Conservapedia; everything wrong with modern conservatism (1 Viewer)

[Nomad4Ever]

I recently discovered the existence of "Conservapedia", a conservative alternative to Wikipedia which is apparently a progressive site overrun with radical Marxists that necessitates the building of a new Wikipedia. So, what is Conservapedia exactly?

Conservapedia, launched on November 21, 2006, is a conservative, family-friendly Wiki encyclopedia. It was founded by teacher and attorney Andrew Schlafly with the help of several students from his fall 2006 World History class.

Conservapedia strives to keep its articles concise, informative, family-friendly, and true to the facts, which often back up conservative ideas more than liberal ones. (Source)

One of the main differences they tout between their site and Wikipedia is being true to the facts and free of mobocracy. They openly admit they write with a conservative bias, but maintain this doesn't detract for them being factual and informative. With that in mind, I poked around the website a bit to see what information someone would come away with from reading a Conservapedia article vs Wikipedia.

The first article that caught my eye was their article on COVID-19. This article really sets the theme for the rest of my experience with Conservapedia. After a few paragraphs of dry descriptions of what COVID is, there is this sentence;

World leaders actively hope that COVID-19 can lead to The Great Reset, and are even openly calling for it in the news. (Source)

What is "The Great Reset" you might wonder?

The Great Reset is the globalist, Biden junta and Liberal Party of Canada agenda to use the destruction of the U.S. and global economies by the Chinese virus pandemic to implement the Green New Deal. It is based on the idea that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste and that capitalism can be snuffed out once and for all. (Source)

They also have an article on a phenominon they've dubbed "Faucism".

Faucism[1][2][3] (pron. "FOUL CHEE ISM"[4]) is a mental condition which causes one to view bureaucratic "public health experts" as infallible. A combination of scientism and totalitarianism, it refers to the cult of personality of Anthony Stephen Fauci... (Source)

They also have a funny article where they credit conservatives for inventing words. The list of "conservative" words includes words like, "axiomatic", "altruism", "alcoholism", "Big Brother", "clueless" and hundreds of others. Many of the words include little definitions. "Clueless" for example;

hopelessly ignorant about something important, as liberals often are

 

[Nomad4Ever]

Really though, there is one main theme that dominates the narrative of this website; fundamentalist Christianity. While many articles inject some pretty standard conservative viewpoints, what perviates the entire is a distinctly religious perspective even in articles you would think have nothing to do with anything religious. The next article I looked at was their piece on NATO;

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance initially founded in 1949 to combat the spread of communism in Central Europe from the Soviet Union

Like many of their other articles, it starts off unobjectionable enough. However;

In recent years, NATO has become a promoter of the homosexual agenda, which Russia (and the Bible) opposes.

The article continues to praise Russia and Putin as bastions of conservative Christian thought. They go even further in their article on Putin;

A self-described Christian, Putin leads the increasingly conservative Russia against the homosexual agenda and towards pro-life side. Liberals criticize Putin and Russia because they disagree with him on social issues.

Interestingly, they chose on Putin's page to display an image of Putin looking at footage of Ukrainian president Zelensky doing a homoerotic dance (on a TV show before he became president).


This makes sense however if you look at the broader narrative they are pushing; the war against the "globalist homosexual agenda". According to Conservapedia,

The Homosexual Agenda is a self-centered set of beliefs and objectives designed to mandate approval of homosexuality and its ideology. The goals and means of this movement include indoctrinating students in public school, restricting the free speech of opposition, obtaining special treatment for homosexuals, distorting Biblical teaching and science, and interfering with freedom of association.

The homosexual agenda is the biggest threat to the rights of free speech and religious freedom today.

The page includes this bizarre sentence,

Activities like baseball and chess reduce homosexual proclivities, while other activities like figure skating for men and soccer for women seem to encourage homosexuality.

And also some of the goals of this agenda including very benign objectives like, "Legalize homosexuality" to totally insane claims such as "Accept child sex trafficking" and "Encourage abortion". They even manage to tie this piece in nicely with the pro-Russian messaging from their NATO and Putin pages;

Russia is a leader in rejecting the homosexual agenda.[7][8][9] For example, Russia banned adoption by Americans as the Obama Administration aggressively pushed the homosexual agenda

In an attempt to see if it was only politicized topics that were this distorted I went to the page for E=mc². Surely, I thought, math would be a subject that would be presented in a dry and straightforward manner.

