But at the end of the day, I don't care whether people believe in AGW or not. I only care if people with guns (the government) tries to make pay for what I consider their religion. Moreover, I don't have a lot of patience with random internet guy insulting me on my own forum by explicitly comparing me with a holocaust denier (as if AGW is a historical documented fact, the sheer arrogance is astounding).
Showing a little respect for other human beings in a discussion will go a long way. Because if they can't do that, I will show them the door.
First, the comparison was implicit at most, not explicit. He's not calling you a Holocaust denialist, any more than I am. You were saying you didn't see why AGW proponents got mad about skepticism on this topic, he brought up some other topics he gets mad at skeptics for, and then linked to a site devoted to the tactics used by a given faction with a certain viewpoint on those topics. Read the methodology - it matches up quite neatly (on a movement and policy level, again, not about individuals here)
You took offense, and I don't get that. The tactics used by denialists, in whatever topic, regardless of ideology, are similar, no? Once again, the fact that you, personally, don't identify with a given faction on a given topic changes nothing about the fact that the methods used to manufacture debate are the same, across factions, and across topics.
It offended you earlier when we drew the explicit links between the Tobacco Lobby and anti-AGW lobby, but again, I don't get it. No one is saying *you* are the tobacco lobby, but on a policy level the tobacco lobby is deeply involved on the anti-AGW side. The link exists, and Mumble kindly provided it again on this page. You can't show anything which puts the lie to that. How is that a personal insult against you, Frogboy, or any of the commenters here, worthy of muting somebody for?
Of course I empathize with your initial impulse to muzzle anyone who points this stuff out, but doing it out of righteous indignation smacks of naivete - these are the dogs you are sleeping with, and yes, you will get fleas
I don't know any of you in "real life" but my real life experiences with AGW proponents tend to be people who aren't terribly bright but suddenly think they are somehow intellectuals because they saw An Inconvenient Truth.
That's a good line ^^
As far as real life goes - people tend to stereotype. I'll admit, when I meet someone who doesn't go with the first few tenets of AGW I'm usually going to fill in the blanks (and get, I'm sure, many of them wrong): Conservative, Christian, Anglo, family-oriented, moralistic, monolingual, if American then Republican or Libertarian, likes Fox News, likes Sarah Palin, hates MSNBC, hates San Francisco, possibly uneasy around ethnic diversity, nationalistic, jingoistic, creationist, pro-life, pro-death penalty, (as part of the two immediately preceding) zero sense of irony, pro-gun rights, non-urban, small-government, possibly college graduate but not necessarily (if so then at least upper-middle class income and business owner or manager), not a scientist, not an educator.
And of course this is where you jump on me for the parts in that admittedly biased perspective that don't fit you, specifically, right? Please remember, like Frogboy, I'm talking about my stereotypes in real-life encounters, not the people on this thread.
