Forum Post: The Conservatrolls Among Us
Posted 12 years ago on March 3, 2012, 3 p.m. EST by pewestlake
(947)
from Brooklyn, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Conservatrolls parachute into every forum, chat room and social media platform on the web for the sole purpose of spewing preposterous lies and reactionary ideologies. The smart ones are paid and experienced antagonists. The rest are just gullible thugs. All of them are trying to push the Overton Window ever-further to the right.
They hope that having a presence everywhere will create the impression that lots of people believe the same things they do -- that Americans are mostly evangelical reactionary libertarians who believe in small government for business and massive, huge government for the police state.
They represent the views of the 1% exclusively, despite any protestations to the contrary. Re-prosecuting the debate over birth control? 1%er. Complaining about paying for other people's problems? 1%er. Asking if Muslims value life? 1%er. Still carping about birth certificates? 1%er. Posting "proof" that Obama "palled around with terrorists?" 1%er.
The rational adult in me says ignore their juvenile taunts and let them preach to themselves. The political animal in me says crush them. I'm going case-by-case for now.
Barack Obama is a fake! His real name is Barry! He is half Muslim and half Space Alien!!!!1111111oneone!!!1!!
Hi Thrasy.
I don't know who you speak of but he sounds like a tard.
the world trade center was not a random target
heh heh
I generally agree with your characterization except that most of the !% have any personal interest in issues such as birth control or homosexuality. The reality is that for the rich social conservatism is really only a tool to help control the masses. Most couldn’t care less. If you were privy to the personal, private behavior of many of these individuals and their families, you’d find them engaging in substance abuse, abortions, marital infidelity, etc. to an alarming degree. And if you scratch a conservative Republican legislator, you’ll often find a gay hypocrite!
Totally agree. Social issues are nothing more than political wedges to them. But they do use them an awful lot!
Without it they'd have little power among the electorate. This tactic was pioneered by St. Ronnie and his handlers.
President Bush Junior, Vice President Cheney and Limbaugh have experienced substance abuse problems. Cheney shot friend in face with shotgun.
It was once suggested that America is run by rich, white drunks, and I’ve seen little to persuade me otherwise. Last I heard from Cheney, they’re going to punch his ticket if he doesn’t get a new heart by the end of the year.
Given Cheney's track record, he's probably got squads of hunter-killer paramedics scouring deprived areas of Eastern Europe for a suitable, good quality (White non-Muslim, of course) heart to harvest.
Hi Wat, Agree. Also, thank you for the Cheney update.
OH come on now Nevada1. I'm sure Cheney was just trying to make a point. He just got carried away a little in his enthusiasm. Hehe.
Hi DKA, Maybe they should have gone to Betty Ford, not the White House.
I suppose we could offer to write them a referral. But 1st they need to admit they have a problem or it is just not gonna help.
Charitable thought though.
Agree, they must admit they have a problem.
Just thinking. Should insurance cover their health problems, caused by "recreational drinking"?
Well and there is the gray area. All the way around. Recreational (?) or barely controlled. In their case it should not matter as I am sure they have ownership in some form or another of some sort of facility that they need not worry about coverage.
Totally. "It's all about fire and brimstone until you're caught in a hotel room with a hooker and a bag of coke, then it's all about love and forgiveness."
The 1% love unintellectual conservatives, they will actually believe that giving the 1% tax cuts will lead to jobs; or that doing away with labor unions will make it easier for people to get rich because they have a chance (albeit a small one) to work really really hard and make more money than if they had a union fighting for them.
They don't care about those other issues at all, except they are decisive enough to convince people to give them more tax cuts because they are paired with the platform.
"It's all about fire and brimstone until you're caught in a hotel room with a hooker and a bag of coke, then it's all about love and forgiveness."
That's really funny! Thank you.
haha you're welcome I love that line. It actually comes from the Hedonists Handbook, which is a really amusing little read. :)
Please don't use the word "gay" as a pejorative. Thanks
That was not my intent, and I don’t believe I did. It was a factual observation based on numerous news reports over the years concerning particular Republican legislators, in which there is great irony due to their public postures on issues concerning gay rights. The issue isn’t gay or straight, the issue is hypocrisy. I don’t view the term gay as pejorative. I am sorry if you were offended.
