# Right Wing message boards and my 8 year journey into and hopefully out of it **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 19, 2023, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791 "2023-06-19T21:01:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/21 "2023-06-20T01:23:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ve always felt there are two types of people; people who think and people who believe. This seems very profound to me at this moment. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/22 "2023-06-20T02:50:13Z")
Interesting thread. I don’t doubt that the right wing board has loads of obnoxious and immoral posts. And there are a lot fewer here. But I also see fat-shaming and sexist posts here concerning the most disliked public figures. Nick Kristoff had a good-to-me column on this sort of thing yesterday: > **[Opinion: Democrats should beware feeling righteous in the Trump era |...](https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2023/jun/19/opinion-democrats-should-beware-feeling-righteous/)** > > It was easy for my generation of baby boomer liberals to be humble, because we had much to be humble about. > [@](#): > > My guess is that we liberals will continue to do silly things from time to time and that our silliness will be directly proportional to our smugness. If conservatives won’t let us earn humility the traditional way — by periodically discovering we’re the stupidest people in the room — then we’ll have to sharpen our ears for a Greek chorus warning us of the risk of our own fallibility in a complex world. > > Otherwise, the whole room gets stupider and stupider. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/23 "2023-06-20T02:58:02Z")
Some good posts in this thread, several of which have reminded me of Alan Jacobs’ book [_How To Think_](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34050965-how-to-think). > [@](#): > > Relatively few people want to think. Thinking troubles us; thinking tires us. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits; thinking can complicate our lives; thinking can set us at odds, or at least complicate our relationships, with those we admire or love or follow. > [@](#): > > Why would people ever think, when thinking deprives them of “the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved”—especially in an online environment where the social approval of one’s attitudes is so much easier to acquire, in the currency of likes, faves, followers, and friends? > [@](#): > > People invested in not knowing, not thinking about, certain things in order to have “the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved” will be ecstatic when their instinct for consensus is gratified—and wrathful when it is thwarted. (Social bonding is cemented by shared emotion, shared emotion generates social bonding. It’s a feedback loop from which reflection is excluded.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/24 "2023-06-20T03:30:42Z")
Believing rather than thinking is ingrained in us. As children we are taught to accept things told to us by authority figures (parents, clergy, teachers) as true even when we don’t understand them. It’s easy to carry this habit into adulthood; just choose an authority figure and accept what they tell you as truth. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/25 "2023-06-20T03:34:05Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > But I also see fat-shaming and sexist posts here concerning the most disliked public figures. Bears repeating. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/26 "2023-06-20T03:59:23Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > But I also see fat-shaming and sexist posts here concerning the most disliked public figures. I fully grant this, and it even happens outside the relaxed norms of the pit. But I feel that overall, this board is _at worst_ a “three steps forward, two steps back” when it comes to treating people on and off board as humans first, and failures second. We stagger forward, when others would have us run, and a few conservatives (in traditional, rather than political definition) would have us stay ever unchanging. And, as a whole (plenty of individual exceptions notwithstanding) the Democrats are similar. Staggering, with many, _many_ missteps to a more equitable future. Often, granted, smugly superior while ignoring the glaring assumptions in their agenda and plans, but at least making an effort. The Republican party, especially their rightmost wing, has largely abandoned looking to the future, and instead demand that we return to some glorified, literally mythical past and are willing to demand and use violence to get it. So I’ll take smug, almost certainly overconfident walk into the future, rather than a forced march into a bitter, unequal past at gunpoint. