The anti-science/anti-free speech left

Another thread on this forum where left wing ideologues disparaged inconvenient scientific facts as bigotry, intolerance, and insanity, in defense of their positions got me thinking. The "left" in this country really doesn't champion science or even one of the most basic tenants of liberalism, namely free speech.

Examples of this can be found on most major left wing rags. The NY Times, for instance, censors every last one of their readers comments, reviewing content for conformity of opinion before allowing it to go to print. The HuffingtonPost as well has moderators which review every last comment, screening out those that do not conform with their world view.

Reddit recently joined the mix by banning what they call "Climate change deniers", following in lock step with the LA Times, who no longer prints any letters to the editor that express climate change skepticsm.

The left justifies it's censorship by demonizing those with opposing views as "racist", "bigoted", and "anti-science", and therefore unworthy of being heard. As the moderator for Reddit put it,
"As moderators responsible for what millions of people see, we felt that to allow a handful of commenters to so purposefully mislead our audience was simply immoral."

I thought use of the word "immoral" was absolutely perfect. I used to hear that word all the time from the pulpit at the church of my youth, where a pastor, much like Reddit's head moderator, claimed to have absolute knowledge of right and wrong, fact and fiction, the moral and the immoral. When the scientific facts don't back your politics, simply silence the opposition and call them of all things "anti-science". The catholic church did something similar with Galileo.

It occurs to me that John Locke, father of classic liberalism and inspiration to the founding fathers of this country would be disgusted by the people who claim to stand for liberalism today.

 

So to fix this problem you want to force them to print what they see as crap?

 

They're not printing anything. O's examples was about commenting, having a different view on the Reddit forum or "left wing rags." It sounds like they heavily censor comments. You could compare it to DP. What if someone came on P & R and simply denied climate change, and a left-wing moderator got so worked up they just deleted all their arguments. It's not like the person is insulting anyone, I guess they just don't believe it's getting hotter. They want to discuss it. That's kind of the point of sites and forums that have room for user comments, right? The moderators on Reddit sound like a bunch of idiots.

 

I agree it's a pain to spend 30 minuntes writing a response only to have it rejected by moderators. I sometimes face that situation when responding to online newspapers etc. but it boils down to its their site and I have no real say over that. I can't think of any way to fix that situation as surely it's up to the site-owner to set his/her rules and it's up to us to decide if we'll visit or avoid that site in future. I don't think I would want that changed.

 

Bush, Rebecca: Don't believe the nonsense posted in o-nations thread. Categorically: Reddit DID NOT ban climate change deniers. Are you familiar with Reddit? Here is a link to Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/ Go there and publish something about climate change, or climate change denial. See if it gets banned. Go do it.

If you publish on climate change denial it won't get banned. If not that makes the claim in the thread completely misleading, unreliable, twisted. One might as well call it a lie.

What did occur on Reddit that gained publicity this last December? A subreddit, which is a separate subsection of reddit devoted to a particular topic made the news because of standards it established. How many subreddits are there? I don't know for sure but you might be able to look it up. There are subreddits on every metropolitan region, subregions, colleges, topics of interest. There have to be thousands of subreddits, maybe 10's of thousands or even more. Look it up. Report back to us.

The subreddit that gained news is the science subreddit covering every type of science imaginable. Here is a link to the science subreddit . It is NOT Reddit. Its a subreddit.

The Science Subreddit http://www.reddit.com/r/science/ published guidelines about what can or can't get published: Here they are: Read them.
They require the following:
1. A direct link to or a summary of a peer reviewed research with citations
2. the comments should be based on recent scientific research
3. The submission or title should not be editorialized sensationalized or biased (hey its science not politics)
4. The submission should not be blogspam in image video or an infographic
5. It shouldn't be a repost
6. It should be on-topic and relevant
7. It should not be a joke, meme or off-topic
8. It should not be hateful, offensive or spam
9. Conspiracy theories and other claims not supported in science will be removed.

What is so unreasonable about those guidelines? They are very specific to keeping the science subreddit focused on science.


The mods at the science subreddit set guidelines. They want to promote SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS. The mods are PRO SCIENCE. They want to promote science discussions. They are against seeing the subreddit littered with non science opinions wherein the opinion posters then launch into personal attacks. Does that situation sound similar to any subforum with which you are familiar?

Reddit will publish your comments about climate change denial. If you wish to discuss climate change denial in the particular subreddit about science include with it some fairly recently science discussion that includes an article that is peer reviewed by other scientists, just as with all the other discussions in science in that subreddit.

