Reply #112: Not really. I've had to grow a thicker skin

[FBaggins]

I can't tell you how many times I've been called some flavor of right-wing shill just because I don't fall as far left as others.

Just as "barely to the left of Attila the Hun" doesn't make one a conservative... being to the right of the DU center doesn't make one a republican.

Passionate people mistake facts and opinions.

I'll give you an example from education. Many years ago, there was some guy who said that african americans have a lower IQ than whites. The correct response would be to demonstrate that this wasn't the case... or to identify what in IQ testing might bias the results by race. Others simply jumped to the attack that he must be bigoted (and perhaps he was). But disagreement on facts and disagreement on policy are not the same things.