunate that you are so offended by Mitt's "shiny shoes" that you reject his fiscally conservative, defensively conservative, constitutionally conservative principles. Those were the core values of the Republican Party, and they were indeed valuable.


------------------
> who preached traditional values but were more
> interested in winning their seat at the
> big-government trough.

A Trump supporter has no grounds for calling other politicians profligate. Cutting taxes while increasing spending is the very definition of the trough-feeding.


-------------------
> We took a chance on a rogue
> Republican who actually delivered much of what we
> longed for:

Oh, I know. You think "what you long for" is the purpose of government.

> SCOTUS justices who held to stronger
> Constitutionalist positions,

Nonsense. The Handmaid Faction does not respect the constitution or its processes. So you don't mean "constitutionalist positions" but religious and cultural ones. You're just dressing up what you "long for" in the guise of principle.


-----------------
> reducing the size and
> power of the "Administrative State,"

Yes--including those agencies that monitor and enforce official corruption. Your "rogue Republican" with his "defund the police" approach to national government did the country all sorts of favors: witness the festivities of January 6, 2021. That was surely healthy exercise for a democracy.

> suppressing
> terrorism while disengaging from wars that America
> had no vested interest in,

Really? You think Trump resisted that "genius"--yes, he said that again two days ago--Putin and his state terrorism? Trump protected our Kurdish allies in Syria from Assad and Putin's combined efforts? He sanctioned Beijing for its state terror in Xinjiang? He disengaged from Afghanistan? It appears that the facts do not support your claims.

> and actually fighting
> back at a hostile, partisan media. (etc.)

You presume it is the duty of the president of the United States to "fight back at" media groups that disagree with your views. That rather authoritarian, isn't it?


--------------------
> How ironic: the political left now serves the
> billionaires' interests, while the deplorable
> working/small business class has found a home in
> the GOP.

It is indeed tragic that Citizens United forced both parties to grovel before the billionaires. But Trump was great for the ultra-rich as you would see if you bothered to look at the decile- and percentile-based distribution of gains from the tax cuts.

More ironic, however, in a sad sort of way, is the fact that the working class is now supporting a party that has no intention of serving its interests. This happens all the time abroad--the poor embrace the populist who speaks nicely even as he pads the pockets of his own class--but it is distressing to see the same occurenc in a relatively well-educated, relatively civic-minded country with erstwhile strong constitutional institutions.


-----------------
But hey, let's step back and look at the common threads in your post. First, "traditional values," "shiny-shoes" resentment, "fighting back at the hostile media." Those snowflaky grievances are cultural and religious concerns, not moral or constitutional ones.

Meanwhile, and second, you offer applause for the Handmaid Faction of the supreme court and its disregard for precedential reasoning; for the dismantling of the "administrative state;" and for the struggle against the media. Those are the anti-constitutional processes through which you hope to impose your religious values on the rest of us. Which proves my point that your view of governmental institutions is utilitarian: they are to be used to advance your own cultural vision, institutionalism of the old GOP be damned.

You would have us become crowds of people milling about below a dictator waving down from a balcony with a dubious woman by his side: an image as fitting in late-COVID Washington as it was in 1950s Buenos Aires.

I was a Republican until California's Proposition 8.

That's when I became an Independent voter. I still lean conservative w/re to government spending.

California pioneered "birth tourism," whereby (mostly Asian) women (i.e., "birthing persons") come to California to give birth to endow their children with a US birth certificate. Now they're proposing abortion tourism?

The irony is thicker than lobbyists going over the proposed US budget.

Make up your mind.

Either California pioneered it or it is going to pioneer it. Trying to have it both ways is just more of your nonsense.

Birth tourism is a fact.
Abortion tourism, I stated, is a proposal.

Edit: These abortions, as proposed, would be publicly (taxpayer) funded. How does one invest in a Planned Parenthood franchise? (/s)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2022 03:23AM by caffiend.

Your bullshit, caffiend, is the notion that California "pioneered" birth tourism.

It's a lie. But you traffic in lies, so I don't expect you to clear things up.

HI and FL are the two big places women go to give birth. DeSantis needs to pay more attention to problems he has instead of ones he makes up. Great way to get the tax payers to pay for your campaign advertising though.

Sometimes it's like reading Pravda here: facts are replaced by the Big Lie, which is repeated in the hope that eventually people will accept it as true.

There is no honorable middle ground between falsehood and truth.

