# Terr and BrainGlutton **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 3, 2015, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406 "2015-10-03T20:59:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/421 "2015-10-08T17:11:54Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Would this be a prerequisite for a “Conservative Moderator”? > What views must a moderator have to qualify as a conservative in your opinion? No single view is dispositive. I myself am anti-death penalty, a position that places me at odds with most conservatives. But I provided a list of issues in post 344 that, taken in the aggregate, seem to me to paint a fair picture. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/422 "2015-10-08T17:19:09Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No single view is dispositive. I myself am anti-death penalty, a position that places me at odds with most conservatives. But I provided a list of issues in post 344 that, taken in the aggregate, seem to me to paint a fair picture. Here are the issues: _1. one’s position on the ACA, 2. abortion, 3. gun control, 4. control of government over individual enterprise, 5. federalism, 6. textualism/original intent, 7. military spending, 8. taxation, 9. environmental issues, and 10. the intersection of religion in the public sphere_ What’s the “conservative” position on 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10? It’s not 100% obvious to me what the answer to that is. ---
**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:** [October 8, 2015, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/423 "2015-10-08T17:27:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No single view is dispositive. I myself am anti-death penalty, a position that places me at odds with most conservatives. But I provided a list of issues in post 344 that, taken in the aggregate, seem to me to paint a fair picture. Yep, that is certainly is a list of subjects: > [@Bricker](#): > > I’d say that key issues in the United States today that might be used as a benchmark would be one’s position on the ACA, abortion, gun control, control of government over individual enterprise, federalism, textualism/original intent, military spending, taxation, environmental issues, and the intersection of religion in the public sphere. Obviously none of those are themselves binary, but for purposes of this discussion I think there are reasonably “conservative” answers to all and reasonably “liberal” answers to all. But you stopped just a wee bit short of actually giving us what you think is the “reasonably conservative” response to any of them. Pretty much everyone thinks that their own personal opinion is reasonable-just saying that the answers are “reasonable” doesn’t tell us anything. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/424 "2015-10-08T17:30:47Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Which would be more desirable to you: That they let their political persuasions effect how they moderate, creating a need for **Bricker’s** “token mods”, or that they leave their personal politics to the side when they do their job? I would prefer that they leave aside their personal politics. Whic IME, by and large they do, with some exceptions noted above. Since the position as expressed in the thread is that diversity is a worthwhile goal to pursue, it must be the opinion of the mods that diversity would add something. Well and good - the question remains why political diversity is the only kind that doesn’t add anything. Racial diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Gender diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Religious diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Political diversity, however, is bad. Because…? Regards, Shodan ---
**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:** [October 8, 2015, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/425 "2015-10-08T17:38:31Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Racial diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Gender diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Religious diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Political diversity, however, is bad. Because…? Consistency is good. So far, it doesn’t seem like they’ve given a damn about a moderator’s gender, race or religion, so why should politics be the _exception_? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/426 "2015-10-08T17:39:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, I agree that gun threads are the most balanced here – still the majority leans left, but there is a solid core of counterargument to be had. > > What fraction of regular posters here would you guess are pro-life? Martin Sheen is strongly pro-life. Does that make him conservative? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/427 "2015-10-08T18:04:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > My wife and and play a variant of this game all the time: … This game is called \*Being a Husband \*in my house. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/428 "2015-10-08T18:06:41Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Martin Sheen is strongly pro-life. Does that make him conservative? Creating Charlie should have cured him of that. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/429 "2015-10-08T18:11:24Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > This game is called \*Being a Husband \*in my house. Mine too. You people do realize that you are putting more effort and litmus tests for a Moderator than Congress does for a Supreme Court nominee, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/430 "2015-10-08T18:11:47Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > By selecting individual posts that say things like that, you’re very likely to end up with confirmation bias. That’s why I’m not putting opinions of political leanings based on posts up on the list. > > Before we can even discuss whether our political leanings are influencing our moderation, we have to determine if there really is an overall political leaning, and not just the effects of confirmation bias going on here. But what is a fair way to determine a person’s overall political leaning? Self identification? I consider myself a moderate, but conservatives would probably call me a strong liberal on social issues and an ambiguous ambivalent on economic issues. I lean more toward government oversight than libertarian freedom from such oversight. Is it fair to call me a moderate or am I a liberal, and most importantly, who gets to decide? If you run a list of people putting a label on themselves, that’s one means, but it’s not the only means to tell. Getting a sense of their positions from a number of topics, not any one topic, is reasonable, but that kind of data crunching is going to be prohibitive. Which leaves us with no good method. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Just trying to keep things tidy. In terms of actual discussion, returning to the tendencies of the moderators, those are mostly irrelevant. Political talk happens largely in GD, Elections, and the Pit. So it’s really only those moderators whose political leanings ought to be under scrutiny (assuming they ought to be at all). But all moderators contribute to the discussions about significant events, like banning. They also review each other’s actions, if **Colibri** is to be believed (and why wouldn’t we?). So the overall makeup of the board is important because any inherent unconscious bias comes when decisions are made from a perspective of “that’s just stupid” rather than someone seeing the value in that opinion. At least that’s the argument for why different perspectives matter. > [@Merneith](#): > > Yes, of course. You think conservatives should be appointed moderators so that they can start protecting conservative posters. I just want to state clearly that this is your end game. > > You’re not having a hypothetical discussion. You actually want moderators to be chosen to favor your conservative political bent. That’s what you’re actually arguing for. Again, that’s misstating the intent. If different perspectives matter to ensure there isn’t an unintentional bias, then they matter on political issues too. If different political perspectives don’t matter, then different demographic perspectives don’t matter, and there’s no need to think if any moderators are gay, or Jewish, or anything else. > [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, that’s a somewhat accurate statement. I believe that conservatives get the short end of the stick here, and I believe one method to reverse that inequity would be more conservative moderators. I say “somewhat” because I think that “that’s what you actually arguing for” is not a fair summary. I am actually arguing for the existence of the inequitable treatment; the recruitment of a more politically balanced moderation staff is one possible cure and I am not arguing for it specifically. Okay, but I gave a specific list of 4 items, and am told all 4 are already in place. If you’re not arguing specifically for adding more conservative moderators, what do you suggest? Is there any other way to eliminate this systemic bias you believe is in place, but can’t provide any strong evidence to support? > [@Lobohan](#): > > That had a plaintive quality to it, I thought. So you don’t especially care, you’re not complaining, you’re just notifying that this injustice is happening. This was not evident from your previous posts. > > Maybe you should start a #conservativepostersmatter movement. Why are you trying to make this thread about **Bricker** and his motives rather than the original topic (imbalance in the moderation of **Terr** vs **BrainGlutton** ) or the follow on topic (the board moderators have an inherent bias against conservatives)? What value is added by your last comment? > [@Green\_Bean](#): > > \*\*BigT \*\*telling you how to do your job. Totally unnecessary remark, adds nothing to the conversation, and only makes you look bad. This seems to be a pattern with you - snarking about **BigT** in ATMB. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Here are the issues: > > _1. one’s position on the ACA, 2. abortion, 3. gun control, 4. control of government over individual enterprise, 5. federalism, 6. textualism/original intent, 7. military spending, 8. taxation, 9. environmental issues, and 10. the intersection of religion in the public sphere_ > > What’s the “conservative” position on 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10? > > It’s not 100% obvious to me what the answer to that is. 1. Conservatives want less government control over individual enterprise. They want less regulation, lower taxation, fewer restrictions. They oppose anything that constrains individual enterprise, like higher minimum wage, a strong EPA, etc. 2. Conservatives want the Federal government restricted to the Constitution, not the powers that it has grown to have. Like the Department of Education directing schools to all meet the same standards and teach the same curriculums. The EPA once again is here. 3. This is a topic about the Constitution and interpretation. I’m not certain on this one, because I don’t know this topic. 