OldManChris Posted June 14, 2017 Posted June 14, 2017 Hi everybody! I figured it was time to introduce myself and actually start trying to post and be active in the community here. I typically just lurk in online forums, but I'm hoping to change that somewhat. I first found the podcast and started listening back in 2005 or 2006, during my freshman and sophomore year of college. I even donated a paltry monthly amount back then and even spoke to the great Stefan on a podcast back in 2009 or 2010, which I'm pretty sure was one of the biggest highlights of the year for me! Since then I've listened on and off, with several years-long off periods when life, work, grad-school, marriage, and more work got in the way. Most recently I started listening again a little over a year ago when I started to hear more about the whole Donald Trump versus Hillary thing, and wanted a more coherent perspective than I felt like I was getting in more mainstream media sources. I didn't vote for Trump, partly because up until now I've subscribed to an apolitical libertarian philosophy, not having voted since 2008 when I was 100 percent in support of Ron Paul, and partly because I've tended to be nonconfrontational and didn't want to deal with the social consequences of admitting to have voted for someone other than Hillary when I live in Chicagoland. That being said, I've gotten enough flak from friends for questioning the "racist sexist misogynistic" line, and for suggesting that I don't think it's the end of the world that Donald Trump was elected. Anyway, I've been feeling a bit more introspective recently. Despite my username I'm not that old; I turned 31 in February, got married last month, and literally just yesterday learned that I'm going to be a father nine months from now if everything goes well (congratulations FDR forumgoers, I think you are the absolute first to know this other than my wife and I)! And that last bit there, it really put things in perspective for me. To think about what kind of world I want. What kind of person I want to be. And how I can overcome my numerous shortcomings to try to become a more positive influence for myself, others, and my children. So, I'm hoping we can have some good discussions here, that I can learn and grow, and most importantly get rid of that daunting "your content will need to be approved by a moderator" banner. Seriously! I don't particularly have a lot of social anxiety, but that makes me a little nervous to know that the all powerful mods will be reviewing anything I say! I promise I'm not a troll! Anyway, like I said just wanted to introduce myself briefly and share a little bit of my experiences leading up to joining the forums here! Thanks for your time!
S1988 Posted June 15, 2017 Posted June 15, 2017 5 hours ago, OldManChris said: Despite my username I'm not that old; I turned 31 You're not old at all. You're still young; just a couple of years older than I am. What a coincidence that you live in Illinois. I'm an Illinoisan, too, but I don't live in Chicagoland even though I was born there. Welcome to the forum, and it's great to hear that you and your wife are going to be parents.
SnapSlav Posted June 16, 2017 Posted June 16, 2017 On 6/14/2017 at 4:04 PM, OldManChris said: So, I'm hoping we can have some good discussions here, that I can learn and grow, and most importantly get rid of that daunting "your content will need to be approved by a moderator" banner. Seriously! I don't particularly have a lot of social anxiety, but that makes me a little nervous to know that the all powerful mods will be reviewing anything I say! I promise I'm not a troll! Welcome! I wouldn't worry about the mod stuff for long. I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm quite sure it's just a matter of posting 5 approved posts before they stop monitoring you for being a-okay. It's not the worst system by a long-shot. The last forum I was in got flooded by spam accounts advertising digital cameras or cell phones or whatever, and they usually only ever made that one post, so a buffer as small as 5 to prevent that kind of flooding goes a LONG way... Grats on having been on the podcast, that's pretty sweet! =D
OldManChris Posted June 17, 2017 Author Posted June 17, 2017 On 6/14/2017 at 11:20 PM, S1988 said: You're not old at all. You're still young; just a couple of years older than I am. What a coincidence that you live in Illinois. I'm an Illinoisan, too, but I don't live in Chicagoland even though I was born there. Welcome to the forum, and it's great to hear that you and your wife are going to be parents. I grew up in Minnesota, but moved here around 2010 for grad school, and now I'm in Roselle. It's great to another person in the state at least!
OldManChris Posted June 17, 2017 Author Posted June 17, 2017 On 6/15/2017 at 9:59 PM, SnapSlav said: Welcome! I wouldn't worry about the mod stuff for long. I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm quite sure it's just a matter of posting 5 approved posts before they stop monitoring you for being a-okay. It's not the worst system by a long-shot. The last forum I was in got flooded by spam accounts advertising digital cameras or cell phones or whatever, and they usually only ever made that one post, so a buffer as small as 5 to prevent that kind of flooding goes a LONG way... Grats on having been on the podcast, that's pretty sweet! =D Yeah, I saw a post about the posting requirements somewhere on here after making my initial post, so now it's just a matter of being active enough! Thanks for the warm welcome!
SnapSlav Posted June 18, 2017 Posted June 18, 2017 11 hours ago, OldManChris said: Thanks for the warm welcome! I felt a shred of kinship from your description of having to keep your politics to yourself because of your surroundings. For me it's Southern California, but the end result is the same: finding non-liberals is like searching for a needle in a haystack, if the hay attacked you every time you touched it to search around it... and tried to get your fired just because you're not hay like the rest of them... and blamed you for being bigoted for pointing out that they're hay... So yeah, I could sympathize with that kind of situation. =]
OldManChris Posted June 20, 2017 Author Posted June 20, 2017 On 6/17/2017 at 7:31 PM, SnapSlav said: I felt a shred of kinship from your description of having to keep your politics to yourself because of your surroundings. For me it's Southern California, but the end result is the same: finding non-liberals is like searching for a needle in a haystack, if the hay attacked you every time you touched it to search around it... and tried to get your fired just because you're not hay like the rest of them... and blamed you for being bigoted for pointing out that they're hay... So yeah, I could sympathize with that kind of situation. =] I'm sure most people here can relate to dealing with all the absurdity too. For example, I've suggested that I don't think that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, misogynist, etc, and then I got attacked for "defending Trump supporters." The polarizing of the left/right scares me a little. If everybody on the other side is nazi/fascist/whatever and there is no way to have a dialogue with the other side, then this won't end well, and I think the shooting of Scalise demonstrates that escalation quite well.
SnapSlav Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 21 hours ago, OldManChris said: I'm sure most people here can relate to dealing with all the absurdity too. For example, I've suggested that I don't think that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, misogynist, etc, and then I got attacked for "defending Trump supporters." The polarizing of the left/right scares me a little. If everybody on the other side is nazi/fascist/whatever and there is no way to have a dialogue with the other side, then this won't end well, and I think the shooting of Scalise demonstrates that escalation quite well. Well there's dealing with all the absurdity, and then there's being a fish out of water, like when you're rational and everyone else around you is liberal. In that sense I part ways with Dave Rubin's insistence that "the left abandoned liberalism", because as I see it, they're as crazy as they are precisely because of their liberalism. But I do agree that the divide is worrying. Even the conservatives where I work, an environment that rewards competitive and conscientious personalities and thus invites conservatives to congregate, keep their politics to themselves, and are wary of expressing their ideologies. As Steven Crowder argues when he points out that liberals can't accept compromise, it's either 100% progressive or you're a demon, that there is absolutely no possibility of the two meeting in the middle. Escalation is the only alternative, it seems.
S1988 Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 On 6/17/2017 at 7:57 AM, OldManChris said: I grew up in Minnesota, but moved here around 2010 for grad school, and now I'm in Roselle. It's great to another person in the state at least! Interesting! I have an aunt in Minnesota. I was never very close to her since I didn't see her much, but the trip to her home was quite memorable because that's where I visited the Mall of America. That was 20 years ago, and I hope to visit it again one day.
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