"The way they do it is simple, they piss them off. Whenever a progressive post is written, a pack of mean-spirited right wingers will pile on and start insulting, belittleing and putting down what they said. Very rarely are any of the points raised discussed. Instead, those points are dismissed out of hand and the person making the article attacked and smeared."

I would answer that by saying that the "progressives" in question either:

A) Don't know how to debate

or

Didn't want to debate in the first place.

You don't belittle and insult someone who knows how to debate without risking your stance. You can maybe weave a bit of a taunt in here and there, but if you drop to a 3rd grade level you allow them to take the high road and sacrifice your position.

In my experience, many of the "progressives" you mention are just outraged that there can be a second valid perspective. "Duh" seems to be a common "progressive" retort.

The problem is, when you believe your truths to be self evident, and anyone who doesn't hold to them to be "sheeple", you allow yourself to believe those who oppose you are stupid. We aren't. Then, when you get in a name-calling match and someone with some substance destroys your point, you're left standing there with a bloody nose and a hand full of hair.

I try to defuse situations like that if I feel the person on the bad end of it isn't asking for it. You'll find that a couple of the people you mention LIKE to scrap, and just refuse to accept that they suck at it. Others, like you say, are easy to bait into rabidity.

You'll find it most everywhere. Go write something right-leaning at Democratic Underground. Careful, though, the powers that be there unashamedly delete Conservative posts. Here at JU, all are welcome. If they can't handle the heat, though, well...

We had an interesting discussion recently in a linguistics course about whether the convention of using capital letters to mark the start of a sentence will last the rest of this century. The advent of SMS language and the internet is seeing new grammars proliferate. For some time, mass schooling and dictionaries have stunted the natural evolution of the language, but these more populist forums for written language are finding a way to undermine the power of the language elitists and so we are seeing the language change more quickly, although the dictionaries are yet to catch up.

Personally I think capitals will stay, but Draginol, I find it interesting that you would nevertheless accept 'favorite' . I also find it interesting that you use the excuse "the Lefties have poor grammar" when even Right wing bloggers have criticised the pathetic grammar of many of the bloggers who get featured at JU. And rightly so in many cases. At other times you've claimed it's because of a lack of decent argumentation from the Left bloggers, yet I've rarely seen anything that was particularly intellectually engaging written by the Right wing bloggers at JU. There are good arguments to be made for the Right, but that is rarely demonstrated here, except perhaps for JU's Libertarian Right bloggers.

But I am not exactly unhappy to see the hating Lefties leave. They do us a disservice in the same way that LW makes the Right look completely unreasonable, when in fact, they aren't. I have many Right wing friends and they can often engage me in good discussion.

Ya know calor if you don't like the articles here you can always take you left leaning butt somewhere else.

You know drmiler I can never really tell if you're for real or if you're just someone who really enjoys irony. That was classic though. You actually made me laugh out loud with that one.

Calor I agree with you to an extent, but I think a lot of the left-leaning articles also seem to do their best to piss off right-wingers as well. In my opinion the basis for a right-leaning reputation is not about the individual writers at all. It's more that righties have outnumbered lefties here from the very beginning, so the right has developed more inertia - weight of numbers and the power of the 'old guard' gives their side a natural advantage. In comparison there are very, very few long-running leftist writers on this site- they've mostly been run off. The only one I can think of who contributes particularly reguarly is kingbee. So just about every left article has the 'upstart' badge as well.

And if that left article is a cut-and-paste job (like so many articles seem to be these days) it's going to get slammed (deservedly, although perhaps disproportionately). Which will of course create anger. Few lefties have either the status or the inclination to successfully slam a righty without coming off worse, so the (successful) attacks tends to flow one way.

Or at least that's my theory of Joeuser 'political games'. Take it how you will.

The way they do it is simple, they piss them off.

That has got to be the funniest line I have read in a long time!  So you are implying that liberals and left leaners cannot debate without getting overly emotional?

Thanks for the laugh.

You're mistaken in thinking that only left leaning people get "sent to their room" here at JU. I am one who doesn't get drawn in to most of the heated political debates here, but that doesn't mean I don't read them and occassionally comment.

I have seen people on both sides reprimanded, warned, and sent to their room when they cross the line and violate the TOS. Just yesterday I saw Brad send a definate righty sent to his room for a flagrant violation. Deservedly so.

As someone who more often that not simply watching how these "debates" develop I have noticed that many (no where near ALL) on the left side of a debate often tend to be the first to hurl insults and denigrate those who disagree.

I have seen those on the right of these debates make fun of nonsense statements and failure to provide any factual base for arguements much more often than drawing "first blood" in the way of personal insults. (There are exceptions)

While these are generalities, and there are always exceptions on both sides, the right usually presents rational fact based arguements while the left tends to fall more on vague emotion based arguements.

The most effective left leaning articles I have read here, and there are many, are well written, presented in a factual manner, and avoid falling back on emotional rhetoric when the article is challenged.