4. The standard Conservative position is a strong military, so military spending should be fairly high to ensure we have a large military with the top technology and weapons. We should be a force that makes our allies quiver in fear and our enemies dead. 5. Conservatives tend to feel that there shouldn’t be government regulation and oversight over the environment. Stop regulating businesses to death. That tends to mean the environment gets shafted. And drilled, and fracked. (Why do all the descriptions for exploiting the environment sound like euphamisms for sex?) 6. Conservatives want to protect Christian privilege. They want Christians to be able to insert their beliefs and practices into all aspects of public interaction. Refusal to accept same sex marriage, prayer to start government meetings and school activities, Ten Commandment displays in court rooms, etc. Just because I don’t identify as conservative doesn’t make it hard to know those positions. Only one of them was difficult, because I don’t follow those discussions. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/431 "2015-10-08T18:13:28Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I’ve never doubted since I started posting here (as an extreme centrist) that this board is left-leaning, and that right-leaning posters (especially those who are vociferous and have annoying posting habits) get slammed regularly in threads. That’s the way it’s always rolled around here, and you deal with it (hopefully, without wasting a lot of time up on the cross). > > Moderators have generally seemed, well, more moderate about things, given their sacred calling :dubious: and prone to zap unrepentant arse-pains of whatever political persuasion. In other words, I don’t have the perception that conservative posters are more likely to be suspended/banned than liberal ones. > > It would be nice if those with strongly held beliefs (wherever they fall on the spectrum) could refrain from the assumption that they possess an exalted moral sense and that their opponents must therefore be satanic/racist/Bush-like. I’m resigned to the extreme unlikeliness of that outcome. ☹ I fully endorse this post. I’ve never noticed a bias in moderators or moderation of this board except, perhaps, that old timers to the board seem to be given VERY slightly more slack than newbies. Politically, many of the mods are more left leaning then, well, I am, but I’ve never noticed that affecting their moderation one bit, and to me the quality of the mods on this board are over all very good. When I’ve been modded in the past it was because I was being an asshole, not because of my political leanings. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/432 "2015-10-08T18:15:46Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Since the position as expressed in the thread is that diversity is a worthwhile goal to pursue, it must be the opinion of the mods that diversity would add something. Well and good - the question remains why political diversity is the only kind that doesn’t add anything. > > Racial diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Gender diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Religious diversity is good, because it brings a different point of view. Political diversity, however, is bad. Because…? I don’t believe that anyone in this thread has argued that political diversity is bad. I don’t believe anyone has argued against letting conservatives be moderators. They have, in fact, stated that they have given requests to conservatives and been rejected. What is being argued against in this thread is that the moderators are allowing their personal politics to affect their moderating, and that the staff is entirely or overwhelmingly or liberal. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/433 "2015-10-08T18:24:04Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > You people do realize that you are putting more effort and litmus tests for a Moderator than Congress does for a Supreme Court nominee, don’t you? But more is expected of the moderators here so that makes sense! ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/434 "2015-10-08T18:40:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Your understanding of my position is flawed … > > … This case is analogous. I certainly oppose affirmative action, defining it as the hiring of minorities to redress wrongs or counter infirmities suffered by those minorities. But I encourage the hiring of specific minorities when the job function is the intended beneficiary. If you want to call that affirmative action as well, that’s fine. > > And to rebut any inference that this is a position crafted to support my current discussions here in this thread, please note that the linked thread dates from six years ago. I don’t believe my understanding is flawed. Your current example seems to me to be entirely pointless: you say you have no problem with “affirmative action” in cases where a black man (if we’re talking about AA for racial issues) is, one way or another, the only possible candidate who can fulfill the role. Congratulations, but that isn’t AA. That’s called “filling the job with the only possible candidate who can do it”. It gains you exactly zero points for either promoting racial equality or promoting a sound argument. Let me highlight the argument that you say you disagree with. The non-example you gave dates back six years, you say. I can give you an example that dates back almost exactly ten years, wherein you said, in describing AA as it’s generally understood – an effort to correct racial inequities by advantaging blacks – and I quote exactly: _Affirmative action program such as this discriminate on the basis of race. As such, they should be illegal._ I hesitate to provide a link unless someone demands that I do so as it’s in the Pit and that particular post contains some Very Bad Words (said by you) and it really is quite honestly unfair to dredge up such a Pit post in the present context, except insofar as you presumably meant what you said in the quoted text. Not trying to give you a hard time, **Bricker** , honestly, as I respect the kinds of literate and intelligent posts that you make. I’m just trying to point out an apparently glaring inconsistency between you on one hand objecting to meddling by official powers in private institutions’ rights to select candidates on the basis of merit in order to balance racial inequities, which you deem “discrimination” and “illegal”, and then on the other hand demanding that the SDMB powers meddle in the process of selecting mod candidates on the basis of merit in order to balance your perceived political inequities. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Would this be a prerequisite for a “Conservative Moderator”? > What views must a moderator have to qualify as a conservative in your opinion? It’s an interesting point because at least some number of major conservative views are not inherently political at all, but for various reasons of historical accident have come to be associated with them – like denial of climate change, a skeptical attitude to evolution, the claim of absolute knowledge – transcending that of medical science and philosophy – of exactly when human life begins, a peculiar view of what Planned Parenthood actually does, and lots of other issues that can pretty much be resolved by looking up the facts in an encyclopedia or a newspaper, and are not a matter of values and beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/435 "2015-10-08T18:46:52Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > What is being argued against in this thread is that the moderators are allowing their personal politics to affect their moderating It’s virtually inconceivable that personal politics would not affect moderating, and those who protest the notion are probably vastly overestimating their own abilities. Though IMO, the primary impact is not “I don’t like this guy because of his politics so I’m going to sock it to him”. It’s more that a sharply worded statement or forcefully argued position is more likely to be judged as “jerkish” and less as factual/relevant if it’s seen as a highly opinionated departure from reasoned rational thought than if it’s not, and that judgment is heavily colored by one’s own opinion on the subject. Most people tend to think their own opinions are what’s reasonable and rational, and judge other opinions as being illogical and foolish by the extent to which they vary from that center point. (Along the same lines, to think of themselves as more-or-less moderate and judge others as extremists by the length of the disatance between that person’s positions and their own.) So if you’re on the left (in terms of the country as a whole) you might judge an extreme leftist (again, in terms of the country) as being a bit too far to the left but still reasonable, and a centrist as being too far to the right but still reasonable, but a true right-winger as being crazy (as is shown repeatedly on this MB). I don’t see any way around this. [This is besides for the poster-driven dynamic, in which any member of a minority viewpoint who unapologetically advocates for his viewpoint will inevitably get into a whole lot more personal slugfests than a parallel member of the majority viewpoint, and will thus be perceived as more of a problem case who needs to be kept on a short leash.] ---
**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:** [October 8, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/436 "2015-10-08T18:54:01Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I don’t see any way around this. And yet it seems to happen, because if this were that great a problem y’all would have no problem showing declared liberal mods doing this to conservative posters, and vice-versa. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/437 "2015-10-08T18:54:53Z")
It’s far too subjective. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/438 "2015-10-08T18:56:19Z")
If there is inherent bias affecting moderation decisions, one way to measure it would be to examine disagreements between moderators on particular incidents. If a more conservative moderator is consistently disagreeing with more liberal moderators, and there’s a correlation to the politics of the poster in question, that’s certainly indicative of bias on one or both sides. I’m not going to put the mods on the spot and ask if this has happened, but it’s worth watching for this if you are interested in identifying any bias that might exist. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/439 "2015-10-08T18:59:05Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > I’m not going to put the mods on the spot and ask if this has happened, but it’s worth watching for this if you are interested in identifying any bias that might exist. Good luck “watching for this”. Ringside seats are not available. Perhaps James O’Keefe will sneak in an undercover mod and expose something, but until then … ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406/440 "2015-10-08T19:04:43Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t believe my understanding is flawed. Your current example seems to me to be entirely pointless: you say you have no problem with “affirmative action” in cases where a black man (if we’re talking about AA for racial issues) is, one way or another, the only possible candidate who can fulfill the role. Congratulations, but that isn’t AA. That’s called “filling the job with the only possible candidate who can do it”. It gains you exactly zero points for either promoting racial equality or promoting a sound argument. Do you not comprehend any difference between the following: A: “We should get more conservative mods, because conservative mods need these kinds of opportunities and haven’t had them on this board due to liberal bias.” B: “We should get more conservative mods because having conservative mods would lessen the instances of slanted moderation in favor of liberal posters.” See the difference there? Which one am I doing here? Which one was I doing in 2009? And which one was I arguing against in what Pit post you found? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terr-and-brainglutton/733406.md?page=23)