The primary effect of the formula appears to be to lead students away from the Bible, which implicitly rejects a unified theory for mass and light. Indeed, despite a century of searching, physicists themselves have completely failed at developing a coherent unified theory for both mass and light as implied by the formula.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

To me, Conservapedia represents everywhere the modern Conservative movement has gone wrong. The modern conservative narrative is everything, from the deep state, Disney, Facebook, libraries, to apparently even Wikipedia has been taken over by "liberals", "cultural Marxists" or just more broadly "the left". This necessitates the building of Conservative "alternatives". The problem with many of these alternatives is there is an inherent "contrarian" nature to them. Whatever the liberals think is wrong, so we have to do the opposite.

If Liberals like TOS, our social platforms will have minimal TOS. If liberals support Ukraine, we support Russia. Even simple topics like math apparently need a counter narrative. And the entire thing is completely entwined with conspiracism and Christian fundamentalism, to the point that the writers seem incapable of discussing any topic without tying in religion somehow. In fact, a core theme of the site is combating this "homosexual agenda" which just seems to be a stand in for anything they don't like. NATO is gay. Obama is gay. Ukraine is gay. Fauci is gay. Science is atheistic and therefore gay. I mean it really is a commendable amount of homophobia.

Whatever biases and issues exist in our current Neo-liberal systems, modern conservatism is completely unequipped to tackle those issues. All of their criticisms consume themselves.

 

[element94]

They subtly require conformity. I will not conform!

 

[CaughtInThe]

the republican party went from this (first pic) to this (second pic)...

 

[Felis Leo]

I recently discovered the existence of "Conservapedia", a conservative alternative to Wikipedia which is apparently a progressive site overrun with radical Marxists that necessitates the building of a new Wikipedia. So, what is Conservapedia exactly?


One of the main differences they tout between their site and Wikipedia is being true to the facts and free of mobocracy. They openly admit they write with a conservative bias, but maintain this doesn't detract for them being factual and informative. With that in mind, I poked around the website a bit to see what information someone would come away with from reading a Conservapedia article vs Wikipedia.

The first article that caught my eye was their article on COVID-19. This article really sets the theme for the rest of my experience with Conservapedia. After a few paragraphs of dry descriptions of what COVID is, there is this sentence;

What is "The Great Reset" you might wonder?

They also have an article on a phenominon they've dubbed "Faucism".


They also have a funny article where they credit conservatives for inventing words. The list of "conservative" words includes words like, "axiomatic", "altruism", "alcoholism", "Big Brother", "clueless" and hundreds of others. Many of the words include little definitions. "Clueless" for example;

I recall reading Conservapedia roughly a decade ago, and it appeared to be a site that is dedicated to self-parody.

 

[Helix]

Man, I haven't heard about that site since I was a right winger. Figures that it's still up. What a joke.

 

[element94]

the republican party went from this (first pic) to this (second pic)...

Spoiler

That second pic could just as well be of their voters.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

I recall reading Conservapedia roughly a decade ago, and it appeared to be a site that is dedicated to self-parody.

It had escaped my notice until I saw a twitter post about it. I'm curious, how was the site before the Trump era? I expect the religious fundamentalism was still present but there was less conspiracism. Like, I expected the articles on evolution and COVID 19 to be trash. What surprised me was how completely overrun with Qanon talking points the site was and how funny some of the articles were. Like the one crediting half the English language to conservatives.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I recall reading Conservapedia roughly a decade ago, and it appeared to be a site that is dedicated to self-parody.

Its a perfect real world example of Poe's law.

 

[Arlette]

I blame Reagan. He got rid of all the looney bins

 

[Arlette]

It had escaped my notice until I saw a twitter post about it. I'm curious, how was the site before the Trump era? I expect the religious fundamentalism was still present but there was less conspiracism. Like, I expected the articles on evolution and COVID 19 to be trash. What surprised me was how completely overrun with Qanon talking points the site was and how funny some of the articles were. Like the one crediting half the English language to conservatives.

IMO America's churches are a breeding ground for hate and ignorance

 

[element94]

I blame Reagan. He got rid of all the looney bins

There's a very good argument for their return.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

IMO America's churches are a breeding ground for hate and ignorance

To be honest I'm borderline an anti-theist. I understand why many people are religious and I don't really have an issues with it on an individual level. But damn, organized religions really make it hard to not oppose the whole thing all together. I really dislike how much you can get away with behind the shield of religious views. "Oh, well yeah I think homosexuals are degenerates that will burn in hell for their sins, shouldn't be able to marry, shouldn't be able to adopt, and shouldn't display their degeneracy in public. Those are just my religious values so it's intolerant of you to criticize me for them."

Obviously most religious people aren't like that at all, but the way that institutionalized religion legalizes and protects discrimination in many ways is what really bothers me.