I don't think that was used as a pejorative. I think the pejorative part of that phrase was "hypocrite." As in, the legislator is actually a homosexual but a hypocrite because he's pretending not to be while trying to pass legislation curbing homosexual civil rights. I agree with your perspective but I don't think this was intended the way you read it.
People need to be more careful, is all. When someone says "(descriptor) (negative word)", as above, it sounds like they are insinuating "(Typical) (descriptor) (negative word)".
Context matters. Being clumsy with language and deliberately using a pejorative are quite different. I think requesting that people be more careful with language requires an equally careful phrasing on your part. I hope that makes sense.
I try to be careful, if I messed up somewhere let me know. You don't think it sounds offensive if someone says "...you'll find a black hypocrite"?
Yes, I do, assuming the same context. Because black isn't something one can hide. But gay is. So the use of the word "find" denotes a discovery with a gay person, but a simple encounter with a black person. He said "if you scratch a conservative republican..." as in scratching a statue that's been gold plated to find it's just rock underneath, not gold, or in the case of a closeted gay politician, to find that he's gay, not straight. It's the discovery that provides the foundation for the context. I hope that makes sense.
Who's the hypocrite? The bleeding heart liberal pretending to help people by giving out free stuff confiscated from others creating dependency & thereby assuring votes to perpetuate ones own power. You fall for it hook line & sinker. How did Solyndra help you? How is General Electric helping you? How does $5.00 per gallon gas help you? How does The Fed printing money devaluing our currency help you? How does continually raising the debt ceiling help you?
You just jumped into a discussion about semantics with an unrelated conservatroll screed of immensely stoopid proportions. The term "hypocrite" was applied several comments ago by someone else about gay republicans in the closet trying to enact anti-gay legislation, which is pretty much the definition of hypocrisy. And then here you come with a salvo of every dumbass RNC talking point of the week, totally missing the entire point of the conversation... as usual for a right wing lunatic.
Ooooh! Scarey boogeyman! Solyyyyndra!!!! hahahaha
I believe the conversation is about Conservatives being Hypocrites? Am I incorrect? How so ? That is the Post is it not?
No the original thread is about conservatrolls like you. The hypocrisy angle is just one of many flaws among your brethren. In this particular discussion, we're now down to parsing a particular phrasing that one person took exception to. That's it.
Now, to your other points, you can stammer and wail about liberals all you want. The FACTS are this: from Reagan to Bush Jr, conservative ideology has dominated American politics and policy (including the Clinton administration that faced the Gingrich House -- "The era of big government is over."). We have deregulated nearly everything, taken away half the social safety nets, driven unions nearly out of existence, passed dozens of "right-to-work" laws, passed every free trade agreement, bailed out every bank and hedge fund and savings and loan (except Lehman), lowered capital gains tax, marginal tax rates and eliminated taxes for doing business overseas. We have done everything the right wing has asked for and then some.
This is YOUR economy, kiddo! This is YOUR outcome. You can try to blame Obama all you want but everyone with half a brain knows the GDP drop at the end of 2008 was in the Bush Jr. term, not Obama's. Everyone has seen the bikini graph showing massive job losses at the end of Bush's term turning into actual private sector job gains under Obama. The FACTS prove you wrong. Talk about Solyndra and ACORN all you like. Shout to the heavens. Start a petition. Make your strenuous opposition felt. We'll let you know when we care what you think.
hahaha! So what's your plan? do you see Obama's plan working on the horizon lol! Are you kidding? Show me the private sector jobs Obama has created lol! Now you can't count the Chinese jobs created by GE etc. Wait till the massive taxes kick in in 2012 for Obamacare - that's going to be great! The best part - costs are only going to continue to skyrocket. Then - in a few more years - they will be campaigning for single payer as the solution lol! Show me some numbers
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/08/05/the-bikini-graph-returns/
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/04/18/red-state-moochers-federal-taxes-favor-those-who-complain-the-most-about-federal-taxes/
http://www.infographicworld.com/demo/REDvsBLUE/index.html
You're a mess.
so you are happy with 2.5% growth? OK - I guess this is the new world we live in. good luck. So if things are so good whats all the protesting about ?
