Are they being silenced for their viewpoints, or for the way they’ve expressed them?
Both, IMO.
We do still have that “fighting ignorance” banner, don’t we? That counts. 
I believe they’ll be happy with “over” in regards to how far. But they’d also like our pants pulled down, if we wouldn’t mind.
I’ve been here over 20 years, and few OPs have caused me as much anger as this one.
Exactly whose ignorance is to be fought, someone else’s or your own?
I agree, and BTW it remains an assholish thing and a true hive mind thing to use “woke” as a slur. As smarter people than I pointed before, it is helpful now to identify the assholes who are conservative when they casually use it to dismiss others.
Bingo
This seems to me to very much tie in to biblical warnings, the elect (religious right ) are deceived into worshiping evil, even putting up a idol of Gold of Trump during the convention. Instead of love for others that Jesus taught and trying to not spread COVID, they chose to be messengers of death by spreading a deadly disease through anti-vax and anti mask and in many cases encouraging others to do likewise.
They typically rally around a single point that they are so sure must be God’s will, anti-abortion, that they allow any and all atrocities in that name (the name of anti-abortion). (Though hating others such as LGTBQ also serve as a rally point for them, yes hate is their god.) They allow evil to rule, because of a subject they don’t understand from a prayerful and biblical perspective. They have become pastor-christians, listening unquestionably to what the preacher says instead of getting into the Word themselves directly with God and thus has been lead astray. These people don’t put Christ first, but they are so darn sure that it must be God’s will, that they allow all sorts of evils. They are so sure they are correct on this single issue that they can’t even question the company it keeps and can’t discern the hearts as they quenched the fire of the Holy Spirt within them and have turned to demons telling lies.
It has been ever thus for some people from all over the political spectrum - they are called “fuckwits” and just need to be coped with. Setting the rules by reference to the fuckwits on a messageboard is like setting laws by reference to the need to catch pedophiles and terrorists - that’s how it starts, but not how it ends.
I’ve been here the same duration. It wasn’t about being righteous progressives, it was about being contentious contrarians. Some amount of posters will always be willing to compromise the former to preserve the latter.
I agree that the problem isn’t anyone’s political stance; it’s their fuckwittery. But there’s only one current contingent of “fuckwits” who whine about persecution even as they’re given an extra-long leash for their fuckwittery. Most of the other fuckwits live and die on this board on their own fuckwitted merits and demerits.
It doesn’t identify the assholes who are conservatives; it identifies the conservatives who are assholes.
I was thinking, but missed clarifying, that there are also several moderates that fell (and continue to fall) for that hive talking point of the right wing.
I am a left leaning NZer, a country that is well and truly left of the US. That makes me well left of many of you here. That said, I whole heartedly agree with @Princhester. Viewpoints argued in good faith should be welcomed and debated appropriately.
What this board needs is vibrant conversation, not a bunch of people sitting around a table agreeing with each other.
I’ve been on the record of taking the OP’s feet to the coals for using wide brushes before, but this time he added this important bit that you and @Princhester missed about what conservatives he was talking about:
So, not all conservatives. Although, one could point that the title of the thread needed some work. Also; one has to point out that even in real life out there in the US, many conservatives are not only carrying, but embracing the idiot ball too much nowadays. It is not only in a message board like this one where one needs to hear good arguments from conservatives, but that smarter conservatives are also mostly missing where they should count.
I didn’t miss anything. I am inherently distrustful of “hiveminds” for the truth or otherwise because they tend to struggle to maintain objectivity about whether those who disagree with them are “anti-intellectual” or “undermining good faith discussion”.
I have lost track of what I’m allowed to say in the pit so I will be indirect - there is at least one right wing poster around here - who may or may not be one of those on the OP’s mind - who is in my view a prime grade, A class, internationally accredited turd with first class honours. Shrug. We all know what they are like. Walk around them or wash them off the sole of your shoe and disinfect it afterward. It’s deeply unpleasant; but interesting places tend to have their downsides.
You are then missing that I mentioned that I took the OP to task before, what you need to take into account too is that currently, most conservatives in the USA are what you are worrying about here. The point is that considering the current state of affairs, there would be little difference from a board that looks for fact checking to ours, it would look very unfair to many conservatives who think that their extreme conservative ideas are more mainstream or accurate when they are not.
The only bit of the OP that I agree with is this
But that is not something that only “conservatives” do, it is bad faith behaviour that is exhibited by people of all political stripes and it should be called out when it appears and not merely assumed on the basis of someone’s political leanings.
I don’t want a forum that guarantees agreement or a hive mind. What the hell is the point of that? where is the attraction? I want people to make challenging comments, contentious points, express non-orthodox views that are in direct opposition to me and to see how well such ideas stand up to explanation and analysis.
And why? John Stuart Mill said it best.
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them…he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form
Can’t speak for others, but I have done it. Many, many, many times before.
The problem IMHO is that, like you, many are hyperbolically missing that there was a lot of that path taken before in the past. Only to see the same discredited bull brought into discussions in a seemingly new package. Even the “look at the evidence we posted before” is ignored with gusto.
Eventually one has to realize that the problem is with the ones who are not only carrying ignorance, but that they embrace it too.
none of that is relevant only to people on one side of the political spectrum though is it?