 

[Felis Leo]

It had escaped my notice until I saw a twitter post about it. I'm curious, how was the site before the Trump era? I expect the religious fundamentalism was still present but there was less conspiracism. Like, I expected the articles on evolution and COVID 19 to be trash. What surprised me was how completely overrun with Qanon talking points the site was and how funny some of the articles were. Like the one crediting half the English language to conservatives.

It was utterly unserious, anti-intellectual* drivel back when I read it in the late 2000-aughts. I cannot imagine more than a couple thousand people visited the site at any given time.

*I say "anti-intellectual" but that is too high an estimation. I should probably say "anti-thought."

 

[Warcok]

Wikipedia co-founder says site is now ‘propaganda’ for left-leaning ‘establishment’

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has warned that the website can no longer be trusted — insisting it is now just “propaganda” for the left-leaning “establishment.”

nypost.com

 

[Nomad4Ever]

I cannot imagine more than a couple thousand people visited the site at any given time.

I am certain they didn't. The site would have crashed. I had to website go down on me several times while researching to write this post lol.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

Wikipedia co-founder says site is now ‘propaganda’ for left-leaning ‘establishment’

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has warned that the website can no longer be trusted — insisting it is now just “propaganda” for the left-leaning “establishment.”

nypost.com

Whatever issues Wikipedia has, Conservapedia is clearly not the solution to them.

 

[Arlette]

To be honest I'm borderline an anti-theist. I understand why many people are religious and I don't really have an issues with it on an individual level. But damn, organized religions really make it hard to not oppose the whole thing all together. I really dislike how much you can get away with behind the shield of religious views. "Oh, well yeah I think homosexuals are degenerates that will burn in hell for their sins, shouldn't be able to marry, shouldn't be able to adopt, and shouldn't display their degeneracy in public. Those are just my religious values so it's intolerant of you to criticize me for them."

Obviously most religious people aren't like that at all, but the way that institutionalized religion legalizes and protects discrimination in many ways is what really bothers me.

All the howling about gays and abortion is to establish religion when the constitution clearly prohibits the establishment of religion. Evangelicals are political "Christians" and mainstream Christians don't push back because deep down their only joy in life is to stick their filthy snouts into other people's crotches

 

[Tigerace117]

I recall reading Conservapedia roughly a decade ago, and it appeared to be a site that is dedicated to self-parody.

The scary thing is that they are dead serious.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

The scary thing is that they are dead serious.

It would be a lot less scary if there weren't elected politicians right now parroting these talking points. If this was just some fringe website it would be funny. But it's not. It's fairly representative of how people like MTG and Tucker Carlson talk.

From an academic perspective, it is really interesting how pervasive the "homosexual agenda" talking point is. It really is just a fancy way of calling things they don't like "gay". The "gay agenda" talking point has been around since at least the 90s-00s. I'm not quite sure when it switched over to "homosexual agenda" but it was about the same time the Conservative movement started switching over their rhetoric to being against the "globalists". As far as I can tell, the homosexual agenda and the globalist agenda basically all refer to the same things.

 

[poweRob]

Conservapedia is another fine example of how cons would rather live in a bubble they create than in reality.

 

[Bubber]

Its a perfect real world example of Poe's law.

Poe's Law - according to Conservapedia:

Poe’s Law is an Internet adage that inappropriately compares God's mighty handiwork during the Creation to an insipid genre of satire. The original version of this "law" was formulated by Nathan Poe on the Internet site Christian Forums in August 2005

As horrifying as the site can be, It's kinda fun to browse. Surely nobody ACTUALLY believes any of it...

 

[Felis Leo]

It would be a lot less scary if there weren't elected politicians right now parroting these talking points. If this was just some fringe website it would be funny. But it's not. It's fairly representative of how people like MTG and Tucker Carlson talk.

From an academic perspective, it is really interesting how pervasive the "homosexual agenda" talking point is. It really is just a fancy way of calling things they don't like "gay". The "gay agenda" talking point has been around since at least the 90s-00s. I'm not quite sure when it switched over to "homosexual agenda" but it was about the same time the Conservative movement started switching over their rhetoric to being against the "globalists". As far as I can tell, the homosexual agenda and the globalist agenda basically all refer to the same things.

I have seen at least one member here unironically refer to "Globohomo" as a real thing.

 

[Arlette]

Conservapedia is another fine example of how cons would rather live in a bubble they create than in reality.

In lots of ways conservatism has turned into escapism. A religion. Religion doesn't have to make sense, just has to make you feel good. Some know it all is in charge. "I alone can fix it" Trumpy to the rescue