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/27 "2023-06-20T04:13:24Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Some good posts in this thread … Many good posts in this thread, actually. Like the OP, I lurk at a right-wing message board. I am a registered member, but I post rarely, which could be why I don’t get into much trouble or take much flak there. My posts tend to be of the “Could you cite a source for your assertion, please?” With the exception of quasi-news sources such as Brietbart, OAN, Newsmax, and Gateway Pundit, sources tend to be of the independent vlogger on YouTube type, who heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy, and so on. Sources are never NYT or WaPo or NBC or BBC or the like; or in other words, sources that that might disagree with their beliefs. I do what I can in correcting their misinformation on Canada and Canadians (one of their favourite targets). No, if you’re having a heart attack, you won’t have to wait six months until you see a physician because of so-called socialized medicine; Justin Trudeau did not make me wear a mask to the corner store during Covid nor is he Fidel Castro’s son; and we cannot be jailed under hate speech laws just for saying “I hate \_\_\_\_\_.” Fill in the blank with your favourite group: Blacks, Mexicans, immigrants, gays, lesbians, trans people, Jews, Muslims, high school students, cyclists on public roads, people who drive jacked-up pickup trucks; it doesn’t matter because Canadians can be arrested for simply saying it to the guy on the next barstool. Canada needs a First Amendment! As I mentioned, I don’t get involved much–just this side of nothing but lurking, really–but I do read it pretty much daily. And what comes through are two things: change and fear. Might as well combine them, because when you get right down to it, they fear change. They really do think that by returning to the (to them) idyllic 1950s, and progressing no further, is the way to make America great again. Like I said, many good points so far. I’ve only just scratched the surface of what it’s like over there in this message. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/28 "2023-06-20T04:28:16Z")
Well, that was like his opinion, dude! The reality was that in the last election there was also a lot of fairness and anti gerrymandering efforts coming from liberals that allowed Republicans in states like New York to make gains, when in many other places the expected red wave failed to materialize. It is also telling that the maker of that article failed to notice that very few Democrats did go for the “defund the police” slogan, those were mostly activists and Democrats like Biden did not agree with that slogan. The real lesson to me is that Nicholas Kristof is falling for the fallacy of equivalency. In reality, what I have seen is that other sites that do fact checking for a living are nowadays being accused of being liberal propaganda. Now, one should wonder why that is the case with those accusers from right wing message boards. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/29 "2023-06-20T04:37:19Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Seen this a lot in various venues online. Part of it is that the RW hardliners will be _committed_ to taking over the discussion space and will be aggressive about it. They are using the [paradox of tolerance](https://www.boredpanda.com/bar-bartender-nazi-punk-iamragesparkle/) as a weapon. For all the peculiarities of moderation here, I’m glad it doesn’t allow that to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/30 "2023-06-20T04:51:04Z")
OP: Do you remember ICQ? I made the mistake of trying to explain something scientifically on one of the channels there. Those people, like the ones you encountered, think _science_, _scientist_, and _evidence_ are all insults and they use it that way. They do this to be dismissive and condescending. They care nothing about truth, just what they want to believe. I checked out of their immediately and never returned. How you managed eight years is beyond my ken. ---
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/31 "2023-06-20T13:59:18Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The real lesson to me is that Nicholas Kristof is falling for the fallacy of equivalency. I don’t think Kristof is making an equivalency argument. He’s saying, I think, that just because the Republican Party and the right-wing in general has gone crazy, it doesn’t mean that everything Democrats do is wonderful. I think the issue is the Democrats don’t have a healthy counter-weight in today’s US political world. We’re trying to govern this country with almost no help whatsoever from the right, because the right-wing is sick. And without a healthy counterweight, it’s easier for us to overlook our own faults. That’s not an equivalency argument. It’s a warning to the sane to have some humility. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/32 "2023-06-20T14:45:33Z")
> [@survinga](#): > > That’s not an equivalency argument. It’s a warning to the sane to have some humility. I still don’t agree, this is the time to be more daring, it is the humility, and the guys like Kristoff demanding it, that give us what we are seeing today. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/33 "2023-06-20T14:58:56Z")
> [@survinga](#): > > But I will say that a lot of right-wing sites are buried inside college football websites. That’s interesting because I often think of sports analogies when I look at American politics. People cheer for “their team”. No matter what. You’re sitting in the stands wearing your team jersey and cheering on your team with a whole section of people wearing the same jersey cheering the same cheers. As a human monkey, it is very comforting to be in a protective group like that. What puzzles me is: If you had a favorite team, and they lost the championship. Definitively lost. And the coach denied they lost. And some fans went to the league’s headquarters and tried to burn it down and hang the commissioner to prove they won. And some other fans put together lawsuits to “prove” they won. Which were all thrown out of court. And the coach kept going on and on about how they really won (years ago). Would you still be fan? Or would you find all this whining and looking back and crying to be rather pathetic? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/34 "2023-06-20T15:19:11Z")
