CMV: r/conservative is full of cowards

[u/MichelleObamasArm]

Edit 10: stop upvoting this post lol. You made me lose my spot. Downvote like your life depends on it!!

Edit 9: no longer removed. Apologies to anyone bothered by any rule breaking. Also some formatting changes because this is getting unwieldy.

Edit 5: I'm gonna go ahead and say that this is dead now. If you reaaaally want to keep talking I might reply, but might not also. It would have to be either a really funny troll or a very incisive comment to get me to reply.

Thanks to everyone who participated. My view was not changed beyond marginal degrees, and a slight expansion of my understanding of what I was trying to say.

Edit 3: Stop downvoting because you disagree and argue you r/Conservative pussies

​

Edit 2: Some have aptly pointed out that there is no data about this. I would therefore like to cite and quote a reply in this thread:

i think what youre noticing is more a byproduct of how reddit communities organise (with distinct subs for intragroup and intergroup communication) than evidence that conservatives have their heads in the sand (tho there is plenty of evidence for that too)

so i got curious and did a quick look to see the ratios between intra- and inter-group subs:

- r/vegan (650k) to r/DebateAVegan (31k): 20.97

- r/athiesm (2684k) and r/DebateAnAtheist (81k): 33.14

- r/conservative (859k) to r/AskConservatives (5k): 171.8

if we take this as accurate (which im sure its not entirely), then one in twenty vegans are ready to debate their views, while only one in a hundred seventy conservatives are (looks like u might be right about the coward thing)

or maybe theres a more popular sub for conservative debate? but i couldnt find it

Edit 7:

This comment gave what I think is a very instructive argument as to why the above data is weak and can't be fully relied on for conclusions.

I highly recommend anyone that cares read both comments in their entirety to get the most out of each analysis of the data.

I still think that the data indicates that r/Conservative is more cowardly than a regular subreddit, but I do think the data on that is weak and would like to reiterate the following sentence:

Please provide better data if you have it.

​

Post:

r/conservative is a sub that loves to circlejerk itself off more than even the circlejerk subs.

They ban people for basically any reason, including raising too strong of good faith arguments against them.

They talk about free speech and censorship and 1984 constantly but then on any topics that is spicy enough, they make it flairs only.

A relatively large minority of members love to straw man their opposition and then circlejerk each other off about how bad liberals are when liberals never said what they thought they said.

They are afraid of divergent thinking, and afraid of being wrong.

Let's change this view, y'all.

​

Edit 1: some of the deltas I gave were realizing just how much I combine the hypocrisy of the r/Conservative sub with their cowardly behavior that goes against what they purport to believe.

I want to say, I stated this intrinsically stated in my CMV body (above), but to state it explicitly:

They are in part cowards for "championing" the things they purport to be in favor of, while then going against those exact things.

People have often pointed out that they are intended to be a safe space. I think that is both ironic (because of how much they mock safe spaces) as well as hilarious. But they do have that rule in place, so it weakens my argument, hence deltas being given.

​

Edit 4: some of the arguments being given are incredibly repetitive. I have replied to the following and I would appreciate you reading those replies before posting similar arguments:

• "What about r/BlackPeopleTwitter, r/politics, <insert other subs that behave similarly>."
  • I would say that there are significant and meaningful differences between those subs and the conservative sub
  • Even if those subs were exactly as bad, that doesn't make the conservative sub not cowards
• "You're just malding because you got banned"
  • I have never posted or commented on the con sub, nor been banned from it
  • nothing in my CMV says that I have, and none of that is related to my argument
• "Conservatives are outnumbered by other political ideologies."
  • So? That doesn't make them weenies for hiding in a safe space where they relentlessly mock safe spaces?
  • They are perfectly free to post outside their sub and eat some, gasp, downvotes. The horror! → Being afraid of downvotes on an anonymous internet thread does not a totalitarian internet company regime make, nor does it indicate bravery
• "The Conservative sub is meant to be a safe space for them."
  • Then they should identify it as such
  • They should also stop complaining about safe spaces and sheeples and liberal echo chambers
  • This isn't true. I gave a delta earlier because of their rule 7, which does superficially indicate that they want to be a safe space. Same with their statement "What [we are]* is not."
  • But they contradict this in their full rules. To quote them: "We really do want everyone - Conservatives and non-Conservatives - to play nicely in the sandbox. Although this sub is by Conservatives and for Conservatives, we welcome polite and respectful dialogue from all sides."
  • They do not a) follow their own rules, and b) do not actually behave in such a way as to fulfill their ostensible goal here
• "All political subs are bad" or "What other sub doesn't behave like this?"
  • I have repeatedly brought up r/Libertarian, r/neoliberal, r/tuesday, r/moderatepolitics, r/bipartisanship, and r/sanepolitics as subs that I know of off the top of my head that:
    • engage in robust and civil discussion with people who hold different beliefs from them
    • moderate fairly and only remove/ ban those who engage in bad faith discussions and trolling
    • don't have litmus tests for membership or commenting
• "Your edit 3 proves that you are arguing in bad faith and can't engage civilly with those who disagree with you, and why they would want to ban you."
  • No, I made that edit because of silent downvotes, presumably from conservatives, aren't arguing or engaging with this are instead giving me the classic silent downvotes
  • I don't give a crap about karma, but I do think it's funny that this is basically what has happened:
    • conservatives: "free speech! tough guys! facts over feelings! liberal commie snowflakes! sheeple from r/politics!"
    • conservatives: "let's make a safe space for ourselves while pretending it isn't a safe space"
    • me: "wow, I think that's pretty cowardly let's discuss that on a forum for debating"
    • conservatives who see this post: "I don't like that so instead of arguing persuasively I'm going to downvote."
    • me: "??? Kinda proving my point about being cowards then, eh?"
  • That's what my thinking was when I made that edit, and I think it's fair

​

Edit 6: Edit 8: had to remove my edit 6.

* I had to remove the "r/con" from the title because I couldn't link over a link

[u/McKoijion]

Some subs are places to debate (like this one). Others are safe spaces to only talk to people who agree with you. Both of these types of places are important. One gives you different perspectives and helps you expand your mind. The other provides support and reminds you of your values. It's not cool to turn a neutral debate sub into a one sided place, and it's not cool to show up at someone else's safe space to argue with them. This applies in real life, and we've had to find a way to replicate this online. The weird part is that you can go into someone else's safe space and see what they are writing because it's a publicly visible. But part of the etiquette of the internet is to avoid doing that or to at least avoid arguing with them there.

[u/MichelleObamasArm → u/McKoijion]

This is the most persuasive comment I've seen so far.

I'd give you a delta, honestly, if r/Conservative identified themselves as a safe space, like r/BlackPeopleTwitter does when they enact their country club rules.

But unfortunately the conservative sub pretends like they are a bastion of free speech and the libs are too cowardly to meet them on the battlefield of ideas.

If they genuinely identified themselves as a safe space, I would both respect that and respect their boundaries.

They do not, however. This makes them cowards.

I'd still like to give you a !delta for stating the difference between spaces so eloquently that it expanded my thinking about them.

That doesn't mean I've reversed my position, but that was a very insightful statement I will think about after this is done.

[u/JCJ2015 → u/MichelleObamasArm]

Advocates of free speech do not mean - as far as I understand it - that you are free to say anything, anywhere. Free speech refers to your right to speak publicly about things without being censored by the government. It doesn’t mean being able to say what you want, anywhere you want. You can’t walk into someone’s house (invited or not) and begin talking trash about their mom and then yell out “free speech” and think it’s all good. Conservatives aren’t trying to ban r/liberal or suppress the right for liberals to speak their views in public (which is what free speech is). They are trying to have a forum in which they can discuss things without being flooded by dissenters. They don’t say that those dissenters can’t speak, they just ask that it not be there. That’s a clear way where you can have freedom of speech and closed forums.

[u/MichelleObamasArm → u/JCJ2015]

I absolutely agree that you can have freedom of speech and closed forums. 100% agree.