If anything the publicity about this decision articulates what is twisted about a topic that the right wing decides to attack. It takes a topic that in any different setting can be rationally discussed on its own merits and twists the conversation into something that diminishes the topic on its own and gets into attack name calling diversion topics of the basic topic itself.

o-nation also attacked the New York Times claiming it limits the expression of free speech and limits comments by conservatives. Lets look at this OP-ED published by the NY Times that was written by Mitt Romney. Of note, the NY Times DID NOT endorse Mitt Romney when he ran for President. They did publish his letter/editorial though.

That is a great example of free speech. Its not anonymous. Its not a litany of attack commentary by virtually all anonymous folks. Its a clear expression of an individual in a highlighted editorial position in which he expresses his views. It reeks of freedom of speech.

Its one thing to champion freedom of speech. Its another thing to discuss science. If people can't discuss science without filling their conversations with attacks and non scientific commentary but can twist the comments into vile personal attacks and discussions that veer from science than its an appropriate response to set up limiting elements within a forum that keep the focus on science.

It appears the right wing can't stand that topics are limited to science itself without mucking up the commentary with personal attacks and divergent topics that have nothing to do with the science.

 

Its not DigitalPoint, its P&R!!!!

In other words, no expressions of opinions in disagreement with AGW alarmists because that would be an "anti-science" position to take. Its sort of like Phil Robertson expressing his opinion that homosexuality is illogical. No place for such opinions in a public forum. The idea the topic of AGW has everything to do with science and nothing to do with politics is laughable after the scandal arising from the Hadley institute, and Al Gore's sale of his media outlet to big oil.

Earl, I'm trying to figure out if you just didn't understand what I said about the NY times comments section, or if you purposefully glossed over it to change the topic of NY Times editorial writers. Which was it, poor reading comprehension, or a premeditated straw man?

Regarding science and the "right wing", here is a Yale study you might find interesting:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/tea-party-science-98488.html

Go figure. Another liberal "genius" who self censors himself to the point of ignorance,only to have his own studies smack him in the face with a dose of reality.

 

Cheers earl. What I find fascinating is the fact Obamanation started this thread when he was vehemently opposed to silencing Mr Murdoch, our highly-valued!!! propagandist. I believe he was right at the time that the best thing we can do is simply avoid it.

 

I know of 1 example that annoys me so I bet scientists get pretty pissed off when their research is spun to spruke the lies.

Anti-AGW alarmists like to point out the 'pause' in climate change when in reality there's no 'pause' and never has been. The fact it rose a lot less than expected is not a pause. It still went up during the so-called 'pause'. Newspapers/reporters keep pushing this pause as if it's a true event. Facts show it's not.

Why should people have to keep printing that lie when it has never paused at all?

 

So you acknowledge you were wrong, o-nation: Reddit did not ban people who wish to argue that changes in temperatures and rising temperatures are not caused by humans.

I'm glad you acknowledge that. Many media and social medium take the exact step that the subreddit took; they limit conversations that turn ugly and personal. That invariably occurs because the topic touch on politics or religion and people go nuts about those two topics.

o-nation: Your comments that the science of climatology are invariably tied to politics are at the root for why the vast vast majority of Americans hate Congress. Congress is overwhelmed by not just politics but a hyper partisan environment. Nothing gets done. Periodically the United States is thrown into a financial crisis specifically because of hyper politics and no other reason. The world stops, people's lives are made worse...and its because of politics or hyper partisan politics invading the daily lives of innocent people.

Most people HATE THAT. Conservatives in the US hate that. Its why long term conservatives within the Republican Party now are targeting the hyper political/hyper partisan Tea Party. That is very current, very real, and a direct reaction of inserting hyper politics into every action everywhere.

It need not be the case. It only occurs on the insistence of the hyper political. Much of the real world involving friends and neighbors, and families and business involves completely not addressing politics or religion on every discussion. It helps get things done and avoids turmoil and disruption.

There is no reason for discussions of science to be polluted by politics except for the hyper political (currently the far and extreme right wing) that insists on injecting it into every conversation and then turns it ugly.

 

Lets be honest Bush. The hockey stick chart showing a cataclysmic rise in mean earth temperature was used repetitively by AGW alarmists like Al Gore, with such spurious claims as the idea that the polar ice caps would be gone by 2012.

http://gp.w3bg.com/2008/12/al-gore-north-pole-will-disappear-in-5/
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/gore_on_ice/

The truth is, mean earth temperature has not risen above 1998 levels. Does that mean the earth isn't warming, or that man isn't contributing? No. It just means that some people used a very small amount of data to draw some conclusions that later turned out to be false. Those same people used politics to shout down dissent. Many of those same people made a tremendous amount of profit by peddling their corporate/political solutions to the government. Solyndra comes to mind.

Even if the "hockey stick chart" were not just another example of how to lie with charts, dissenting voices are important no matter how off base they are. You notice that nobody stops Earlpearl from demonizing the Tea Party with complete fictions. Its his opinion, no matter how misguided, and he is entitled to it.

