Redneck wrote
I am beginning to think Brian may be right!
This forum largely consists of right wing - anti immigration - Islamaphobes
Who are very intolerant of alternate views!!
Just wondering?
My answer to your question is "no", and I will explain why.
To begin with, Brian Ross owns his own debate site (Debate and Relate) which had been around for many years, and it was a good debate site until Brian somehow got control of it. At that point right wing contributors started to leave although I do not know why. My own posts were few because of time constraints but one fine day I decided to post an anti Muslim post of about 2000-3000 words. The only response I got was from Brian and another lefty who both responded in identical ways. Both wrote sneery one liners to the effect that I did not prove my points.
I thought to myself "Is this a debate site?" What Brian and his comrade had done was to frustrate my long and well reasoned post by simply dismissing it with a curt sentence. Now, I am not wasting my time posting replies to people who do not want to debate and who are simply using tactics to deliberately stifle debate. So I stopped contributing to Debate and Relate and went elsewhere.
It was some years before I had the inclination to give D&R another chance. I read through the posts on D and R and realised that it was almost dead. It seemed to consist of just a bunch of lefties reinforcing each other's worldview, and a house trained right winger or two vainly trying to make headway. I posted up exactly the same 2000-3000 word article I had posted previously to see if it got a better reaction this time around.
The reaction I got was to be banned from D&R. The rules of debate had changed so much in the intervening years that it was clear to me that D&R was now a PC site where freedom of speech was savagely curtailed. Nothing could be posted to "offend" any PC protected minority. Since immigration and multiculturalism, and especially Islamic immigration, are the two most hotly discussed issues among people who are interested in political debate, Brian had effectively banned from comment the two most important subjects people want to discuss.
That D&R is still politically constipated, and still threatening or banning right wingers who wish to verbally cross swords over important issues with lefties, can be deduced by the fact that Brian has come onto a right wing site to get some action. But unlike left wing sites like D&R and New Matilda, we don't try to muzzle our opponents or ban them from raising issues we don't want discussed.
The problem of attracting opponents of differing viewpoints so that a lively debate takes place, is common to lefty sites like D&R and New Matilda on one hand, and right wing sites like Political Animal on the other. But the lefties problem is caused by their banning effective right wing writers who refuse to be constrained by rules that prevent them speaking about what they think is important. The right wing problem is caused by the fact that any little young doe eyed innocent trendy lefty who comes on PA with little more than a superior attitude and a few memorised slogans for arguments, is going to be quickly torn to shreds by the right wing sharks.
