I’ve been on this board since 2007 and 2,852 posts. While living overseas for 12 years, this board was a bit of a connection back to the US, but in recent years this board has gone so far to the political left that it has become alien to me as a rural Nevadan, business owner and Libertarian.
I enjoyed many intelligent conversations, but the time has come to close my account here. I’m not sure if there is a way to do that, but I’ve had enough.
All the best,
Desert Nomad
We’ll miss you. Feel free to stop by any time.
Why would you feel the need to close your account? Just don’t drop by if you’re no longer interested.
Nyah, it is just that the political right has shifted so far right that they’ve gone off the rails.
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As one of the former long-time right-leaning people on the SDMB, this pretty much said everything that needed to be said.
I’m curious what you think needs to be defended on the SDMB that you feel like you can’t defend any longer. I mean, if you’re really leaving now’s your chance to air your grievances. Lay it all out. Go out with a bang.
This. Over the course of my adult life, the Republicans have drifted steadily from Conservatives to Cartoon Villains. There are still a few Republicans I can respect, but they’re a dying breed.
Don’t go. We like you and shit.
Also This, what I did notice too is that OP recently posted a few ‘facts’ about Trump that were actually based on lies that Trump spewed, such is the power of the propaganda out there to convince many to fall for a ruse. Now that would be just sad but unfortunately most Republicans in power have decided to make the three monkey act, so what Trump does is in the end endorsed by the ones in power.
The reality is that many conservatives warned others about what could happen to the Republican brand and conservatism in America if Trump was elected. I do realize that the ignorance, prejudice and lack of empathy that Trump represents can give victories, even for several years like in California back in the 80s, but eventually those victories do cost too much to the conservatives like it did… in California.
And so, the results will not be instantaneous, but I do think that really:Everything that Trump touches dies.
Wait, you’ve been here 11 years and you think there’s an account to be closed? This ain’t a credit union. Just leave. Or don’t. That’s kinda how it works.
I understand, I first discovered Cecil in the pages of the now-defunct Baltimore City Papers back in the mid-80’s, rediscovered the SDMB in early 2000’s where I occasionally lurked around…didn’t join until 2012, and really only started participating in the last year or so…I could spend hours lost in certain threads as the discussions were very interesting, generally well reasoned, and informative…
Lately, since the 2016 election, it just seems to be a lot of groupthink, yes, I know, being a product of the Chicago Tribune means it has always leaned left, but one of things I’ve always lamented in life is, we are losing the ability to engage in intelligent discourse…and I see it infecting the SDMB which is very discouraging…when we have to demean and shout down opinions we disagree with, we’ve lost the art of communication, we’ve given up trying to understand a different viewpoint, and we’ve shut down our minds…and, yes, I know, I’ll get the, “But, Trump started it!” response, whatever, two wrongs don’t make a right, please, try to express a view that is constructive, not reactive…
Being a libertarian such as yourself, I find myself cringing at so many posts, I don’t know what to think anymore here, if you dare try to counter the groupthink, it’s pitchforks and torches, the SDMB was founded on the minds of many creative, intelligent and constructively critical people, so I hope it will survive and prosper…
We are all entitled to our opinions, and if we can intelligently elucidate them, then we should be given the courtesy of a respectful response…we don’t have to agree, quite the contrary, but we should be able to indulge in intelligent discourse with the intention of understanding each others’ point of view…
With all the talk recently if the SDMB financial issues, I actually thought about buying a membership, it’s no big deal, a fraction of my monthly wine budget, then I got sucked into a bad side discussion where it was obvious Ignorance was not being fought, it was being tickled with a feather duster, and I realized, why would I spend money on something where I have to think twice before I post as I don’t trust the respondents to have the same approach as I do, i.e., intelligent discourse, respect and a chance to understand one another…
Well, not me, I do think that Trump did not start it, but Pete Wilson back in the 80’s.
I agree with you, and I have intelligent conversations with my friends, among whom I tend to be more conservative. And I don’t know you or your post history, so lets say your a reasonable and intelligent right-wing poster. As such, you surely must recognize that a lot of the right has fallen into believing in lies and propaganda. How can you have an intelligent conservation with people that are resistant to fact? And I’m not talking about ideology, I mean facts.
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If he had just stopped posting, nobody here would have known he was fleeing persecution.
Oddly enough, this decision was made after I proved to him his libertarian heroes, Wilbur and Orville Wright, used $70,000 of government research to help them design their Kitty Hawk plane.
I mean… timing checks out and everything. 
LOL, there’s no history of me being a “right-wing poster” (emphasis mine).
“You must surely recognize that a lot of the right has fallen into believing lies and propaganda.”
No, I don’t, I see people on the far right being absolutely terrible (marches in Charlottesville, etc.), but I don’t see anyone at all on the left spectra, specifically here at the SDMB, be it mid, far or very far, condemning the Antifa violence which happens without comment here in the SDMB…
I stated I was a libertarian, not a right-wing poster…how many anti-Trump threads have happened in the SDMB versus condemning Antifa from destroying business and property?
A limo owned by a Muslim was destroyed on Inauguration Day - guy didn’t vote for Trump and his livelihood was destroyed by a bunch of ignorant fools…
What I lament is, intelligent discourse is being lost, yes, attack me as a ‘right-wing poster’ of which I have never been…
“How can you have an intelligent conversation with people resistant to fact?”
Seriously?? This is your argument? Sorry, your opinion, great, you’ve proven my point…
You assume incorrectly. I read that book too. The government paid $70,000 to Langley whose design DID NOT WORK. While the Wrights asked for and received some data from the government, it DID NOT WORK.
They had to design their own airfoils and did loads of original research on their own and Wilbur spent the rest of his life trying to protect their invention. But that doesn’t mesh with the groupthink here which is why I have elected to leave. It used to be my favorite board online after CompuServe went away. Today it is merely a political board.
That is not an accurate description of what your link says.
Yes, they avoided the mistakes they would have made had they not had access to Langley’s work. How did they avoid them? Because they had access to Langley’s work. QED.
To argue otherwise is to ascribe to the Wrights some mystical powers where they would have skipped 10+ years of research to arrive at the correct conclusion. They had access to this research, it guided their research, and the plane was subsequently developed. But not solely by private enterprise, not even close.
Just FYI, I majored in economics in school with an emphasis in economic history. I’m not just arguing from Wiki resources here.
Anyway, I thought you were flouncing?
I guess I must bow to your amazing and absolutely unbelievable core of absolute knowledge. I had no idea you had such profound wisdom and a degree worthy of such high respect.
“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” -B. Obama
And with that, I’m gone…
Libertarianism is a generally considered to be right-wing, so I’m not sure what your objection is to that. There is left-libertarianism, but it is certainly not as commonplace as right-libertarianism. If you are left-libertarianism, then you really should have been more specific since again libertarianism is far more often to be taken as the right-wing form in modern conversation.
I didn’t attack you at all. I’m not sure where you’re getting that front. I was acknowledging that right-wing people can be intelligent and reasonable, and supposing you were such a person (since again I’m not familiar with your posting history). I can see that assuming you were intelligent and reasonable has offended you, so I take it back.
Ultimately, if you cannot acknowledge that an awful lot of the right-wing media (Crowder, Shapiro, Hannity, PrangerU, Brietbart, Rebel Media, etc.) has gone way off the deep end with outright lies and propaganda, well, I guess there’s nothing else to discuss. It is an unavoidable conclusion to be reached by looking at right-wing media with any kind of critical eye.
There are some good right-wing media outlets left, mainly in the press, but again, an awful lot of hit has gone very extreme and left reality far behind.