Ask Penn State Joe Paterno fans ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/35 "2023-06-20T15:19:29Z")
Would I, the reader, or could I easily imagine someone else? The Roanoake Republicans are one point away from winning the World Superbowl Series Championship. At the last fraction of a second, the ball hits the ground, right on the line (at least, that’s what it looks like). The refumpire calls it “out,” but star athlete Mitch McCumble swears that it was “in.” The coach, who was on the sidelines, swears it was “in.” (And of course a lot of money and prestige is on the line.) This is repeated endlessly on FoxSPN, which never shows the camera footage. Coach Thump, who was fired after the loss, makes a career out of lying about the bad call. In short, I can see the sports world embracing this as much as anybody. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/36 "2023-06-20T15:25:55Z")
Like the OP, I also would post to a a right wing board. For similar reasons, the belief that point out the holes in their arguments, I might get some to see the light, so to say. I couldn’t make it 8 years, however. I didn’t make it 3. I gave it up 4 or 5 months ago when I saw that I was just entertaining them. I realized that if they didn’t have any rational rebuttal to their nonsense, they would begin to attack each other. So, my posting there was making their voices stronger. If I posted about how Jordan Neely (NY citizen who was choked to death by Marine Daniel Penny) wasn’t doing anything that justified him being physically assaulted, let alone murdered, they would jump all over me, which allowed them to further debase Neely far more than if I had not posted. In the absence of such postings, they would attack each other over the question whether or not it was legal to shoot someone who knocked on your door at 8 O’clock at night. Of course, for some it would depend on whether or not the person doing the knocking was white or not, but for others, it didn’t matter. All sorts of insults would then ensue. Insults to the football team represented by the board’s host weren’t even off limits (well, those might get the poster banned for a day or three). So, I gave it up. I realized these people were not ignorant, they were just plain stupid or both stupid and hateful. Like MTG’s staff, they didn’t want to be educated, they wanted to be entertained, and tearing someone else down is the only entertainment that works for them. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/37 "2023-06-20T15:40:36Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > … > If you had a favorite team, and they lost the championship. Definitively lost. And the coach denied they lost. And some fans went to the league’s headquarters and tried to burn it down and hang the commissioner to prove they won. And some other fans put together lawsuits to “prove” they won. Which were all thrown out of court. And the coach kept going on and on about how they really won (years ago). Would you still be fan? Or would you find all this whining and looking back and crying to be rather pathetic? Having sat in stands with them, yeah, they would still be a fan. Most of them might not rant and rave about how they lost undeservedly. Some of them would, but none of them would give up their season tickets. And, when the crowd yelled “GO TEAM!” they would all join in. I tried posting to their board once that making sports analogies with politics misses the point of politics entirely. In sports, the goal is to demonstrate that you (or your team) is superior. In politics, the goal is to achieve the most favorable outcome going forward, regardless who “wins”. ---
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/38 "2023-06-20T16:50:16Z")
> [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](#): > > I gave it up 4 or 5 months ago when I saw that I was just entertaining them. This! I think I was trying to have a conversation about issues, about policy, about things that our government need to do or stop doing, in order to move the country forward. They, OTOH, were having a staged play, and I was there for their comic relief. My presence was just giving them oxygen for their attacks. I’m not doing it anymore. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/39 "2023-06-20T20:30:50Z")
Im wondering, what do the rightists _disagree_ with each other on? - what should the righteous liberal troll innocently drop in to discussions? As z ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2023, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791/40 "2023-06-20T20:34:41Z")
It is not so much of disagreeing with each other as it is one-upping each other as who has the most hatred, who would supposedly overreact the most to (mostly imaginary) situations etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wing-message-boards-and-my-8-year-journey-into-and-hopefully-out-of-it/985791.md?page=3)