My skin is tough. It is becoming my experience that using many citations with accompanying URLs is a decided advantage, when debating another who can only assert, assert louder and then assert again. Realpolitik grounds one in what is, and often chases ideological emptiness away. So has it seemed to me.
“Piss off you mindless tool” is as to sourced discussion as is flatulence to a garden of roses in bloom. It is a measure of the individual commenting in that manner, and an indication of the frustrations likely felt.
One thing is sure. Nothing -- nothing at all -- which comes from any of these debates and arguments actually makes a difference in the hall of Congress in DC, or the EU parliament, or the Kremlin, or Beijing. Nothing.
This forum seems to me to be 1) a way of speed reading though a great many titles and accompanying articles, and 2) making some comment with perhaps resulting dialogue and disagreement as it may come. The notion that conservatives must march in lock step on all issues is just so-o-o progressive and fascist, in the end.
Stay your course. Be well.
While you are absolutely correct that backing up your points with citations and links are the best method in debate, I tend to find with these trolls that it is a useless exercise. In many instances, as you’ve pointed out, they often will come “armed” with their own (propaganda) links from disreputable sources (as we’ve seen, we’ve got them on record as saying the NY Times is “reputable”). Since what we know is reputable and what they claim to be is at odds with reality, there cannot be an honest debate of the facts. And, of course, from there flows the usual deterioration of the discourse.
You’re also right that almost all of what gets posted or debated here makes not a hoot in hell with those who decide on policy. We did, once, have more of an impact 2 decades ago (I believe it was a FReeper who exposed Dan Rather’s insidious attempts to deceive the public for the 2004 election on G.W. Bush’s military service. Although I have since disavowed the ex-President, as has most of FR, Rather should’ve been brought up on criminal charges for his role in the matter).
I think we missed the boat after around 2004 to continue to remain relevant to the public, as many have expressed both publicly and privately, and retreated inward. Failure to update the website, which remains curiously a relic of a 1997 internet, has also been a problem. Though it may be comforting to some of us old-timers here (I first came here in 1998 and started posting in 2001), we’re failing to attract vigorous newcomers and no doubt our median age rises with each passing year, along with an ever-increasingly longer obit page dedicated to those that have gone on to their great reward.
Yes, your final observation that being able to quickly scroll headlines and make a quick post on a given topic remains what we basically are. Some folks are happy with that, though some others hope we could be a bit more, and have more of a public impact as we once did.
Take care.