I would highlight @FiveHourMarathon (I don't recall his reddit username) as a great representative of themotte's ability to attract intelligent right-wingers. We've had some strong disagreements, but I always appreciate his input. There are certainly ways he deviates from the conservative mainstream, but in most ways I think he's representative of who
It was an honor just to be nominated, but I can't help but feel that naming me as your favorite right-winger is rather like an MSNBC fan naming Joe Scarborough as her favorite Republican. That is to say, I can't fight off right-wing as an accusation, but I certainly couldn't claim it as a laurel either given my generally degenerate morals by right-wing standards.
Scott Alexander, for all his criticisms of the left's approach to the culture war, is a polyamorous atheist living in the Bay Area; of course his allegiance is to the blue tribe, even if by their standards he's a heretic.
What is widely perceived as right-wing tolerance of left-wing heretics is more just right-wing retreat. I recently attended a local Republican candidates event, and it is immediately obvious that the conservative morality police are in full retreat; orderly retreat to a greater or lesser extent for each issue or individual. One of the proposals being forwarded over and over was that all public school LGBTQWERTY issues should be shuffled into an elective course that students could take with parental permission. This is a reasonable, and fairly libertarian!, compromise position: people who want their kids to learn this stuff can have them take the class, people who don't want their kids in that class can avoid it. But I'm old enough to remember the Republicans on the school board when I was a young teen trying, repeatedly, to ban the Gay Straight Alliance club from the high school. Two decades ago the position was that students outside of class should not be allowed to talk about Gay issues on campus; now that the war has been lost, they're just hoping to keep it out of English class.
Out of the handful of people there, we had multiple open (married) homosexuals, and Hispanic candidates. If one has a longstanding commitment to a certain format of gay rights or racial tolerance, then as Chicano activists in Texas used to say: We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us.
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Notes -
It was an honor just to be nominated, but I can't help but feel that naming me as your favorite right-winger is rather like an MSNBC fan naming Joe Scarborough as her favorite Republican. That is to say, I can't fight off right-wing as an accusation, but I certainly couldn't claim it as a laurel either given my generally degenerate morals by right-wing standards.
What is widely perceived as right-wing tolerance of left-wing heretics is more just right-wing retreat. I recently attended a local Republican candidates event, and it is immediately obvious that the conservative morality police are in full retreat; orderly retreat to a greater or lesser extent for each issue or individual. One of the proposals being forwarded over and over was that all public school LGBTQWERTY issues should be shuffled into an elective course that students could take with parental permission. This is a reasonable, and fairly libertarian!, compromise position: people who want their kids to learn this stuff can have them take the class, people who don't want their kids in that class can avoid it. But I'm old enough to remember the Republicans on the school board when I was a young teen trying, repeatedly, to ban the Gay Straight Alliance club from the high school. Two decades ago the position was that students outside of class should not be allowed to talk about Gay issues on campus; now that the war has been lost, they're just hoping to keep it out of English class.
Out of the handful of people there, we had multiple open (married) homosexuals, and Hispanic candidates. If one has a longstanding commitment to a certain format of gay rights or racial tolerance, then as Chicano activists in Texas used to say: We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us.
Considering the Canadian equivalents encourage 13yos to "explore their anus" and give them dildos, that was very much warranted.
Low effort and inflammatory partisan claims require proactively providing evidence.
Good point, added the link to original post.
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