I don't know if this is something that will interest people, but this is a pretty intelligent forum and so it might. I've noticed that a lot of time political/philosophic jargon gets used and it is sometimes used incorrectly and rarely defined. So I thought it might be useful to start a thread where people could request/offer definitions for important terms.

and if no one is interested my post count is 1 higher, so it's win win for me either way.

I dig it and I'll start off with a couple:

Dogmatic-Arrogant assertion of unproved, unporvable principles.

Pontifical-Pretentious, self-important-pompous, dogmatic

Reaganomics?

I could open a can of worms, and totally derail this thread by asking people to define "liberalism".

Politics are "stupid" and "gay."

I'll do it. Defining liberalism is basically my profession.


There is the american useage and the actual useage.

Technically liberalism is the school of thought that really starts with John Locke but has antecedents in Hobbes, Machiavelli, the epicurians, all the way back to aristotle. It's primary concern is with preventing/limiting the arbitrary exercise/abuse of power. This is accomplished through the rule of law. Almost all americans are liberals. Some are progressive, some are conservative, all are liberals


Americans use liberalism as an umbrella to define anyone affiliated with some aspect of the left. Basically anyone who considers themselves a liberal is a leftist who accepts the presence of capitalism in our system.

do you know the term supply side or trickle down economics? it's basically the same thing. There are probably economists on the board who can give a better defintion than me.

Or coservatism, or progressivism, or many of the other common terms that have been twisted by agendas....

I disagree, this is a forum full of trendy hipsters completely detached from reality spewing prototypical non-conformist dogma. Thats a general statement, there are certainly exceptions, you know who you are, the beacons which others are guided by.

Why don't you provide some of the concepts that you believe need clarification? Bear in mind this will probably start a debate in itself.

The two that I noticed get misused the most are fascism and socialism.

Excerpt from an actual political debate:

"You're an ignorant jerk!"

"No, you are!"

"No, YOU are!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"No....uh....YOU are! Ha! You ignorant jerk!"

The election for fraternity pledge marshall doesn't count as "political debate", Bammer.

Better this, than prototypical conformist dogma. At least they show some promise of thinking for themselves at some point.

I fully realize you might be referring to me in this remark.

that's precisely why it's important to learn what these words ACTUALLY mean.


Fun fact--liberalism in this country became a term for the left with FDR. Prior to that we called liberals progressives or socialists (depending on which they were) and conservatives were liberals. Conservativsim was associated with monarchies and religious political orders. Since this country had such a long liberal heritage FDR started calling himself a liberal to help legitimate his ideas/programs in the minds of the American people. I believe that is the first real example of this kind of ideological manipulation in this country (beyond calling someone you don't like a communist, etc)

A very common problem here, esp. when describing "all liberals" or "all Christians":

"Straw Man" - the practice of refuting a weaker argument than an opponent actually offers. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is also a logical fallacy, since the argument actually presented by the opponent has not been refuted, only a weaker argument.

One can set up a straw man in the following ways:

1. Present the opponent's argument in weakened form, refute it, and pretend that the original has been refuted.
2. Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.
3. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
4. Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.

I always disliked the post-hoc ergo propter-hoc: "Because B happened after A, B must be caused by A!"

This is a very slippery slope

Well laid out. We're all guilty of this from time to time.

Number 3 - Think Alan Colmes.

Again, I must dissent. When you regurtitate views that are not your own, whether they be popular or otherwise, you are conforming. I do not understand how adhering to others viewpoints can show "the promise of thinking for themselves". I move that it promotes letting others think for them.

I was certainly not referring to you in that remark. But you have your moments, goddamn, do you have your moments...

I wonder how many people out there share the same views as mine...