Let me be real clear: this message board does NOT need conservatives

With any luck, it will work out as well for @octopus.

I don’t know what you were reading/watching. I was reading NPR, the BBC, and the Washington Post, among others: and I saw that distinction made.

We are in the world of 1984. Which is why the biased media and ideologically motivated so-called scientists not only immediately critiqued the lab leak they also demonized any who would suggest it. It was blasphemous. Just as it was blasphemous to suggest that closing the borders in the early part of the pandemic had utility and it was blasphemous to suggest that looting, arson, and general unmasked (aside from the cosplay uniform) mayhem during a pandemic was a bad idea.

Not only are those ideas unspeakable those who do blaspheme against the Orwellian left are to be ruined by the state and their allies. Even obvious biological realities are forbidden if those realities contradict an ideological agenda. It’s a bizarre secular belief system that has the trappings of a theocracy.

You know, if Octopus genuinely thinks he’s living in a novel, that WOULD explain a bunch.

Those generalized platitudes may sound good in a stoned late-night discussion in a college dorm, but in the real world they are a pile of crap. The bullshit about “discussing alternatives” and “showing evidence that disagrees” is perfectly fine when there is genuine doubt about the facts or subjective judgment involved, but not when hard facts can be and have been established by trustworthy and competent sources. Climate change, about which the incontrovertible facts have constantly been challenged by right-wing lunatics, who have succeeded in politicizing and undermining incontrovertible science of tremendous importance to the future of humanity, is a good example of what I mean.

In this area of facts and knowledge, it’s not hard to find a reliable source of facts about climate change. The underlying sources are the tens of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers that have been published in reputable journals – papers by respected researchers that have a high citation count, published in respected journals with high impact ratings, all of which serve to distinguish them from the small minority of charlatans posing as researchers and pseudo-journals with poor standards. For the layman, the best sources of information are reputable scientific publications that are clearly relying on high-quality science, and for climate change, there is no better source of information than the semi-regular assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are published in the form of summaries targeted to different audience levels, as well as comprehensive discussions, all of them thoroughly cited with the literally thousands of papers that the information is derived from.

And what do we hear from conservative denialists? Much the same as we heard from you – “don’t believe anyone – look, here is some contrary evidence – learn to think for yourself!” Also, don’t forget that scientists are Just In It for the Grant Money™ and the IPCC is part of the UN, an organization devoted to creating World Government™ and destroying western economies! :astonished:

And the “contrary evidence” they present, often in the form of elaborate websites filled with charts and graphs, inevitably turns out to be a pack of lies, and a little digging usually uncovers the fact that these places have received funding from oil and coal companies, the Koch brothers, or a vast network of dark-money funding organizations that hide their real sources of funding. But the lies tend to work, particularly among the scientifically illiterate, because climate science is a complicated field even in its basics, so the call for evaluating the evidence yourself, and then presenting facts in a highly distorted unscientific manner intended to deceive, can be quite effective. The rubes are left with the impression that not only is the science about climate change false, but they’ve been smart enough to figure it out for themselves (despite maybe being high school dropouts) using the amazing “evidence” posted on the website secretly funded by Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers.

And challenging authority just on principle works great, too, especially with Americans who have a pathological distrust of government, and works much better than trying to challenge authority on the facts, especially when the facts are all against you.

And that, by way of one example, is why your argument is bullshit.

The whole interchange of ideas concept is based on the idea that all participants are participating in good faith, and will back down when their argument has been proven incorrect. It doesn’t hold when people will continue to repeat the same debunked arguments, ignore facts, and use disingenuous tactics.

The last time I fully engaged with you, @DemonTree, was on the trans issue. You had no problem moving the goalposts, creating strawmen, throwing out non-sequiturs. At no point did you actually point out where my argument was actually wrong. You just switched to mocking and pretending I said things I didn’t.

You are completely closed to the idea that trans people and trans rights (the same rights you and I enjoy) are not at threat to you as a cisgender woman. As such, it is a waste of time to continue arguing that with you. But we don’t want that shit to go unanswered, lest we look like a transphobic board.

The result is the new rules to try and contain that shit. Because letting people openly say whatever was not useful to the interchange of ideas. It wasn’t serving our purpose of fighting ignorance. We kept it as open as we could, but we shut down a few avenues.

Would I have preferred that not be necessary? Sure. It would have been nice if respectful conversations were possible. But they weren’t.

Right now, the vast majority those who identify as conservatives in general seem to operate in a fact-free, anti-intellectual manner. They engage in disingenuous tactics. They harm the marketplace of ideas by flooding it with sewage. They lack a fact-based reason for any part of their platform or ideology.

If we have fact-based, good faith arguing conservatives, that’s great. I would argue we don’t necessarily need them, but they are nice to have. But the ones who engage in these disingenuous ways add nothing to the board.