Although California has been a center of "birth tourism," it hasn't been the only one. From Wiki:

"On October 18, 2014, the North American Chinese language Daily World Journal reported that for several weeks the immigration authorities at LAX had been closely questioning pregnant Chinese women arriving there from China, and in many cases denying them entry to the United States and repatriating them within 12 hours, often on the same airplane on which they had flown to the United States. In March 2015, federal agents conducted raids on a series of large-scale maternity tourism operations bringing thousands of mainland Chinese women intent on giving their children American citizenship."

And this:

"As of 2015, Los Angeles is considered a center of the maternity tourism industry, which caters mostly to Asian women from China and Taiwan; authorities in the city there closed 14 maternity tourism 'hotels' in 2013."

Note, if you will, who was president from 2013-15, whose administration was actively attempting to halt the practice. (Hint: his initials are BHO.)

For fun, I also saw this nugget:

"Russian birth tourism to Florida to 'maternity hotels' in the 2010s is documented. Birth tourism packages complete with lodging and medical care delivered in Russian begin at $20,000, and go as high as $84,700 for an apartment in Miami's Trump Tower II complete with a 'gold-tiled bathtub and chauffeured Cadillac Escalade.'"

Now THAT'S what I call "tourism"! With Dear Leader personally profiting from it!

Anyway, back to "abortion tourism" – not really a thing. This is presumably what you object to:

"[SB 1142] would establish the Abortion Practical Support Fund and would require the commission to administer the Abortion Practical Support Fund for the purpose of providing grants, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to assist pregnant people who are low income or face other financial barriers with access to abortions in California, and for research to support equitable access to abortion."

This is what the "Abortion Practical Support Fund" will be used for:

"'Practical support' means direct assistance, such as airfare, lodging, ground transportation, gas money, meals, dependent childcare, doula support, and translation services, to help a person access and obtain an abortion."

So not paying them per se, more like covering their expenses. Low-income women who desperately need financial assistance are not the kind of people who practice "tourism." That's simply another of the standard bad-faith cheap shots that we've come to expect from you.

Another lie about "anchor babies".

Conservatives and the right wing tend to think in black and white terms (which also happens among TBMs.) Everyone who is not on their side politically is a liberal. There are also moderates in both parties, although I have to say that the Republican party has done a great job in recent years of making moderates feel unwelcome. Women's impending loss of reproductive rights will not help the Republican party in this regard.

ETA: And as others on this thread have pointed out, there are also many independents.

Thanks for all the answers. Very useful!

Lol. That is funny. A better question would have been if RfM had a political bent.

It is a place to discuss. If it were bent this post wouldn't exist.

I’m an independent. I think both Liberals and conservatives on both ends of the spectrum are wrong and feed into each other, just like atheists and theists.
I don’t want any part of either.
I am a pragmatist.
Let’s do what works best
And utterly destroy that which hinders us most.

Zenif Wrote: "honest question"
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is this board “liberal”? ... it seems like everyone here thinks that becoming a liberal is part of leaving the cult. Am I wrong?

Who is everyone here? You must be included. What an assumption, and a misguided one at that. Are you looking for answers or stereotypes?

Are you "asking for a friend"? What do you want to know?
Or is it simply to paint 'formons' with broad strokes? Or to lump idealists with the followers? Or to simplify your thinking by categorizing everyone who was once forced - or choose - to be LDS?

YES, we're all liberated!

How's that?

Love it.

what on earth do you mean by "liberal"?

And how can a board be "liberal," when its purpose is to give voice to people who are literally recovering from Mormonism, You know, the CoJCoLDS who tried to start their own government, the Kingdom of Deseret.

The arch conservative Barry Goldwater was pro-choice. Is being pro-choice conservative or liberal. Goldwater would say it is a conservative position, as in the government has no right to interfere with a woman's medical choices.

Maybe by "liberal" you mean someone in favor of more entitlement programs. I guess I'm conservative. We have enough entitlement programs, and too many people who feel entitled.

Maybe by "conservative" you mean pro-Trump, you know, that fellow with baby chicken hair who tried to overturn the election. That sounds revolutionary to me. Is being a revolutionary the same as being a conservative? If so, what are you conserving? Is starting your own Kingdom inside the borders of the USA a conservative thing to do, or just Brigham Young on a power trip. whatabout polygamy? Is that conservative or liberal? If you are pro-polygamy you are saying that people have the right to their own living arrangements as long as everyone is a consenting adult. If you are anti-polygamy you are saying these adult women are incapable of making such a choice. Brainwashing and all. Maybe they are incapable, but should they be legally barred from entering into polygamy as in the state needs to protect them from themselves. Remember, we are talking consenting adults here.

Those words "liberal" and "conservative have lost their meaning as far as I am concerned.