I'll take the Reddit moderator at his word: "As moderators responsible for what millions of people see, we felt that to allow a handful of commenters to so purposefully mislead our audience was simply immoral." If, from that statement, you can't figure out that he is banning those who make persuasive arguments against AGW, I don't know what to say.

Long term politicians within the Republican party are targeting the Tea Party the same way Bambi targets Godzilla. They'd be smarter to run. Am i the only one who finds it hilarious that MSNBC now gives Tea Party Senator Rand Paul more positive press coverage than Fox? The partisan lines are being drawn alright, but it isn't quite as simple as Republican vs. Democrat, though establishment Republicans are now on the endangered species list.

Science discussions become political the minute politicians award large sums of taxpayer dollars to their cronies in the name of "science", but way to project.

 

The mod at the Science subreddit was working on explaining how this subforum just as so many other entities have limited discussions that turn ugly, attacking, go off topic and accomplish nothing. Meanwhile Reddit allows anyone to post on anything. All the folks that want to mix politics with denying any belief in man made global warming can post away in Reddit. It is a place for free speech...despite what you claimed, o-nation.

Meanwhile this just broke. The House of Representatives OVERWHELMINGLY passed the massive US Federal spending budget with a majority of GOP members voting for it. A minority of GOP members and the strong armed vigilante independent threat groups funded by monies that they work to hide from the public and represent billionaire special interest money from the far right are screaming bloody murder and threatening the majority of GOP House members that voted for the bill.

What does that signify? Just a few months ago the a unanimous GOP in the House wouldn't vote for a US gov spending bill. Now 166 House Republicans voted for this huge spending bill with only 66 opposing it. And that was only 2 days after the bill was unveiled. None of them read it in full.

I guess the majority of the GOP house members learned that above all Americans hate the overpoliticization of every friggin issue that the radicals demanded. I see above, o-nation, you are parroting the threats of the extreme right challenging conservatives who simply learned that it doesn't pay to turn every issue into problems for the nation at large.

Keep it up o-nation. Keep threatening conservatives. That is an entertaining cause.

 

It signifies that they don't want any other issue clouding up the focus on ObamaCare for the 2014 election cycle. Its not thrilling, but it is understandable

Extreme right Blah blah blah conservative blah blah blah liberal blah blah blah radical blah blah blah. The nonsensical ideological labels you and your pals assign to people are hilarious.

I happen to be a huge fan of hard core of liberal Glenn Greenwald. I happen to have a very liberal social and civil rights agenda. I'm a fairly strong follower in the footsteps of classic liberalism. Its not my fault the Democrats have drifted so far away from being liberal and towards being progressives, a totalitarian ideology of collectivism. If Democrats had the first clue what it means to be liberal, they would have my vote, and the vote of much of the Tea Party (or the "hard right conservatives" as you call them) and independents in this country.

Your binary value labels are completely meaningless for any genuinely descriptive purpose, and serve only to demagogue. There are a variety of scales on a variety of issues that we each fall into very unique locations on. My guess is that I am more liberal than you on almost every issue, especially on the issue of the size and role of the federal government. What real liberal would want a giant, opaque, non-responsible government? What real liberal would defend that government as it abridges and tramples the rights of its citizens and ignores it's own laws.

As I've said for many posts now, you need to rally your fellow Neoliberals, put on your jack boots, and join your NeoCon bedfellows like John McCain, Peter King, Dianne Feinstein, and Chuck Schummer. Maybe you could all wear neatly pressed brown shirts so we can identify you walking down the street.

 

I'm not denying there is exageration on both sides however I notice when a lie is found on one side it's dropped but when it's outed on the other it's repeated and repeated like forever. Opponents won't accept the lie is a lie.

You must also agree there's a lot of money dependant on digging out more coal / oil etc. and there's a lot of people who prefer to have the money now over a future for our planet.

You still haven't presented a viable answer as to what can be done about your perceived problem. What do you suggest can be done about it?

 

Try and make some money off of it, because it won't end. People are tribal. Reddit will drive off the non-like thinkers and those who remain will become more bellicose and more convinced in the rightness of their ideas, absent any dissenting voices. The operators of such echo chambers will make a tidy profit off their zealous followers. Its a perfect petri dish for breeding ignorance(and making a few duckets). The fact our president is hyperpartisan and demagogic doesn't help. Its the stupid leading the stupid.

 

I know this thread isn't about climate change as such, but I grew up with a log fire and wood stove. Every few years we would have to wash and repaint the walls & ceiling from layers of soot that piled up. Indeed even a smoker's house gets yellow pretty quickly.