I would, of course, prefer they change tactics, rather than leave. But, if they won’t, then their departure would be a net gain for the board, even if it is unfortunate.

And here we see the Preferred Narrative in action. It doesn’t matter that it’s incoherent nonsense with only a passing resemblance to reality; in lieu of an actual fact-based argument octopus will simply just repeat the Narrative over and over again, ignoring any and all evidence to the contrary. Repeating false narratives until they are fully embedded in the audience is a staple of the right-wing media, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to see him trying to do the same.

He’s the living embodiment of proof by assertion.

Maybe get some minor-league conservatives, some developmental prospects for the SDMB’s farm system.

(That farm only has cornfields, I’ve been told.)

Per the OP…

Hmm. I’m a conservative. So this board would be better off without me?

You guys lament the ‘good’ conservatives. Well, they were called the Tea Party. They protested peacefully, and cleaned up after themselves when they left. The response from Democrats and the left on this board was to snigger at them, call them ‘tea baggers’, smear them as deplorable, and cheer when the Obama administration used the IRS against them.

Mitt Romney is one of the good ones you wish Republicans would get behind? THEY DID. But by the time the left and the Democratic smear machine was done with him, he was a bullying, dog-torturing misogynistic monster who kept women in binders. You all swallowed Harry Reid’s lies about his taxes hook line and sinker, along with most of the other lies and smears ginned up against him.

You kmow why you need the right? Because some of us were warning that if you kept it up, the Republicans would come back with someone you REALLY don’t like. Romney was a gentlemen who was ‘above the fray’ and refused to respond to the scurrilous attacks against him, making Republicans even angrier.

When Harry Reid was asked if he regretted lying about Romney’s taxes he smiled and said, “We won, didn’t we?” Sure enough. And antics like that set the stage for what came next.

I said at the time that if you are going to treat Romney as if he’s a monster, don’t be surprised if Republicans nominate a real one next time.

Enter Donald Trump. Do you know the most common reason Republicans liked him? Two words: “He fights.” they were sick and tired of being gamed and kicked by Democrats, and wanted someone who gave as good as he gets. The shitty treatment of Romney led directly to Trump.

It’s a mystery to me how you thought you could keep smearing half the country and not have them eventually respond in a way you might not like. And you are still doing it, and it’s going to get worse.

Democrats talking to themselves in bubbles is how you get 'leaders" like AOC who represents a point of view shared by less than 20% of the country. The more she and others like her become the face of the Democrats, the more seats you will lose in the House and Senate. And unfortunately for you, your ‘moderate’ leadership is old and won’t be around much longer. You’ve all convinced yourselves to take a hard turn to the left, and you are not going to be happy with the result. You’re now shedding minority voters, who you thought were your demographic ticket to a permanent ruling majority. You’ve lost much of the non-union working class, and you may lose the non-public unions as well if you keep going in this direction.

Maybe if you listened a little more to the other side you wouldn’t keep making category errors, misunderstanding your opposition and supporting policies that are anathema to the right and to independents you need to win…

I know you like to avoid responsibility and play martyrdom, but this post–it’s a masterclass in the art form.

“Yeah, I farted. Keep it up and I’ll pull down my pants and shit all over the floor.”

If you’re taking a poll, I’m ok with it.

What a dick move: first you’re dismissive, then you denigrate his point of view while calling him imperceptive. Wow. Definitely more “loser” than “saint” there.

I didn’t even mention myself. I was talking about the bubble here that accepts at face value every piece of glurge that comes out a Democrat’s mouth, while assuming everything a Republican says is a lie or stupid.

Hey, remember when Trump ordered the police to clear Lafayette Park so he could do a photo-op? That was bullshit. How about the hero worship for Michael Avennatti? Why, he was Presidential material, doncha know. He’s in jail for extortion.

^ Look everybody! Guess who’s a victim?

I was politely saying that my experience has been different than what MM described, not dismissing his/her experience. And saying that we all (including me) have our blind spots.

That’s hardly controversial, wouldn’t you say?

Whereas the idea that we have “affirmative action” for conservatives, well, I don’t see it.

But points for the witty wordplay. Amazing. I’ve never heard that before.

You sure didn’t. Instead, you laid the blames for Republican extremism on, wait for it, the left. “YOU MADE US DO THIS!!!” the plaintive cry goes.

The point you are spectacularly missing is that I was not saying anyone was in fact a fascist. I described a style of thinking as fascist and said someone was being fascististic, and said I was being hyperbolic.

You then proceeded to point out that the OP’s style of thinking was an element of fascism (IMHO a substantial element). Which was my point to begin with and why I pointed out your comment was self-defeating. The reason you don’t see that your comment was self-defeating is your pig-headed determination to fail to understand I was being hyperbolic not literal, and that I wasn’t saying the OP was a fascist as such.

And this is why the pit is useless for actual debate. When people don’t have an answer they can just put on their clown nose and sneer.