Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Posted in
Politics
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From time to time I've seen references to a site called RedState.com, which is the mouthpiece for a group of conservative Republicans, so I decided to take a look. The first thing I read was an article full of narrow-minded attitudes about gays, so I decided to register and add my comments. Well, it turns out that RedState.com doesn't want the comments of people who disagree with them. Their Posting Rules include statements like these:
But RedState.com seems to be afraid of these reader discussions. Like a tyrant, they want to control every aspect of their domain, and they're unwilling to countenance views they don't like. But censoring discussions seems un-American to me. I'm not saying that censorship by a private web site is illegal or even unethical, but it is certainly contrary to the free spirit of our country. And given that RedState is a prominent site which publishes articles on matters of national importance, for them to disallow opposing views -- especially those of readers, who are rarely eloquent -- seems astonishingly insecure. Even conservative newspapers like the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal give voice to liberal viewpoints, just as liberal newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times give voice to conservative viewpoints.
So the question arises: What is RedState hiding from? And if they are too insecure to allow opposing viewpoints, why do they allow readers to comment at all?
I decided to go ahead and register, and I ended up having a lively back-and-forth with other readers on the subject of gay rights. Since the other readers were mainly venting their prejudices, winning the argument was fairly easy.
About a week later, I went back to RedState and read another article that I decided to comment on, but I discovered that my password didn't work. So I clicked on the "Lost your password?" link to get my password emailed to me, but no email arrived. I tried it again, and still no email arrived. I then tried to re-register, but my new registration was never approved, and I never received a "welcome" email. In other words, they had banned me from the site!
Cowards.
At the time that I participated in the gay-rights discussion, I didn't identify myself as a liberal or a Democrat. I could have been a "Log Cabin" Republican (a gay Republican), or I could have been a libertarian Republican. They had no way of knowing. But they banned me anyway -- meaning that they could have banned a fellow Republican.
It was pretty shocking to be banned -- I mean, I wasn't vulgar or anything, and my arguments were well reasoned. But really, I shouldn't have been shocked. The positions of conservatives are so weak and illogical that they can't survive a good debate. In my view, most far-right conservatives are reactionaries who can't tolerate the normal evolution of our society. They are Luddites. Their beliefs aren't based on reality, but seem to be based on a fear of the unknown and a fear of change. The logic they use is usually skewed and twisted, based on false premises, assumptions or facts. The only thing they have to offer is a determined resistance to anything new, and they seem perpetually dismayed that other people aren't as afraid of progress as they are.
I went back to the original article and discovered that they had deleted all the comments. To make sure that there was no mistake, I used two different browsers. To find out if it was their policy to delete comments after a period of time, I looked at an older article, and that article still had comments attached to it (all favorable to the conservative point of view). Apparently, they just couldn't stand that a person supporting gay rights had won an argument on their site.
Like I said: Cowards.
I then scanned some more articles, and I began to see how angry and prejudiced and intolerant they are in everything they say, and finally I began to understand: RedState.com is the online equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Like Limbaugh, they are demagogues and bigots and blowhards. They would no more allow opposing points of view than Rush Limbaugh would invite a liberal onto his show to debate him. Despite the extreme quality of their positions, RedState is given credence by the mainstream media for the same reason that Limbaugh is: The whole of the Republican party is on a crazy, reactionary binge. Within the Republican party, RedState is mainstream -- so the mainstream media has no choice but to pay attention to what they say.
Having realized that I had inadvertently stumbled into a lunatic asylum, I'm now feeling a little less hurt and rejected for being banned. Nonetheless, I see it as a sad commentary on the state of our politics that a site like RedState.com receives so much national attention. But again, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the nominee of the Republican party (Romney) used lying as a campaign technique (with some success, judging how close he came to being elected). When the day comes that the nominee of a party can get so close to power through the repetition of lies, and when the censorship of voices isn't seen as a problem, then our democracy is in trouble.
Update
A similar thing happened on the conservative site National Review in July, 2016. On an article about Barack Obam's so-called divisiveness, I posted a comment which effectively debunked the major points of the article. National Review's dimwitted readers had little to say to dispute my comments. When I woke up the next day, National Review had blocked access to the comments -- not just my access, but everyone's!
What a bunch of hypocrites!
"Promotion of certain theories and ideas contrary to our site principles is not allowed."
"It is forbidden to promote or give any kind of support for parties other than the Republican party, or candidates running against Republican primary, caucus, and/or convention nominees."
"The dissemination of talking points from the Democrat Party, or its politicians and allies, is not allowed."
