User:Robledo

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“The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly coloured and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question, is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, ‘hey – don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride...’

And we... kill those people. Ha ha ‘Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.’ It’s just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. Jesus murdered; Martin Luther King murdered; Malcolm X murdered; Gandhi murdered; John Lennon murdered; Reagan.... wounded. But it doesn’t matter because: It’s just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want.

It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings or money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defence each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace."

Bill Hicks, Revelations

[edit] CP Bannination

Copped an infinite block after posting the following objection to the Talk:Main Page love-in resulting from Stephanie Simon's L.A. Times article. Assfly's frenzied response (< 11 minutes thinking time) can still be enjoyed here.

Whilst I agree she disapproves of the "vandalism," you seem to be missing (wilfully?) the fact that the article is overwhelmingly negative about Conservapedia itself.

For your consideration:

• ...offering what Schlafly describes as fair, scholarly articles. Many have a distinctly religious-right perspective.

The closing sentence is clearly intended to negate Schlafly's "fair & scholarly" assertion. She reinforces this negation with a description of CP's take on the Pleistocene Epoch - the "multiple lines of evidence" quote from CP is beautifully restrained mockery.

• "We have certain principles that we adhere to, and we are up-front about them," Schlafly writes in his mission statement. "Beyond that we welcome the facts."

Schlafly is allowed to damn himself with his own words: facts are less important to him than his religious beliefs.

• Femininity? The quality of being "childlike, gentle, pretty, willowy, submissive."

Allowing CP to damn itself with its own words. Ms. Simon knows full well that the majority of her readership would be appalled at such an definition. Childlike? Submissive? One can only imagine how much coffee was spluttered over breakfast tables across the nation.

• And the state of the economy under President Bush? Much better than the "liberal media" would have you think: "For example, during his term Exxon Mobile has posted the largest profit of any company in a single year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well."

Possibly my favourite bit. With deepest apologies to whoever planted it, a prank statement presented as approved CP material. And no-one posting above spotted it - sometimes I wonder how you all manage to put your trousers on without killing yourselves.

• [CP's critics] worry about material presented as fact in science and medicine entries that typically seek to debunk evolution, condemn homosexuality and raise fears about abortion. They're also concerned that children who stumble onto the site will assume everything in it is authoritative.

"material presented as fact" = non-factual. She does nothing to contradict this concern about material in the articles in question and the following five paragraphs reinforce it. Many would read this as implicit agreement with your critics.

• Schlafly says students can always follow the footnotes to get more information, but few links connect to dissenting — or even mainstream — views.

The "or even mainstream" phrase is the clincher: CP as part of the radical fringe.

• Schlafly calls the armchair psychology "borderline in acceptability" for his site, but he defends the Clinton article on balance as "an objective, bias-free piece from a conservative perspective."

The "armchair psychology" phrase is mildly caustic, but the selected Schlafly quote is intended to make him look ridiculous. A "bias-free piece" would have no preferred ideological perspective.

• ...a few [articles] showed dissenting views. An entry about kangaroo origins, for instance, stated that most scientists believe in evolution. (It was the last line in the entry, after a lengthy discussion about which marsupials Noah may have brought aboard his ark.)

Gentle mockery re. Noah and the attention to which CP gives dissenting views.

• In other cases, a glance at the entry's history — which shows editing over time — makes clear how quickly dissenting views are deleted. Dr. Peter A. Lipson, an internist in Southfield, Mich., repeatedly tried to amend an article on breast cancer to tone down Conservapedia's claim that abortion raises a woman's risk. The site's administrators, including Schlafly, questioned his credentials and shut off debate.

Straighforward criticism of administrative policy.

• But the biggest lesson she's taken away as a young conservative is: "There are people who want to destroy us."

A dramatic and emotive closing line. Whilst its interpretation is up for grabs, I have serious doubts about whether it is intended to portray a rational response to the "vandalism" CP has experienced. Given the overall tone of the article, it could easily (and is probably intended) to be read as a somewhat hysterical overreaction, indicative of the conservative mindset in general.

In case anyone's still reading by this point, I'll repeat what I've said before: allowing editors right of fair reply to controversial subjects would solve many of your "vandalism" problems. A "See also" link at the foot of the article would probably suffice, as long as sysops refrained from egregious distortion of the reply article. You should be sufficiently confident in the truth of your beliefs to tolerate a lot more dissent than you currently do.

Godspeed,

--Robledo 18:45, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

Ah, good memories. That article was quite a Trojan horse. I corresponded with Stephanie Simons quite a bit but wasn't prepared to let my own name be used in print. However, I pointed her to the Kangaroo, Pleistocene and Exxon Mobile (sic) entries so I got a certain satisfaction seeing them featured in print.