Too busy formulating your next irrelevant primal scream to read, huh?
Whatever.
hahaha! ok - go occupy the park - see if that puts food on your table.
hahaha Don't get so busy commenting here that you forget to deposit your disability and medicaid checks, courtesy of the taxpayers from New York and California.
what makes you think I am on disability? run out of arguments for being a loser suppose.
the police have no right to destroy the peoples possessions
the president should apologize
so now the President is supposed to micromanage the police dept lol! Geez -
don't confuse them with logic,...............critical thinking is above their capabilities.
They get their paycheck from their masters
http://occupywallst.org/forum/to-all-you-obama-slimers-/
David or Charles or Ruppert ?
It's an old tactic of Far right Fascists. Gather and drown out any other views. The S.A. comes to mind....
Fascism never loses its luster with fascists. ;-)
Makes one feel powerful.
Still making up for the playground in most cases.
Or caused the problems on the playground. Most psychopaths don't play well with others.
You are a "rational adult?" And your proof of what you think you are??
I believe that everyone that posts in a social forum to express their point of view. I also believe that there are many points of view.
It is part of human nature to categorize things. This includes people. Just like we put music into categories like jazz, pop, new age, rock... we do the same with people. The problem is that things are often incorrectly put into a category. Sometimes we put them into more than one category for marketing purposes.
This happens more often with political ideologies. Because many people only see the political world in two or three categories, most often liberal and conservatives. The truth is there are just as many political ideologies as there are types of music.
What happens most often is if someone makes a few statements I agree with they must be a liberal like me. As soon as they make a statement I disagree with I change my mind and declare them a conservative. Our bias is to put them in an enemy group if the make one or more statements we disagree with even if we agree with 70 percent of their ideas. We become suspicious. It is safer to call them a conservative. Some people go to extremes and call them a fascist, a Nazi, a socialist, or a communist.
Yes, everyone posts in a social forum to express their point of view. But there's a distinct difference between constructive debate and disruptive behavior like making deliberately insulting accusations based on lies, innuendo and bigotry. The titles of their posts say more than enough: "Do Muslims value life?" "Sandra Fluke: I screw, but you pay." "Is there anything we should pay for ourselves?"
Anyone can ask any question and make any statement they like but these are not only deliberately antagonistic, they're based on lies. Any group that doesn't value life would probably be dead. Sandra Fluke was working on this issue in obscurity for three years before politics made her famous. And characterizing liberals as children with their hands out is a projection -- the right wing gets more handouts from government by something like a 100:1 ratio, red states generally send less than they receive from Washington while blue states send more, and corporate tax breaks far outnumber household deductions in number and amount.
I don't mind a legitimate debate but some of these people are just here to antagonize and disrupt as is clear by their language and manner. I don't care how much they protest to the contrary or how often they show flashes of logic, as long as they continue to construct arguments on lies, talking points and false assumptions, they're just conservatrolls.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
Interesting that you picked "Do Muslims value life?" I made about 10 posts in that thread. Go check them out and let me know what you think.
You talk about people spreading misinformation not backed up by facts and you follow it up with "the right wing gets more handouts from government by something like a 100:1 ratio"
You keep going back to right wing and left wing. There are more than two wings. There are hundreds of types of people. States are not red or blue. People are not either conservative or liberal, right or left, black or white. Fortunately there are more than two colors.
One, I read some of your comments on the Muslim thread and you're a reasoned thinker. I think anyone who reads this post will know exactly the kinds of people I'm talking about. I don't count you among them.
