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[Looks up from his vast collection of being called a racist, homophobe, transphobe, white supremacist, rape supporter, Nazi, etc.]
Welcome to political discussion!
1: No
2: Remember the feeling you had when you wrote that top screed? That's how it has felt to be anyone who argued with a leftist about anything for the past forty years. Unhinged accusations of [worst thing in the world] all day, every day, on every subject from tax rates to international relations.
3: Although I am on record and will remain opposed to willful misaccusations of pedophilia, I figure the right has at least forty years to go before it equals the rampant, malicious dishonesty with which the left has approached accusations of racism and rape.
4: Loss of privilege feels a lot like oppression, huh?
Ok mate.
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Yeah no. You really need to look around you with a more objective view if you truly think this is the case. I won't deny that sometimes I disagree with mod decisions about something which should be moderated but isn't. But at least The Motte actually has rules against this, and they are generally evenly enforced.
Just having rules against it is already better than 75% of the Internet. Go on Reddit political forums, or Twitter, or countless other places, and they have no rules whatsoever against such name calling. Leftists freely call anyone to the right of Barack Obama a Nazi, a fascist, a terrible evil person, etc etc - and they mean it. Not all leftists, to be sure. But it's a super common pattern and almost no discussion forums even try to contain it.
On the Motte, at least we try. It's not perfect. If you want to claim "the moderation here is imperfect and could be improved", I suspect everyone will agree with you (even the moderators). But this idea that the Motte is the worst example of bad behavior in political discussion is completely asinine, and has very little in common with reality.
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Oh yeah, since I criticised the Amazon Rings of Power, that means I'm a fascist white supremacist! The showrunners said I'm "patently evil" and others have gone the whole "fascist white supremacists who hate seeing black people and women in leading roles" route.
Welcome to the party, fellow terrible people!
Okay, ya know what? You're clearly cruising for a banning, which @naraburns was reluctant to hand you despite your "eat bugs" rant, but now you're just posting one low-effort shitpost after another to attack people until you get banned. So wish granted.
But just to spite you, I'm only banning you for a day. Which is more than enough, if you really are taking your ball and going home as you claim. If you come back just to force us to extend the ban with more shitposting, that's all you, bucko.
Or, you know, you could calm the fuck down and come back in a more reasonable frame of mind, since as @naraburns pointed out, when you aren't flinging poo at everyone you are capable of being a good contributor.
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Yeah, I'm torn on this one. I think @naraburns crossed the line slightly with "Do you honestly advocate for distributing such things to children? If so, you're a groomer, too..." to a "Less of this, please" extent. I don't want to put him on trial or anything. It's generally a good idea to err on the side of supporting your mods.
At the same time, PMCM acts like individual users defining a word minutely and then matching a specific, delineated group to the word to explain their beliefs is The Motte committing "blood libel" while wearing the skinsuit of decorum. Is there a double standard going on? Maybe a bit. We can debate the point. But the level of meanness is so dramatically lower than what I see everywhere else, the reaction is startling.
Hardly unprecedented, though it be.
Part of the problem is that the mods are commentators, people who desperately, really, truly want to get into the depths of discussion, but also have to run the joint as fairly as possible.
I don’t have time during the day to do moderation. I suspect that’s true of a lot of people here. so, maybe, we need to locate more even-minded people and get them a janitor suit.
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