Ask the conservative asshole

[John_DiFool]

Going to copy an AHunter3 post here, even tho it was made in that now-closed Shodan ATMB thread (so hope AH doesn’t mind):

@AHunter3

Meanwhile, a second theme in this here thread is the experience of conservative-minded SDMB members as a… dare I say it… marginalized minority. I want to say this to you (and to others who identify in that fashion): I experience you as being here in good faith. I think the conservative dopers who have chosen to stick around for the long haul are doing so in a genuine effort to communicate, as opposed to just looking for opportunities to taunt and torment the libtards and so forth. That doesn’t preclude you from behaving in the latter fashion in any given thread or in any given post, and yes I still think the post for which you got the warning was intended as a poke, an attempt to make us look ridiculous. But I do believe you participate on the dope in order to communicate. Naturally you hope your way of seeing the world will rub off on other (less conservative) people more than you hope the influence will take place in the other direction – I don’t begrudge you that in the slightest, by the way – but I view you as a sincere participant in this marketplace of ideas thingie we’ve got going here.

I appreciate his attempt here, but I must conclude that he is being more than a bit naive’.

I, too, would like to think that all Dopers can and do post in good faith. But the small subset discussed above is part of a larger group of conservatives, and it would be a mistake to think that they speak for all conservatives. Quite a few here have in fact publicly (and often greatly) distanced themselves from Trump, the current GOP, and all that they stand for. Many have simply
thrown their hands up in the air and stopped discussing politics here at all; some, by comparison, may indeed appear at first glance to be rather liberal.

The small cadre that remains and self-identifies as conservative (coming right to the chase) don’t seem the least bit interested in an authentic dialogue to me. What I instead see, day by day, are constant simplistic gotchas which are intended only to rile up and infuriate. If they are truly trying to convince anyone that they are on the right side of things, then such transparently childish (and often hypocritical) tactics bely said stated/implied aim. That such tactics are not seen by everyone on the board (much less by everybody in the country/world) in such a light simply shows where the morality-nay, honor and integrity-of those who have such a blinkered perspective (both the purveyors of such views and their audience) truly lies.

Exhibit A is a thread made earlier this afternoon in IMHO by JohnT: What was the worst you expected from a Hillary Presidency? After all of the hyperbole surrounding last year’s election run, after all of the vitriol and accusations and such thrown her way (here and elsewhere), here is a chance for them to chime in and say in a sober fashion just what it was about the thought of her winning that so perturbed them that they felt that had to punch the ticket for Trump.

And not a single one has chimed in “a genuine effort to communicate in good faith” their views on said subject in 6 hours now. That’s because a thread where they must attempt to put forth reasoned, cogent views with depth and nuance, where they cannot rub the liberal’s noses in whatever, simply does not interest them in the least. It’s all a game of purely reactionary stimulus-response one-upmanship for them, and nothing else.