Bone, it’s a bummer, especially after just stumbling onto this board after our neoplatonic days long past.
I hope you stay on as a poster, albeit for selfish reasons. Though it probably doesn’t look like it here, I know from experience on other boards that as more conservative posters leave, the threshold will eventually shift to where I’m the token conservative. And when that happens, I know it’s grueling. Before the snopes board collapsed, I nearly left it for good (and I did take a few months hiatus after the last presidential election) over that feeling of being, somehow, “the token conservative.”
It’s hard to be the one, it seems constantly, having to say, “Hold on, I’m not saying your conclusion is necessarily incorrect or that I agree with this generally detestable person in the media, only that the logic of how you’ve arrived at your conclusion, and the basest possible motivations you’ve attributed to them and their supporters, doesn’t really follow,” and then getting the “What!? How dare you defend such a detestable person! That makes you just as bad—maybe even worse because you’re clearly duplicitous. Take it back! Take it back!”
And I’ve been the “raving liberal” on other forums (but I don’t think I’m in danger of becoming that here).
It just seems that as time goes on, the goalposts for what constitutes an arch-conservative or and arch-liberal seem to shift as people at one end get driven out by people at the other, and in time it leads to an echo chamber, where nothing gets discussed because there’s nothing to discuss: everyone is already in agreement. So, again, for selfish reasons, I hope you stay on as a regular poster, and I hope the attitude of the board can accommodate that without making it too painful for you.