"It is forbidden to attempt to discredit or bring disharmony to the site, the Republican party, any of its candidates, or the conservative movement by pretending to be something one is not and posting maliciously."Now, if you don't do much commenting on the internet, then you should know that these rules are really quite extreme. The purpose of reader comments is to give readers a chance to participate, a chance to share their views (pro or con), and a chance simply to "vent". In other words, reader comments allow a discussion to occur on the subject of the article. Most blogs and news sites publish their articles and then let the readers go at it as they please, without worrying too much about what's said. Often, such a large number of comments will accumulate that no one can read them all -- and besides, most readers ignore the comments.
But RedState.com seems to be afraid of these reader discussions. Like a tyrant, they want to control every aspect of their domain, and they're unwilling to countenance views they don't like. But censoring discussions seems un-American to me. I'm not saying that censorship by a private web site is illegal or even unethical, but it is certainly contrary to the free spirit of our country. And given that RedState is a prominent site which publishes articles on matters of national importance, for them to disallow opposing views -- especially those of readers, who are rarely eloquent -- seems astonishingly insecure. Even conservative newspapers like the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal give voice to liberal viewpoints, just as liberal newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times give voice to conservative viewpoints.
So the question arises: What is RedState hiding from? And if they are too insecure to allow opposing viewpoints, why do they allow readers to comment at all?
I decided to go ahead and register, and I ended up having a lively back-and-forth with other readers on the subject of gay rights. Since the other readers were mainly venting their prejudices, winning the argument was fairly easy.
About a week later, I went back to RedState and read another article that I decided to comment on, but I discovered that my password didn't work. So I clicked on the "Lost your password?" link to get my password emailed to me, but no email arrived. I tried it again, and still no email arrived. I then tried to re-register, but my new registration was never approved, and I never received a "welcome" email. In other words, they had banned me from the site!
Cowards.
At the time that I participated in the gay-rights discussion, I didn't identify myself as a liberal or a Democrat. I could have been a "Log Cabin" Republican (a gay Republican), or I could have been a libertarian Republican. They had no way of knowing. But they banned me anyway -- meaning that they could have banned a fellow Republican.
It was pretty shocking to be banned -- I mean, I wasn't vulgar or anything, and my arguments were well reasoned. But really, I shouldn't have been shocked. The positions of conservatives are so weak and illogical that they can't survive a good debate. In my view, most far-right conservatives are reactionaries who can't tolerate the normal evolution of our society. They are Luddites. Their beliefs aren't based on reality, but seem to be based on a fear of the unknown and a fear of change. The logic they use is usually skewed and twisted, based on false premises, assumptions or facts. The only thing they have to offer is a determined resistance to anything new, and they seem perpetually dismayed that other people aren't as afraid of progress as they are.
I went back to the original article and discovered that they had deleted all the comments. To make sure that there was no mistake, I used two different browsers. To find out if it was their policy to delete comments after a period of time, I looked at an older article, and that article still had comments attached to it (all favorable to the conservative point of view). Apparently, they just couldn't stand that a person supporting gay rights had won an argument on their site.
Like I said: Cowards.
I then scanned some more articles, and I began to see how angry and prejudiced and intolerant they are in everything they say, and finally I began to understand: RedState.com is the online equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Like Limbaugh, they are demagogues and bigots and blowhards. They would no more allow opposing points of view than Rush Limbaugh would invite a liberal onto his show to debate him. Despite the extreme quality of their positions, RedState is given credence by the mainstream media for the same reason that Limbaugh is: The whole of the Republican party is on a crazy, reactionary binge. Within the Republican party, RedState is mainstream -- so the mainstream media has no choice but to pay attention to what they say.
Having realized that I had inadvertently stumbled into a lunatic asylum, I'm now feeling a little less hurt and rejected for being banned. Nonetheless, I see it as a sad commentary on the state of our politics that a site like RedState.com receives so much national attention. But again, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the nominee of the Republican party (Romney) used lying as a campaign technique (with some success, judging how close he came to being elected). When the day comes that the nominee of a party can get so close to power through the repetition of lies, and when the censorship of voices isn't seen as a problem, then our democracy is in trouble.
Update
A similar thing happened on the conservative site National Review in July, 2016. On an article about Barack Obam's so-called divisiveness, I posted a comment which effectively debunked the major points of the article. National Review's dimwitted readers had little to say to dispute my comments. When I woke up the next day, National Review had blocked access to the comments -- not just my access, but everyone's!
What a bunch of hypocrites!
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