Just for the record - if you want corrections on GraniteGrok posts, you must provide proof of what's wrong. - Granite Grok

Just for the record – if you want corrections on GraniteGrok posts, you must provide proof of what’s wrong.

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Yes, perhaps I have been spending too much time on FaceBook lately but I now have stuff to bring back – this is one of them. Hold onto your seats, this is a relatively unknown fact:

Progressives hate GraniteGrok (and so do a number of Republicans).

Now, the latter will moan and whine a bit (like Andrew Cernota and Fergus “The Fringe” Cullen, for two quick examples) and that’s as far as it goes.  In spending time in a group on the politics of Nashua, it is really clear that the former really do hate us.  Why?  We spoil their Narrative.  Bigly.  And they will do or say anything they can or will to discredit us just as much as they will any other Conservative / Libertarian outlet.  Even Bruce Curry does it – but at least he’s willing to have the argument (but I do have to wonder how he thinks he’s debating when he won’t accept any sources the Groksters or other commentors put up here….sigh).

So why do I go there as well as Treehugger (who, btw, is much more milder than this other group where the uber-progressives basically hate everyone because we’re EVIL – and must be destroyed but more on that later.  Really vile stuff)?  Because if you don’t know what they are saying, if you don’t know their “debate” tactics (I know, being generous here), you will lose.  Almost  every time.  As an engineer, I would like to think that I’m rational and use the logic side of the brain.  Sure, I can get emotional, too, but that’s generally with “Mr Logic” going “ok bud, just so far or I’ll take control back”.  These folks?  Just way out there. So examples to come over the next few day.

In the meantime, I wish to reiterate an unspoken philosophy here at GraniteGrok, and now having been better exposed to the tactics, a bit of revision/addition as well via the use of an example.

SHOT:

Last week, I called out Beth Scaer for libel against Heather Raymond because she stated in a post on Granite Grok that Heather called Doris a white supremacist. I challenged Beth to provide evidence or a source for that claim because I knew it wasn’t true. Beth said she would check her sources but never replied. Instead, Beth blocked me and then deleted that section of the thread. I would suggest there be Group rules (He Gaff?) about deleting complete sections of a thread because it changes the relevance of all other comments in that thread. I’m not one for over-moderation, but that only seems to make sense. For the record, Beth (or GraniteGrok) has now deleted the complete Op Ed. I’m not sure if Beth has issued an apology to Ms. Raymond as of yet, but she definitely should.

And how it seems to go over that, a lot of “RACIST!”, “Prove it!”, “no Journalistic Integrity”, “Libel”, “Garbage at GraniteGrok”….you get the idea.  By the way, the person that was really the focus of all this spoke up in her behalf quite well and had others doing homework to bolster her points.  But the following is what I, as owner and co-founder, wish to stress:

CHASER: I added

Yeah….no, the Op-Ed still stands:

And I added:

“For the record, Beth (or GraniteGrok) has now deleted the complete Op Ed” Yeah, projection. Bet I don’t get an apology for this, either (saying that we deleted the Op-Ed….oh wait! Instead of apologizing (oops, my bad, it was there) which would have been fine, he just continues The Narrative defense. It’s what I’ve been watching this entire time. Self-absolution all the time.

So that was the first thing – I can’t even remember the last post I have deleted because someone said something.  I have pulled down posts, fixed a few things on them, and then reposted them. Oh wait, I did – a joke about Obama.  Prickly Progressives hated that joke about how Obama lies (which he just did again a few weeks ago about how easy it is to get any kind of gun you want in the US while he was overseas.  Gaslighting all the time but I digress).

Second which is indicative of the tactic to silence:

As much as I disagree with just about every post on your site, I will credit you with having an ounce of journalistic credibility if you remove her post due to Beth having zero source for the claim she’s made.

HE couldn’t tell me what was wrong but put the onus on me to correct something he just didn’t like. He wouldn’t provide the black and white proof but continued to hammer me for not spending lots of time to prove HIS point when he was unwilling to do it himself – and he was yammering about “journalistic integrity” all the while.  So I did respond:

I’ve been here just a short amount of time. I have no intentions of removing anything just on your say so.

He didn’t like that at all:

Then do it on your say so. When someone makes blatant claims in an op ed that others have disputed – check some sources. Or are you not doing real journalism?

So here’s the GraniteGrok stance:

There are LOTS of folks on the Left that dispute pretty much anything that’s on GraniteGrok.

Like Bruce Curry but at least he persists.

I don’t “do” appeasement and take down a post just because somebody’s panties get in a wad. I really could care less if the emotions of somebody else rule their lives – I’m not responsible for them and I’m not going to start now. If someone is offended, well, too bad.  After all, y’all on the Left would just laugh if I said I was offended, wouldn’t you? Are you going to take down your comment about “journalistic integrity” because I feel offended? Go ahead – go first.

I really don’t care if you get torqued off and get all smarmy or even vile and ugly.  We’ve been doing this for a long time and have seen most reason under the sun for why people get upset about what we write.  I back the volunteer writers here to the hilt.  I have not intentions of backing down to Progressives that nothing we write is ever right.  Most of the times they’ve been ill-advised or rank efforts to take stuff down they don’t like (and the occasional Republican, right Joel Desilets?).

Now, if you can PROVE that something is factually correct, we’ll fix it, but especially from a known Progressive, it had better be good and thorough.

But then, there are the Progressives:

Should I really believe that the Progressives in this group are going to stop judging me and GraniteGrok simply because I called Jan Schmidt out for lying about us? How long would that “we’ll be nice” period be from your side, eh? If history serves me well, a nanosecond might be a tad too long.

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