User's avatar
тна Return to thread
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Feb 14, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Jeff Cunningham's avatar

This is because it's not a contact sport. If people talked in person like they do on the Internet there would be a lot of punched and slapped faces.

Expand full comment
Mar Ryan's avatar

I think about this often. If we were face-to-face, and we could actually spend time getting to know someone, hearing their tones and inflections, allowing them to explain moreтАж. On social media there are тАЬno consequencesтАЭтАж except for spreading hate and more misunderstanding. If we had to sit and face one another, would we come to understanding or at least be able to agree to disagree?

Expand full comment
Steve's avatar

1. Ya know thee is a Reason Why in Congress members say "The Right Honorable" "My Fiend". Dueling was Not unheard of.

2. I was an early member of Free Republic.com (May of 98). Thee was a member I met IRL Online think George Patton and Genghis Khan on steroids. In real life, nicest even tempered guy you'd want to meet.

Expand full comment
JD Free's avatar

тАЬAnd how had the conversation devolved so fully that it didnтАЩt seem possible to have a productive conversation at all?тАЭ

As people I know have been saying for quite a long time: "Left-wing people don't have 'conversations'".

You don't want it to be partisan? Too bad; it is. To the "truth is subjective" crowd, a "conversation" is "I speak, you nod", just as "the black perspective" is whatever a bunch of hysterical young white women think it is.

Expand full comment
Lucy's avatar

IтАЩm here to say right wing conservatives often donтАЩt have productive conversations either. ThatтАЩs my world and I bite my tongue a lot.

Expand full comment
Smarticat's avatar

Sticking out to x this by a 100 : ) There's a lot of "group think" right here in good ole' (used to be "Common Sense") boards with right leaning discourse and "truisms" (where TTATT). A lot of "missing the moat in the eye for the beam", IOW ; P

Expand full comment
Les Vitailles's avatar

These days, right wing conservative means someone who opposes censorship, discrimination based on skin color but supports fair play/same rules for all.

Much to bite one's tongue about.

Expand full comment
Someone in Texas's avatar

Strange. You claim to know a different set of right wing conservatives than I. You just must get out more often.

Expand full comment
Les Vitailles's avatar

" You claim to know a different set of right wing conservatives than I. You just must get out more often"

Glen Loury, Thomas Sowell and John McWhorter opposing discrimination based on skin color (also Students for Fair Admissions, more from them in upcoming Supreme Court cases).

Matt Taibbi, Elon Musk, Glenn Greenwald on censorship.

"Democrat" whines on "whataboutism" when comparing classified docs handling by different politicians.

Seems like I get out plenty often, doesn't it?

Expand full comment
Smarticat's avatar

Matt Taibbi, at least, is not a "right wing conservative". At all. He is a critic of the media and certain narratives, but he is still at his core, a political liberal. As is Bari Weiss and most of the contributors on TFP.

John McWhorter is also a political liberal, but one who is in critique of "modern Black politics" and race theories. He otherwise supports and promotes pretty traditional liberal Democratic policies.

The culture wars are making strange alliances and "frenemies", of which either side is eager to offload their "heretics" to the "other side", as "nuance" is increasingly viewed as perverted, and if one holds *any* view even remotely in common with "the other side", they are automatically "the other side".

Expand full comment
Lynne Morris's avatar

If you are relying to Les Vitalles, I think you misread his comment. If to the other one, I agree.

Expand full comment
AlabamaSlamma's avatar

It's a side effect of William F. Buckley. When he encouraged the libertarians and social conservatives to make common cause, it formed a powerful political movement, but it also left a lot of hard-to-answer questions. The social conservative maintains that freedom is harmful without mores and values; the libertarian responds that mores and values without freedom are just tyranny. I know of some of the conservatives you are talking about. There are ridiculous libertarians too, but I don't come across them very much.

Expand full comment
Les Vitailles's avatar

тАЬThough liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view,тАЭ

-- William F. Buckley

https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/the-legacy-william-f-buckley-jr

Expand full comment
Lucy's avatar

Thank you for validating my comment. ItтАЩs really not about me biting my tongue.

Expand full comment
David1964's avatar

The difference being that while some people on the right might get mad, shout you down, or call you names, very few of them will set out to ruin your life for saying things they donтАЩt like.

Expand full comment
Smarticat's avatar

No, they'll just elect leadership that will do that ; P

Come on, let's not pretend "cancel culture" doesn't exist on the Right, nor that "orthodoxy" on certain topics isn't also a "thing". Yes, it gets expressed differently because of different cultural latitudes and the dynamics within ("apostate liberals" get cancelled by other liberals because of the flaws inherent within the current dominant cultural liberal discourse and power dynamics), but conservatives have long wielded government power (and continue to attempt to do so) to enforce various forms of "conservative orthodoxy", and if one is under the impression that "diversity of opinion" is welcome in today's GOP, take a look at Liz Cheny, Mitt Romney, Adam Kingzinger, and any other Republicans who went against Trump for the last few years. Or prior highly thought of conservative "thought makers", like David French who is now basically ostracized from right leaning spaces as a "woke RINO". Yes, again, the power dynamics are different, but the "purity pushes" and "purges" are not really that different.

Expand full comment
JCB's avatar

Don't bite that tongue...and don't give in to emotion. Take a few breaths and participate, works wonders sometimes and puts a whole different light on everyone.

Expand full comment
Someone in Texas's avatar

I am a very thoughtful, verbal, even handed, conversant, and open right wing Southern conservative. So bite your tongue honey. Come out of your echo chamber and get to meet more people you disagree with.

Expand full comment
Smarticat's avatar

The tendency is all around you right here on this board, but you will tend to notice it less when you agree with the opinion. Which is precisely the same dynamic that exists on a lot of "left" spaces as well.

Expand full comment
Lucy's avatar

IтАЩm not in an echo chamber. I am not a тАШthemтАЩ. Which is why I am a paid subscriber to TFP.

Expand full comment
Skinny's avatar

ItтАЩs difficult for the them the Echo chamber is to strong

Expand full comment
Lauren L's avatar

Right...the extremists on both sides can't have a productive discussion. The difference is that the Biden Administration, major medical organizations, the media, school boards, universities and major corporations have been infiltrated with overeducated progressive extremists. The left has the power.

Expand full comment
Lynne Morris's avatar

And it does not take much to be branded far right, extremist, MAGA or the latest Ultra MAGA.

Expand full comment
JCB's avatar

And we have to confront it continually or it goes on...

Expand full comment
Skinny's avatar

Yip and I think you insulting six graders, love your post!

Expand full comment
Les Vitailles's avatar

Diversity in everything except diversity of thought. They say it works in Cuba

Expand full comment
Steve's avatar

1. VERY WELL SAID!

2. "They hold opinions worthy of a sixth grader".

And not particularly bight ones.

3. they are Often Wrong...Never In Doubt.

Expand full comment