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24
14
Experience Experience breeds ignorance
Debate Score:38
Arguments:48
Total Votes:43
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 Experience (16)
 
 Experience breeds ignorance (11)

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Amarel(5669) pic



Many prominent Right-wingers were once leftists. Why?

Experience

Side Score: 24
VS.

Experience breeds ignorance

Side Score: 14
3 points

Many prominent right wingers are now leftists. Why? Let's see. There is: George Will; Joe Scarborough; S.E. Cupp; Michelle Wallace; Michael Steele; Steve Schmidt; David Jolly … the list goes on, but, I've made my point …. what's yours?? :-)

Side: Experience
Amarel(5669) Clarified
1 point

George Will : Still a Right winger

S.E. Cupp : Still a Republican

Michelle Wallace : Never a Right winger?

Michael Steele : Still a Right Winger

Steve Schmidt, David Jolly, Joe Scarborough : You are mistaking opposition to Trump as an opposition to right wing political views. By your standards, I would be on your list. We both know I don’t belong there.

Side: Experience
excon(18260) Clarified
2 points

Hello A:

Is a Republican who SLAMS other Republicans, EARNS his living from MSNBC, and PROBABLY votes Democratic, STILL a Republican??

People wanna know.

excon

Side: Experience
3 points

Many prominent Right-wingers were once leftists. Why?

Hello A:

In MY view, if support for the Constitution is the ultimate goal, right wingers think LESS government is the way to accomplish it, and lefty's think we need government to ENFORCE it..

Those two points of view aren't very far apart.. If the GOAL is the same, it would be easy to slip between one or the other WITHOUT having to change your world view..

Charles Krauthammer is a perfect example.. He WAS a lib.. In order to ENFORCE the Constitution, libs think you need to SPEND on government.. Krauthammer said NO.. Right wingers didn't wanna SPEND either, so he switched.. He's a FISCAL conservative.

What he, and the other prominent Republicans who switched DIDN'T do, is become CULTURAL right wingers..

excon

Side: Experience
HoneyPie7(90) Disputed
3 points

In MY view, if support for the Constitution is the ultimate goal, right wingers think LESS government is the way to accomplish it, and lefty's think we need government to ENFORCE it..

Good idea, seeing sanctuary cities are as unconstitutional and lawless as is possible. To the left enforcement depends on whether you agree with them or not. If you are illegal or Democrat, they enforce nothing or give slaps on the wrist. If you disagree with them, they become police state tyrants. That's no different than Stalins USSR or Hitler's Germany. Do as you're told or get the whip.

What he, and the other prominent Republicans who switched DIDN'T do, is become CULTURAL right wingers..

Explain why you would ever want the government involved in dictating culture, and if you wouldn't, and I know I wouldn't, why would I vote for the party that is fiscally hostile to capitalism, businesses, wealth growth, and private property, and wants to tax me into the abyss?

Side: Experience breeds ignorance
marcusmoon(576) Clarified
1 point

Hi, Excon.

I think you are correct in the core of your point.

What he, and the other prominent Republicans who switched DIDN'T do, is become CULTURAL right wingers..

I think you did, however, miss most of the cultural shift that has actually happened on the right side of the American political spectrum. Some of this was doubtless driven by the socially liberal cultural shift in the 60's & 70's, but most of it is a culmination of other aspects of conservatism.

Not my business

Most of that shift is not a change in values, but rather an outgrowth of what is at the core of the conservative antipathy to government involvement. Fewer conservatives think that many social disagreements are anybody's business but that of the people involved. (I think this is a positive change that actually makes the modern conservative MORE conservative than the stereotypical Archie Bunker type of conservative of the past.

Consider that Phil Robertson says that he thinks homosexuality is a sin (a conservative religious value/belief) but that he does not think that implies anyone should be unkind or discriminatory when dealing with gay people. This is a cultural shift from the standard policies (endorsed by both the left and the right of the past) of imprisonment of homosexuals. This is typical of the general change in national culture as it has manifested on the right (with the exception of the miniscule minority of extremists, who would still be psychopaths if they were left-wingers.)

As people have become less entrenched in local and homogeneous communities, we are less concerned with things that have nothing to do with us.

Profit breeds tolerance

Some of this was also driven by the technological explosion that started in the 80's, and the corresponding explosion of wealth (no just monetary, but also rise in baseline standard of living.)