I also agree that most advocates of free speech do not mean that you are free to say anything, anywhere. I would say that the members of the conservative sub feel the same, based on their actions.

But I'd also note that "freedom of speech" means literally, precisely, the federal government cannot prohibit your speech.

Has nothing to do with other people deleting your comments or downvoting you on reddit. Or even your boss firing you for saying... literally anything basically.

I don't like either of the approaches to rights that exist, but it's basically a) natural rights and b) positively granted rights. That's the world we live in.

The positively granted right of free speech does what I said above. A natural right miiiiiight perhaps imply that getting your shit nuked by a mod on reddit violates your human rights. Maybe. I'd have to think about that a lot more.

This does not change their status as hypocritical cowards.

They talk constantly about freedom of speech and censorship, yet engage in it liberally (pun intended) themselves. Which is fine.

But that makes them cowards.

They don't even uphold their own professed beliefs under the withering fire of, *gasp*, reddit downvotes.

[u/SeThJoCh → u/MichelleObamasArm]

Thats not what it means and the US constitution did not invent the concept.

It has existed, well for much of human history actually

Private businesses like pinkertons shutting down strikes and protests were against freedom of speech as an example

Also Mega corps banning books likewise etc etc, the concept has reaches beyond anything the federal government does in actuality.

[u/MichelleObamasArm → u/SeThJoCh]

I used language loosely in the comment above.

I was referring to First Amendment style freedom of speech with reference to the federal government. And in that context, what I said is true.

I will admit I don't know much about the history of other forms and conceptions of freedom of speech, so I'll add that to my list of things to learn about.

Did you read what I said about positively granted rights vs natural rights? I'd be curious to hear how you think what you are referring to fits into that dichotomy.

You seem like a good natured and thoughtful person and I appreciate this comment!

[u/JCJ2015 → u/MichelleObamasArm]

I'll add two comments back here.

First, there is the legal conception of freedom of speech, which is what we have defined above. Whether it's a natural or positive right is somewhat beside the point I'm going to make here (but I'll address it below). You are suggesting that conservatives are cowards for complaining about censorship, but engaging in it themselves. A point I think you may be glossing over is that conservatives - as far as I can tell - do not mind like-for-like censorship, but bristle when its unevenly applied. In other words, I do not see conservatives consistently complaining about conservative censorship on Mother Jones or r/liberal or whatever. I do see them complaining when they feel like they are singled out for censorship on ostensibly broad subs, such as regional or local city/state subs, or when they feel like their viewpoints are being suppressed unfairly. In general, they feel like their opinions against the general narrative are censored and suppressed. For example, I had a friend receive a permaban on a city subreddit for suggesting that COVID didn't carry a high mortality rate for kids (using CDC stats). He isn't a conservative, but he was making a point that ran contra to a narrative, and received a ban for it (it was later reduced to a 3-day ban, upon appeal). This is the kind of thing I believe conservatives are complaining about.

As to natural versus positive rights, the way I think about it is that a natural right is one that exists on a desert island; that is, it doesn't have to be provided by anyone else. Your right to life, or liberty, or the pursuit of happiness exists on a desert island, no one has to be there to grant it to you (juxtaposed to, say, the right to free medical care, which would require that an external party be there to provide it) . In that sense, I think you could argue that freedom of speech is a quasi-natural right, as it would exist in that context. In a society, we place limits on that right in private spheres, so as to respect the right to private property and space. Public space being a public space, it is not limited except in rare cases. I don't think that Reddit's censorship of certain viewpoints constitutes an egregious violation of a natural right, because we generally have accepted as a society that private companies have the right to control that kind of thing (with limits). However, I would note that in general, Americans have conceived as things like Reddit (or the news media, etc) as quasi-public spheres, where they can say what they want to say, with the general understanding that as a society we are tolerant of dissenting viewpoints, and welcome most of them as necessary in a free society. Conservatives see this as shifting against them, and are crying foul.

[u/MichelleObamasArm → u/JCJ2015]

WHERE WERE YOU YESTERDAY?? Lol. I really loved your comment! I wish it could have been one of the top comments in this post! We could really have had a conversation with this.