No-one, right or left, is permitted to hurl streams of profanity and insults at others for long before being warned and, if they continue, sent to their room for a while.

Quite simply, if you can't debate a topic with facts instead of insults, right or left, shut up and stay out of it.

*disclaimer: the views expressed here are those of the writer and not necessarily representative of the views of any other person, living or dead and are not to be mistaken for fact, fiction, or cookie recipes.

Well, I would say that Mason and Zoomba just articulated very well the TOS and how to conduct oneself in a professional manner. I may not be Zoomba (contrary to an earlier claim), but I do agree with him on occassion, and some of the other members of the left of center as well.

I think the rights extremism is worse than the left's at this site

I'm going to agree to a point.

Joeuser's forums are (or at least seems to be) more populated by conservatives (or possibly they are just the more vocal or even articulate and thus the most noticable).

Featured articles tend (not always, but tend) to be conservative articles. I have often seen poorly written articles featured that I can only assume were featured because Draginol agreed with them. I'll buy that being featured is also partly a result of chance because Draginol is a busy guy and not everything is going to draw his attention or be posted at a time when he is able to notice it.

And to be fair, not everything he features is political in nature.

While I'll agree with many others on here that there have been a (rather small) number of liberals who have conducted themselves in a way that facilitated their banning/grounding and who attacked those who didn't share their views, there is also a problem with this on the conservative side as well, which seems to get overlooked.

Conservatives are quick to dismiss thoughts from those they consider liberal and often call names and hurl insults at those they don't agree with simply because they don't agree.

While I've yet to see anyone on the right do it as rabidly as say, dabe, I've watched conservatives call anyone they didn't agree with fools, dummies, bleeding hearts, assholes, etc. A popular conservative tactic (not saying that all conservatives do this, but I do see it a lot on the forums) is to tell the person that they disagree with that they aren't educated, are too intellectual to understand, that they can't read, don't understand, have comprehension problems, etc.

"If you read my link and still don't agree with me, then you must be stupid."

It's just a general atmosphere of rudeness and disdain created for those whose beliefs don't match their own.

(OK, now flame me to a crisp )

An excellent article, Calor, but I remain unconvinced. Let's ask the Autorantic Virtual Moonbat:

(To chat with the Autorantic Virtual Moonbat, just type anything (or nothing) in the field below, and click "ENTER.")

DSH: Who's worse at JoeUser; the left, or the right?

AVM: "Left"!!!! We can say goodbye to free money!!!! Been there, done that! As you no doubt know, I am not one of Kenneth Lay's team of errand boys! Down with destruction.

DSH: OMG, I can't believe you said left.

AVM: "Left"!!? By THE prophet's beard!! What ABOUT support for the arts!!!!? What about public broadcasting and peace for the 24,329 transgendered vegans who are silenced every single day by our emperor!? The head WARMONGER's War Against WINDMILLS must end now!

DSH: But aren't Dr. Miller and Dr. Guy assholes?

AVM: Why do you say "assholes"!!? I reject sleaze and imperialism!!! Down with censorship and murder. I hate you!!! Say no to religion!!!!

DSH: What about the lefties like Myrrander and Dabe?

AVM: "Leftie"!! What next? Power to the Arabs!!!

DSH: Is Little_Whip an evil skank?

AVM: Why do you say LittleWhip. Power to the Canadians. As a lesbian, like I've said I am bonkers!!!? When the wingnuts say "strong leadership," they really mean "torture"! When they say "freedom," it is just a code word for "war"!!!!

DSH: Yes! Power to the Canadians!

AVM: Interesting that you should mention "CANADIANS"!!!? Bob Novak!? Tim Blair!!! I can't tell one servant for this administration from the other!! Oh, come on.

DSH: You mean Tony Blair?

AVM: Your hero Tony Blair scares me!!!! Unlike Rupert Murdoch, I am not in love with neocolonialism. Holy MATRIMONY, indeed?

DSH: I hate it when lefties say "indeed". I fuckin' hate it.

AVM: Leftie!? Bu$h only wants Abu Ghraib for the oil! (If only there were oil in Iran!!!) IMHO!!!! In other words, Ward Churchill's book, "Tens of Millions of Lies about Saber-rattling," should be required reading for Rethuglicans like you!! As a forest, logically I am mimpy!!!

DSH: David St. Hubbins is an asshat.

AVM: Hubbins, indeed. Judeo-Christian values, indeed!!!! I'm certain, I am not one of John Bolton's cult of slaves!! IMO, Sean Hannity is nothing but a tool of THE Coast Guard!!

blog.gleeson.us/sean/2004/11/27/new_mini_moonbat_fits_in_your_sidebar

over a year later, and after reading back through the past blogs i can but agree with your sentiments (and texas wahine's for that matter) calor. there appears to be a mean spirit that moves through joeuser blogs around anything political and it is decidedly rightwing. that is not to say that liberals cannot fall prey to ad hominem arguments. it is to say that there is a clique biasness which is unappealing. perhaps that is why the debates here have become so onesided. why would one choose to be around people like this?