Fiscal conservatism, because of the core belief in free enterprise and profit, values meritocracy, and rewards capability and profitability. This naturally encourages the valuing of individuals based solely on what they do, differentiating individuals based on accomplishment and capability without regard to irrelevancies like race, sex, or gender.

This is why conservatives are so stupefied by those liberals who embrace identity politics, and the racism, sexism, and discriminatory policies it institutionalizes. We don't see any benefit to society of the leftist racism and sexism. Why make an incidental, irrelevant, and uncontrollable trait like race or sex an issue, when it is neither logical nor just to do so? Why categorize people according to anything but their actions and abilities when that gets in the way of hiring the best people for a position, holding people responsible only for their own behavior, and dealing with an individual without having to calculate his/her connection to any other set of people?

Side: Experience
excon(18260) Clarified
1 point

This is why conservatives are so stupefied by those liberals who embrace identity politics, and the racism, sexism, and discriminatory policies it institutionalizes

Hello marcus:

My objective as a human being, is to achieve a color blind society.. We're that the case, we could get on to more productive things.. But, when I look around, I see that racism is still with us, and by your own admission, the left are the only ones who recognize it. So the left it is..

Let's just take the disparity in sentencing between powdered cocaine and crack cocaine.. One is used primarily by whites, and the other is primarily used by black people.. Until the recent crime bill, the sentence for those who used crack cocaine was 18 times HIGHER than that of powdered cocaine users. That's racist. Period, end of story..

If you're NOT looking, I spose stuff like that can get by you.. But, I look..

excon

Side: Experience
2 points

American history is the story of Democratic malefactors and Republican heroes.

Side: Experience
1 point

Thomas Sowell tells a story about being a Communist in graduate school, then spending the summer working for the Department of Labor.

He says when he saw how poorly the federal government functioned, he realized that it was utterly impractical for government to administer resources at the level required by communism or socialism, and he concluded that it is unrealistic to think government would be able to avoid making an expensive botch of everything it attempted to do.

Voila le conservateur!

Side: Experience
1 point

He says when he saw how poorly the federal government functioned, he realized that it was utterly impractical for government to administer resources at the level required by communism or socialism

You're guilty of an egregious misunderstanding common to your country in that you are confusing state capitalism with communism. When the government administers resources that is state capitalism. Communism is a theory about power being given to the working class not the goddamned government.

Side: Experience breeds ignorance
marcusmoon(576) Clarified
3 points

Communism is a theory about power being given to the working class not the goddamned government.

Then who is in charge of the resources? If it is the ''working class" not the government, how does the stuff actually get divided up?

Side: Experience
ConsPuppet(12) Disputed
1 point

Roses are red

Violets are blue

A 69 would class

As dinner for two

Side: Experience

Many prominent Right-wingers were once leftists. Why?

It's an interesting question, but I strongly suspect that you are not looking for the right answer. More likely this is a case of confirmation bias, where you typically try to justify a false premise on the basis of your own false conclusions about something.

In short, the older a person gets, the more likely they become to "sell out". Young people are very frequently raised by parents who give them an idealised version of reality because subconsciously the parents are embarrassed about the real one. Media such as children's films and TV also perpetuate these same myths, where the qualities of humanity are unfairly accentuated and the negative aspects are either under-represented or ignored.

Eventually, everybody "grows up", in that they all learn this children's version of reality is a myth which adults have invented out of guilt. They learn that good does not always triumph over evil and that in fact the opposite is usually true, since evil is more ruthless by its very nature and hence has more options available to it.

Eventually, everybody learns that there is no force at work in the universe which will reward them for doing the right thing.

Eventually, the adults sell out for the short term rewards it offers them, ironically usually at the point they decide to have children of their own. The adults then begin a phase of self-justification in which right wing arguments suddenly become a great resource. However, subconsciously they still feel a sense of guilt that they were not able to change the world for the better, and hence begin the cycle all over again by indoctrinating their own children into the same myths.

In many cases, right wing views are a direct reactionary backlash from children when they eventually grow old enough to realise their parents, teachers, even film directors, were lying to them all throughout their childhood. They take the wrong path for the right reasons.

Side: Experience breeds ignorance
Amarel(5669) Clarified
1 point

Your explanation seems to assume that liberal kids had conservative parents who were once liberal, but that those same liberal children will eventually become conservative when they sell out. Is this summary accurate?

Eventually, the adults sell out for the short term rewards it offers them

What do you mean by selling out, and what are the short term benefits?

Side: Experience