To your next point, I often do provide evidence:
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/04/18/red-state-moochers-federal-taxes-favor-those-who-complain-the-most-about-federal-taxes/
http://www.infographicworld.com/demo/REDvsBLUE/index.html
And I could go get more on corporate subsidies but do we really have to re-prosecute the obvious every time? The antagonists among us demand proof without offering any ever, except when they link to Redstate.com or some equally fact-free screed. We offer proof with links and reasoned debate and the only thing we ever get back is more demands for more proofs about obvious things that were settled generations ago. It's childish and I'm not going to detail every factoid on earth just to make a point. I hope you understand. I'm too old and been at this too long to play those games with trolls.
To your last point, of course there are as many opinions and perspectives as there are humans and probably more, because some of us are pretty bipolar. But like it or not, we tend to spread those opinions out on a spectrum from left to right. Most people don't even know what the labels properly mean anymore. A conservative who believes in subsidizing any industry is just as self-deluded as a liberal who believes in rattling sabers at Iran.
Nothing is clean and tidy but that's no good for TV, which prefers things in neat, bite-size packets for quick consumption and assimilation without thought. TV dominates our discussion on a national level. It sucks but it's reality. I'd like to change it and I work to do so but I deal with the framework that I have. As long we're framing the debate as a right/left divide, I'm going to see to it that the right takes its lumps.
I hope that all makes sense.
I prefer not to use blog sites as resources. I look for .edu or .org sites and even then you have to take the data with a grain of salt.
What you are doing is using data from a biased blog to make a political statement. I have seen this red states take more argument before so I looked it up. It turns out that more of the money comes from blue states for several reasons. There are more people and the people make more money.
Alaska is a huge state with a small population. It has the largest national parks and wilderness areas in the country. So it makes sense that the state consumes more tax dollars than it contributes. The same holds for Montana and some other large underpopulated states.
Next is the money issue. NY, NJ, NH, CA and CT have more 1 percenters and high income families than all of the other states put together. WV, KY, MS are poor states with very low median incomes.
The biggest problem is that the study does not include the Big Spending items SSI, Medicare, and defense spending which make up more than 60% of the budget.
My main point was that there really are no red or blue states. That are really shades of purple. If you look at a so called "blue state" by county you will find that they are mostly red counties with blue near the higher populated cities.
All rural countries trend red and all urban counties trend blue in every state in the union. I'm not new to this stuff. Infographicworld is not a partisan site and while Alternet is, the source of the chart is not. The numbers are the numbers. This is what I mean by re-prosecuting every factoid in existence. This information has been widely available for a long time now. We don't all live in a vacuum. People need to read and learn the truth about the world they live. It's not up to me to provide every detractor with a classical education to get them up to speed.
Finally, yes, there are red states and blue states. New York is blue. Sure, we have our share of Republican officeholders but that reflects their moderation, not our conservatism. And Mississippi is red, through and through. You have to go to Utah to find any redder. Are there conservatives in NY, of course. Wall Street is here! Are there liberals in MS? Of course, big fishing and service sectors down there. But on the whole, NY is blue and MS is red. You want to talk about purple, we're talking Virginia, Texas, Florida, etc.
The fact of the matter is, Mississippi, and states like it, have taken oodles of money from the rest of the states for generations because its apartheid mindset leads to a perpetually dysfunctional economy. I'm tired of footing the bill for bad policy while simultaneously being slandered as a liberal good-for-nothing. I'm tired of paying the way for people who describe my city as Sodom and Gomorrah when they've never even been here. There are more churches in Brooklyn than in the entire state of North Dakota (OK, that's probably a stretch but not by much!).
I'm just tired of watching childishness pass for reasoned political debate. It isn't and it never has been and I'm not playing any more.
I was wrong, that isn't a stretch. There are definitely more churches in the borough of Brooklyn than there are in the entire state of North Dakota. A LOT more.
http://www.brooklynchurches.org/directory/indexes/alpha-A.htm
http://www.usachurches.org/cities-nd.htm
The spin of the article (and others I have seen) is that it implies that red states are feeding off blue states therefore republicans are feeding of democrats. While the data in the report is accurate the story that is told is not. IT is all about spinning the story.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think is is fair that some states pay for other states but that is what happens when you have a progressive income tax.