It doesn't take much logic to work out we must be doing a similar thing with the earth as we keep exponentially expanding factories & manufacturing billowing out smoke all over the place. How can it not be affecting the earth?

Disregarding record temperatures and fiercer weather everywhere, even if it is all faked, I believe we need to do something about curbing the messy path we're on and switching to alternative methods can only be a good thing.

I have grandkids.

 

Not that it has much to do with the science of the thing, but I own a home in the Rainforest in central America, and it is difficult to keep anything clean. The water off the coast is always murky brown from sediment washed off the hillsides and into the ocean and there are not many people around.

I'm actually a fan of reducing our footprint as much as possible. I'm not a fan of regulations that create barriers to entry for small business while big business simply pollutes and buys "Carbon Credits" with the wealth they have already amassed so they can continue to pollute.

Denigrating everyone opposed to an oppressive political agenda as "Climate change deniers" is about as productive as calling everyone who opposes failed Marxist economic theories as "Racist" and "Heartless". Unfortunately, the discussion is no longer one of science. Its one of shouting and intimidation.

I think AGW is a fact. The pace of change and the amount which we contribute to it is very much still up for debate. Interesting side point. Melting glacier ice releases exponentially more green house gas into the environment than we do. Another interesting fact. One giant volcanic even like Mt. St. Helens can cool the planet for the better part of a decade. If we really think we should or can control climate, perhaps we should consider spewing soot into the atmosphere instead of taxing American businesses out of existence while China and India accelerate their rate of pollution.

 

ha ha ha. We have just seen a perfect example of why discussion threads in web are controlled and limited. DP's mods just shut down discussion in this DP P&R thread. The thread was about "same sex marriage"

Anyone who read the thread at the end had to see that it had nothing to do with that topic. It had degenerated into a series of endless attacks...and as far as I could tell none of them had to do with the topic. The topic itself had been destroyed for conversation and debate.

Participants who engage in those kind of attack methods and steal a topic, twist the gift of free speech. For anyone who followed the topic the "speech" afforded by the topic and the forum on "same sex marriage" had essentially been stolen and limited by post after post that had nothing to do with the topic but were simply endless attacks. That is where free speech is abused. Its not the moderators or the forums themselves. Its the participants who steal the content to rant and rave.

I see you were one of the major participants at the end, o-nation. And above you are complaining that other web sources are "anti-free speech".

Look in the mirror, man. You just provoked a limit on free expression by the mods by effectively killing free speech by being one of the abusers of the right.

tsk tsk tsk.

 

As always O was only offering a good debate on the topic. That's probably why the Mods granted him the Last Word.

Off Topic: Hey, I just got accepted to sell my stock photos on Dreamstime and Fotolia. I'm so excited!

On Topic: The left really is intolerant and seeks to inhibit free speech.

 

@Rebecca:

A. good for you with regard to the sites selling stock photos.

B. on the other two points I totally disagree.

Rebecca: I'm not a mod here. I can't say why they closed the thread...nor can I speak to the timing.

I've been a mod on other forums long ago. This is sort of how we acted:

A thread created problems. Maybe the mods discovered it on their own. Maybe members dm'd a mod or the mods. Where I was a mod, we'd discuss it among ourselves, come to a consensus or an agreement and then act. We operated in a context where once an action was taken...(like closing a thread) we'd all defend it or to the extent we were questioned we'd defend it. That way we kept the forum going.

I don't know what the mods do here. I personally veered away from the thread. In my personal view it so veered from the subject, and was so angry and full of attacks it wasn't worth my while. And frankly I don't care that much about the topic.

I can tell you one thing from my experience. There was never anything about a "last word". Timing on closing a thread had to do with the starting point where mods discussed it and when mods decided to take an action like closing it. There was never a last word. Now how mods work here, I don't know. But when a thread was closed it was usually because it got angry and abusive and more than one person on the thread was doing that.

I'd think that the "last word" is sort of luck when people are going back and forth and ripping one another. Whoever got the last shot in before the thread closes ...its just timing. Nothing more. At least in my experience

 

Is that like Americans provoking terrorist attacks by flaunting their godlessness and sexual promiscuity? I'm not sure I buy into that whole line of thinking.

The mod's shut down the conversation for everyone on that thread, not just the people whose views they disagreed with. If you looked at the mods who participated in that conversation, it is pretty clear my views were not shared by the mods, yet as Rebecca pointed out, they left my post as the last word ( admittedly an accident of timing, and not support for that particular opinion).

"Ranting and raving" is the exercise of free speech, not the abuse of it. If your claim that ranting and raving abuses free speech were true, most TV personalities, politicians, and preachers would be guilty of such abuses. Its a very odd complaint indeed, coming from a master prevaricator such as yourself.

@Rebecca Congratulations!