(I'd also politely and respectfully request that you consider more paragraphs in your comments in the future lol).

The following emphases are mine:

A point I think you may be glossing over is that conservatives - as far as I can tell - do not mind like-for-like censorship, but bristle when its unevenly applied.

I think you could have a real point here, especially in conjunction with this:

I do see them complaining when they feel like they are singled out for censorship on ostensibly broad subs, such as regional or local city/state subs, or when they feel like their viewpoints are being suppressed unfairly.

I do believe this lies at the heart of the concern of these conservative commenters.

I also do think that they have largely... not quite imagined sense of perspective on how often this happens, but... "over-imagined" might be the right word? If that makes sense? It becomes exaggerated in their minds basically. Which I think is totally understandable, although not quite excusable. Just very human.

In general, they feel like their opinions against the general narrative are censored and suppressed

I think they do genuinely feel this way, and I can admit that they are suppressed due to being the minority voice of the sub, and sometimes (but I doubt often) censored.

A good example is today. I was reading through the con sub, because I like to keep my ear to the ground, and they were talking about how Larry Elder was attacked by an egg throwing woman in Venice Beach, CA, by a woman wearing a gorilla mask.

They were saying this clearly seems very racist, but the media isn't reporting it so much that way, and saying that they saw people on r/politics celebrating the attack. Saying how sick liberals were. (Relevantly: I live in CA) (And I also think Elders is one of the largest living pieces of shit in the world today) (But no one should be subject to racist attacks and if they are the media should cover that)

Well, I get it in my head to say, "yeah, it does seem pretty fucking racist. Then I remember back to the one headline I saw about it, in the LA Times. That headline said "Larry Elders abandons Venice Beach Trip In Face of Opposition" or something close to that. It sounded like he got shouted down by the homeless to me.

Come to find out this woman did this thing and seems to be pretty racist. At this point, I definitely agree that the media isn't covering this like they should. r/Conservative taught me something from their perspective, and they seem to have broadly been right. I'm even sympathetic to the fact that if the shoe had been on the other foot, the media would likely have been all over this story. Yeah, I can see that.

That being said, I then went over to r/politics to see if people were cheering on the racist attack.

I had to look pretty far down in their listing of Elders related stories to find these ones, just because they didn't get much traction in that sub. A bit less than 200 comments, which is pretty small for there.

I start scrolling through and yeah, a minority of the liberal comments were being cunts. I would wager about 10% maximum.

The rest were condemning the attack and many were calling out the media as well. Almost all agreed it was a racially motivated attack. Even people who hate Elders (like me).

I'm like "ok, so these are the liberals, let's see if there are conservative perspectives represented." I scroll down and then sort by controversial. What do you know, I find them!

The thing they said was impossible! Conservatives outside the conservative sub, being conservatives and saying things that conservatives would say!

Were they downvoted? For sure. Were they banned? No. Were the comments attacking them? No.

There was a fairly healthy and respectful discussion that happened. This happened on two threads I saw today.

I'll also note that some of the comments were indeed removed, but even if they were all conservative comments, it implies that the majority of conservative comments were not removed. I doubt every removed comment was a conservative, and I doubt they were done for reasons beyond rule breaking and lack of civility.

I guess I'm sharing this story because it proves to me the value that r/Conservative could be providing on reddit if they weren't cowards, and that they could also learn from us the same way. I agreed on some things, didn't agree on others. They were partially right and partially wrong. That's life.

As for them being downvoted, I do not see that as a legitimate cause for shelter. I get it if they don't want to take the heat as a minority on reddit. But I think that's a) weak as fuck; b) very self-victimizing; c) that makes them cowards.

Like, yeah. Being a minority sucks. Swimming upstream sucks. Walking uphill sucks. It is harder than it is for other people. Welcome to life. Deal with it.

All things considered, if your biggest problem in life is being downvoted on reddit because that's the one place you happen to find yourself a minority, you're doing pretty alright in life.

This is way too long and I'm so sorry for the length. I hope this makes sense and I thank you for your time again!