Let's take NJ (a blue state) for example. Four of the wealthiest counties in the nation are Somerset, Bergen, Morris, and Hunterdon counties in NJ (red counties) These four counties pay the bulk of the federal income taxes in the state.
And what is that money in Alaska used for? 10% goes to medicare and the native health care system. Another 20% goes to Federal obligations to indigenous people since we only aquired it in 1959. Another 20% goes to military spending.
As for Mississippi, the 2008 data reflects FEMA dollars spent after Hurricane Katrina. I often wonder why we use federal dollars pay to rebuild along the Mississippi and in New Orleans LA when it is below sea level.
For me the truth I see is that that both parties spend. When representatives are elected they believe their job is to bring home the bacon.
"When people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic" -- Benjamin Franklin
As for NY on the whole being blue you are mistaken. I cannot find the map I looked at a few years ago but the map at the bottom of this article will show you it is not. It is actually an interesting article. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/
I know that Queens, Staten Island and most upstate counties trend R. They're still outnumbered and some of those demos are shifting left. And NY almost always goes D in Presidential elections, by substantial margins. Most statewide elections are decided in the Dem primary. It's just the way it is. I live here. I know.
Progressive taxation is only slightly to blame for wide disparities in state tax receipts, because it's applied uniformly across all states. New York has a robust social safety net that keeps low-income residents spending into the local economy. Most other "bluish" states -- California, Massachusetts, Illinois -- also have stronger safety nets than their "redish" counterparts. Only the most extreme Austrian school economists don't think that keeping low-income citizens afloat is relatively cheap for the taxpayers compared to the economic activity they support.
Any fair reading of the state-by-state economy shows that the more support services a state provides, the healthier the economy overall. A healthier economy means a broader tax base and higher federal tax receipts. It's not the millionaires that make the biggest difference but the size of the middle class. Mississippi has plenty of millionaires but not all "redish" states are as strict. So it's not so much about the voter registration as the policies that have been enacted.
I know a lot of people truly believe in the principle that giving money to anyone for any reason is unethical. Whether the reason is the principle of taxes as theft or the belief in creating permanent dependency, the arguments against fully funded social safety nets are generally philosophical or based on bad social science. We're now dependent on oil subsidies and the same characters don't apply the same logic in that instance. So philosophy is irrelevant in policy-making. Some people are born permanently dependent and some are made but few choose it over self-determination. Some may see it as the more logical choice in a depressing landscape but very few, given equal opportunity, choose permanent childhood.
We have decades of proof showing that government spending, within limits, is stimulative, that austerity in recessions leads to depressions, that government budgets are nothing like household budgets, that trickle down economics doesn't trickle down, that the majority of waste in the federal budget is in the Pentagon, and that all of this would still be sustainable if we just had a marginal tax rate that floated above the level of write-offs that most wealthy individuals and businesses can take OR eliminated all the loopholes that allow them to shelter so much cash.
If we want to cut taxes so much, let's go after the incompetent TSA and the bloat in the Pentagon budget and unnecessary defense contracts. Why must it always be the very things that serve people and stimulate the economy most? Like figuring out how to preserve New Orleans, which is still an important port and the nearest city to thousands of square miles of oil extraction and refining.
Got to think big picture and not get bogged down in principle so much. I used to be a much more hot-headed liberal. I generally regard myself as a progressive now because I care more about making real progress than standing on any principle. What makes sense is what interests me. For instance, why is it previous generations were able to afford to build the greatest schools, power grid and transportation system in the world and now we're so poor we're literally unpaving what our ancestors laid down? It's not unions (at a 30-year low) or progressive taxation (flatter now under the Bush tax cuts than in the previous seventy years). When you find that answer, you find solutions.
Mississippi has had decades of the same results from the same policies over and over again. But they have an incentive not to learn, to take their pork from the Federal budget and dole out patronage to their pals. The business/government revolving door means any reward doled out by a public servant will be repaid after leaving office. It happens at the national level, and more and more the further down the chain you go. It's so chronic that some states have done away with democracy entirely and just install crony capitalist "managers" to rape local budgets, strip away the last vestige of social services, and turn public land and private land seized through eminent domain over to their business friends in a brutal act of economic cleansing.
