The World Is Their Safe Room
By Mitch Berg
There’s an old saying, which experience as a conservative in a liberal city shows to be utterly true: “Conservatives believe Liberals are wrong; Liberals believe Conservatives are evil”.
Further evidence: Liberals are vastly more likely to unfriend social media contacts over politics than conservatives are.
I’d extend that; conservative blogs, like mine, are highly likely to tolerate dissent in our various social media feeds; check and see how much dissent the likes of “Protect MN” or Sally Jo Sorenson tolerate in their online worlds when you’ve got time for an experiment.
A very brief experiment.
October 28th, 2015 at 7:33 am
We’ve all experienced it….a liberal getting angry solely because you’ve expressed a political or social opinion that is different from theirs. They do not like descent. I don’t know if intolerance is a trait of a lefty, or if it is due to so many of them living entirely in an echo chamber with zero diversity. Perhaps both.
October 28th, 2015 at 7:37 am
Also, by far….I’ve noticed liberals are more likely to bring up political views in non-political settings. They see nothing wrong with bashing conservatives, libertarians, Christians, etc when the situation is very non-political.
Is it due to they being used to being surrounded by like-minded people so they see nothing wrong with bringing up their hatred? Is it related to the subject of your post……that they just feel they are right and everyone else should shut up or go away?
October 28th, 2015 at 7:53 am
Oh, this is great. I see the WaPo shut off the comments at 88 posts. Most of the comments are really good, talking about how intolerant liberals are and how liberals don’t want to hear an opposing viewpoint. So the Wash Post is no longer allowing comments on the article. Soooo doesn’t that prove the point? Does the WaPo not see the irony?
October 28th, 2015 at 8:00 am
They especially hate it when you introduce facts and/or call out their hypocrisy!
October 28th, 2015 at 9:32 am
Oh, this is great. I see the WaPo shut off the comments at 88 posts.
Only temporarily. They’ve co-opted a fourth grader from Colorado to read through any future comments and provide hard copies of the positive ones to the author so that she can remain within her “safe zone.” So far she’s gotten three stories about how to make money while working from home and an offer to buy sunglasses at a steep discount.
October 28th, 2015 at 9:33 am
I constantly see my Facebook friends saying “unfriend me now if you believe this, shop here, or vote this way, etc” It gets really sad and frustrating. I hear plenty of vitriol from them when they want to sound off about Christians, America, the wealthy, oil companies, etc, and I still accept them. I still believe my Facebook feed would be boring and no longer worth my time if I didn’t have differing opinions to read.
October 28th, 2015 at 10:10 am
Facebook and Twitter are “free speech ghettos” structured and dominated by collectivist values.
October 28th, 2015 at 11:19 am
No one knows this phenomenon better than I. I’ve been banned from every lefty site ever invented. In fact, I claim personal responsibility for teh Minnpost going from a arbitrarily enforced moderation format to “Although you may meet our moderation standards in all regards, if you disturb our Zen-like atmosphere with Conservative dissent, we’re gonna boot you anyway”.
Yes, I take great pride in that achievement.
October 28th, 2015 at 11:27 am
I should have said, I’ve been unfriended from every lefty site ever invented.
October 28th, 2015 at 12:25 pm
Chuck, that article is from over a year ago. Most places shut down comments on older articles so that they don’t need to police them for spam.
October 28th, 2015 at 12:40 pm
They are impervious to reason.
They seem to believe that the Newton’s laws of gravity are true because many scientists say they are true. Therefore if many scientists say that AGW theory is true, it must be true, just like Newton’s law of gravity must be true.
You can get a headache trying to follow the reasoning, because the fault lies in the assumption that what scientists say is the truth.
The response of liberals to this kind of attack is to cut off debate. It is tyrannical and un-American.
October 28th, 2015 at 1:23 pm
A cousin posted to Facebook: “Hey #gamergate peeps: Any of my friends that support it . . . you aren’t my friend then.” I’m tempted to ask why but honestly, I don’t want to know what her “reasoning” is, it’s nearly certain to be headline talking points with no understanding of the complexity that I’ve been following in depth for months. I think I’ll just quietly take her up on the offer.
October 28th, 2015 at 1:47 pm
I got banned from the Star Tribune comments because I asked if anyone had stats on the racial makeup of aborted babies.
October 28th, 2015 at 3:00 pm
Personally, on Facebook, I’ve blocked more people from “my side” than I have liberals, though I don’t think anyone I blocked was ever actually a FB friend. I accept Wingnuts and A$$holes in my political circles, but not Wingnut A$$holes. I have unfollowed friends because of consistent liberal political posts about running government on unicorn farts or the blood of the 1%. I’ve purposely kept them on my friends list because they’re family or former classmates and I want to maintain contact. I’ve also unfollowed a second cousin in law I don’t think I’ve ever met in person because they wouldn’t stop posting about their home fitness events.
On the other hand, I’ve found myself unfriended by liberal former classmates when I tried to contact them via FB Message. I assume that it’s over politics because I know we don’t agree on any issues remotely political. Said unfriendings have always been down by Stealth (or in other words, typical Minnesota Passive Aggressive fashion).
October 28th, 2015 at 3:06 pm
I never unfriend anyone, no matter how much I disagree with them. It gives them the impression that I care enough about them to waste even that much energy.
October 28th, 2015 at 3:40 pm
I blocked someone for calling me racist over and over again .
October 28th, 2015 at 3:48 pm
Makes sense. If you don’t have evidence, go for the personal attacks. Unfriending is simply a crude version thereof.
October 28th, 2015 at 4:03 pm
What’s Facebook and Twitterer?
October 28th, 2015 at 4:32 pm
It’s like LinkedIn, but for gossips instead of people who work, JPA. :^)
October 28th, 2015 at 7:18 pm
I’ve been corrected. It was a step first cousin in law.
Blogmission: when I blocked Marianne, I did it in Minnesota Fashion.
October 29th, 2015 at 8:30 am
Ahhh… Now I understand, BB. But then I don’t use LinkIn as intended either – just as a contact gatherer, never a com tool. I am stuck in the 90’s, I guess…
October 29th, 2015 at 8:53 am
:^) Or you’ve gotten to the point in your career where you’ve decided the next rung on the corporate ladder isn’t worth the effort.