Why have conservatives left this message board?

The BBQ Pit
21

Yeah, I didn’t leave the board, I left conservatism. Or probably more accurately, the term conservative doesn’t apply to me anymore.

I think I moved left a little but the window moved right a lot.

Also, I called myself a conservative for years while being on this board (pre-2016 and even a little while after maybe) and it didn’t bother me that I was in the minority. I didn’t act like a jerk so people didn’t attack me.

The board doesn’t drive away conservatives. The board drives away assholes. The problem is that the overlap between the two is getting more and more complete over the years.

22

Is Octo still around?

23

He last posted Mar 27 this year.

24

I used to be pretty conservative (1980s Reagan type), now I’m a mix of centrist+far-left. As the others all said, it’s not about leaving conservatism, it’s about “conservatism” leaving us.

But also, like others pointed out, the board is already 95% liberal, so some conservatives may think it’s just fatiguing to stay around. And there are some official-admin stances on the message board that essentially prohibit a conservative stance on some issues, such as linking to articles that oppose transgender views - even if it’s from the White House itself.

25

Also, related: The more the MAGA types claim the title of “conservative” the more everyone else will avoid the label because they don’t want to be lumped in with MAGA. Or spend all their time explaining "I’m conservative but not like that".

26

I specifically point out I’m a 70s/80s Republican. That is not a conservative today.

27

I’m a 60s Republican. 1860s.

The problem with being a 1980s Republican is that it implies an embrace of supply side economics, deficit spending, and a certain degree of magical thinking. OTOH, there’s a fair case to be made for Nixon Republicanism, minus the personality defects and corruption. But nobody wants to name themselves after a disgraced President.

ETA: GIGO: Yeah but this message board came after Gingrich resigned, mostly, ignoring AOL. I doubt whether there were many opponents of the OTA here. There were a lot of apologetics for the persecution of Bill Clinton: I should have jumped upon their vagueness and circumlocution around certain issues.

ETA2: This board is jam-packed with globalists though. I kid.

28

I’m also talking about this message board, many issues are not taking place in a vacuum, what the leadership of the conservatives are into did (and does) influence a lot of what was/is discussed here.

There is a lot of meta stuff going on, and one should not forget that one factor for conservatives leaving the SDMB has to do with their sources declaring groups like ours as being “fake news”. There are a lot of conservatives in leadership roles that recommend their followers to abandon anything that checks for facts and that fights ignorance.

29

Sounds a bit… underwhelming. Really, don’t see what does not having Gingrich around then or now counters the point. Most Republicans did continue with the slide to ignorance. Over here, I do remember talking about the OTA several times, I never did see a conservative here condemning that move.

30

What are you talking about?

31

I think the rule on scientific racism has stopped a lot of conservatives from saying what they really want.

32

We had open season on scientific racism for years, and most conservative identified posters kept their mouths shut because libertarian leaners don’t like to think of themselves as racist. At least back then.

Speaking generally conservatism began its descent into crackpottery starting with Goldwater’s run in 1964. That was manageable, but since then every ratchet has been downwards. Highlights include Nixon’s Southern Strategy, Reagan’s insistence that tax cuts will pay for themselves and lead to smaller deficits (they didn’t), Gingrich, W’s screwup during the Iraq War and outright lying about his budget plans during the 2000 election, and Trump. I see the inflection point as centering on Newt Gingrich, but there are other candidates.

We didn’t drill down into conservative silence and circumlocution enough.

33

Snowflakes melt under the slightest heat. Why does it have to be more complicated than that?

34

Because what you said is lame and does a disservice to others who wanted to fight ignorance and interact with people online. It’s like saying a racial group is lazy because they are poor. Are you actually using this argument in good faith, or are you being tongue in cheek and a bit of a jerk?

Back in the day I used to interact with conservatives on this board more than anybody else and I did that because I disagreed with them but wanted to understand where they were coming from. I think this came out of being raised in a conservative / libertarian household. My father was friends with David Nolan and was the Libertarian Party treasurer for several years in the early 70s. I cut my teeth on their philosophy and it has had a big effect on my political outlook. My father is now a die hard Democrat for the record; something I have never been.

Anyway, if you look at who I have most interacted with during my 25 years on the dope, it includes Bricker, Sam Stone, and Shodan among others. I remember arguing with Saint Cad when they were more hardcore as a fellow Coloradan because I just could not understand where they were coming from. As a teacher no less! I remember arguments with Scylla that changed my mind. I have pride in memories of shutting down people like Clothahump’s bullshit when it could not be defended. But I did learn a lot from them and I do miss their input even if they only rarely convinced me that their views were correct.

Where this is all going is I want to say that I still keep in touch with a few people on Reddit that used to be used to be conservative dopers, and here is what one had to say to me in the last 6 months when I tried to get them to come back and participate in a debate here because I thought their input would be valuable:

I’m afraid I got tired to being excoriated and bullied on the Dope. I was subject to attacks that I wasn’t permitted to return in kind. I didn’t believe I was moderated fairly, and, frankly, stopped enjoying the experience.

To be honest, I caught some of that and saw their point. They were bullied by the teeming millions (OK, hundreds. Well, maybe teeming twenties) of posters here and did get chastised when they responded in kind more than the teeming crowds just because it was 1 against 20. I, personally, don’t think the mods were being unfair, but more that it was systemic fault of the of how the board operates. Not only that, but it was a self reinforcing failure of the board rules. As the board skewed liberal, people with conservative views seemed more divisive and were checked more often. As they left, the board skewed more liberal.

Personally, given the politics of the board I think conservatives should be welcomed here and in some respect treated with kid gloves. That does not mean ignoring their bullshit, but it does mean giving cutting them slack when they are being ganged up on. I thought this board was better when it was more balanced in the early 2000s. It had more interesting discussions.

35

There was a shortage of actual examples in the previous post. My personal view is that conservatives couldn’t handle my superabundance of awesome. But I don’t have any examples either.

36

There are no actual examples. Ya know how you can tell? On this board, where ‘CITE!’ is our shibboleth, no preemptive examples are ever given.
Up Next: ‘I could give examples but you all would just deny them.’

37

It’s not an argument, it’s an insult. We’re in the Pit so I took off the gloves. Conservatives are idiots with weak beliefs and weak minds. Under no circumstances should they be treated with “kid gloves,” fuck that noise. The only difference between Bricker and a jackwagon like Clothahump was that Bricker had the self-awareness to realize and admit, on a very occasional basis, when he was full of shit (cf. his legendary reversal on gay marriage, when after years of torturously pedantic nonsense he finally realized the emptiness of his position and surrendered). He was otherwise tiresome, dull, and wrong.

38

If they want to fight ignorance and are a conservative, they first need to fight themselves.

Conservatives are factually wrong, and have consistently been factually wrong for centuries at the very least. People dance around that most of the time because it’s “impolite”, but that doesn’t change reality. Conservatives tend to avoid any forum, field of study or profession which doesn’t let them hide from objective reality on the subjects they care about, because they are going to be wrong.

39

I’m a 99er and self-described “conservative-libertarian.” I’m still around. But the incessant and single-cell organism opinions espoused by Der_Trihs and a few others (“All Conservatives are Wrong and Evil and Must Die”) tires me, and I rarely engage in debates here nowadays.

40

My own thoughts is that the mod warnings are unfair, with those who tote the line given passes for their misbehavior, while those who don’t are slapped down hard. I also feel there are posters that use this to ‘play’ with their ideological counterparts knowing they can goad them just enough to get a mod to slap them down. In that way it’s become no longer the open exchange of ideas, but an enforced way of thinking.