I'm not making this stuff up. The people who accuse me of making things up are most often the most obvious liars. I shouldn't have to post a link proving every other word I typed in this comment. If you're really so interested in truth, justice and the American way, go out there and get it. I'm not accessing private information. This doesn't come from my private news service. If you're a concerned American, you should be out there getting better informed, not trying to convince people that progressive taxation is to blame for Mississippi's chronically depressed condition. It isn't and saying so won't make it so.
essential point: "Interesting that you picked "Do Muslims value life?" I made about 10 posts in that thread" -- if you would be an ignorant, phony, provocative, and have solid illogical statements - you'll definitely achieve the gathering around your post, and this is important, and feed away from most interesting topics. I agree with you, people doing it because they want some attention. And they truly believes in what they doing.
[Removed]
Someone on another site asked me for proof of paid trolling when I said they were, but I am hoping you have some citations to share with me and shut this guy I am talking to up?
There's no way to prove that on a case-by-case basis, unless you can access someone's tax return and connect the dots. But there's a long, rich history of astroturfing, which paid trolling essentially is. I don't normally cite wikipedia as a source but it aggregates a lot of good references on this topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
Thrassy knows this already. He just wants to play. He tries to play like he is on the left but he is actually right wing. If you read him enough it is pretty easy to spot.
I used to comment on the Mediaite boards until I couldn't stomach the juvenile delinquents anymore. I know exactly what you mean. I outed more than one conservatroll posing as a liberal with outlandish ideas and divisive rhetoric over there. It's pretty easy to rile them up by just hammering them over and over again with the truth of what they are. They eventually reveal themselves.
He definitely will. It's almost like you can see him winking at everyone that knows his game. Then he does this whole bat eyelashes and "who me?" gig.
I think this post is so funny. "ignore their juvenile taunts and let them PREACH to themselves." Why cant YOU preach to your selves? WHY MUST YOU go out in public and preach, protest and take-over? Seems like you are doing the preaching not us. You can simply leave everyone else alone and rent a room somewhere and preach to yourselves rather than preach to US. You are the juveniles.
Despite the fact that you believe the world revolves around you, "you" do not constitute "everyone else." "You" represent the 1%. Ergo, "we" represent the "everyone else." And nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to come to the Occupy Wall Street forum. You ain't fooling anyone, genius.
If I'm not mistaken,,,, I thought OWS became public to promote? To promote what? An agenda for America? If it is,,,, I just my chance happen to be an American that actually pays the income taxes and property taxes that "YOU" are wanting so bad,,,,,,,,, I think I'm correct. You do want me to pay for for YOU? I thought so. So,,, yes,, I think I am FORCED to come to OWS forum and participate on MY behalf. You do believe in some type of fairness???????? MAYBE????? Oh NO,,,,, I'm not trying to FOOL anyone,,, not you,,,, I'm dead serious that I will do everything within the law to STOP YOU from putting your stealing little hands into my back pocket.
You mean you want to keep allowing the 1% to steal from the 99%, Mr. Multiple Punctuation Marks. I know you think you seem like a mature fiscal conservative but you actually come across as a shill for a decidedly failed ideology. Pathetic.
Failed ideology? Seems like it is YOUR hands down in my pockets wanting my money. You are the poor and pathetic lazy whiner.
Nice try, thief.
Since i'm not rich, then I must be one of the 99%. As a 99%,,,, I CLAIM (!!!!!!! just for you ) that I dont want to raise taxes or support new social programs. There you go,,, as a 99%,, I have stated that we are happy with the way things were and want to go back that direction. There you go.
I work freelance and teach part time. I know what I'm doing here in the middle of a workday. You continue to be wholly unimpressive.
"Freelance, Part-Time" = Welfare.And I'm paying for it. Go get yourself a Diet Dr Pepper and I will pay for it.
Working = welfare? Paychecks are charity? Boy, when shut-ins swallow the 1% lie, they REALLY swallow it whole!
Nobody cares what you think, bobo.