Conservapedia February 25, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, wingnuts.trackback
Everybody’s abuzz about “Conservapedia,” which purports to fight back against the “liberal bias” of Wikipedia (“Liberal Bias” here meaning the ability of editors to be somewhat selective of content). II’ve found some fun links, but before I get to them let me just add that the conservapedia Index page uses the “CE” notation for dating, not “BC/AD,” despite listing just that choice as one of the “liberal biases” of wikipedia.
thought I’d note a couple entries discovered on conservapedia via random search. They may have changed by the time you read this, but these are as they existed when I found them.
“Pilgrims”:
“Pilgrims were people (mostly puritans) in the 1600’s that traveled to the American Colonies because of persecution in England. These settlers started the very first settlement in the American colonies, Jamestown.”
More after the break.
“Deadsidedemon”:
“A sexy female who consumes mass quantities of coffee, known as the Caffeine Queen. Also see DSD”
from “Community Property”:
“Community property is the law in southwestern and western states where there was an historic Spanish (Catholic) influence: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Texas, and Washington. Wisconsin has recently adopted the community property laws for reasons unrelated to Spanish influence.”
“Affirmative Action”:
A term describing programs intended to boost ethnic minorities.
Often refers to legislation or policies giving an arbitrary competitive advantage to minorities in the fields of employment and education. Affirmative action policies are a factor in the admissions processes for many American Colleges.
from “Ronald Reagan”:
“Reagan was strongly opposed to the concept of Big government, advocating a reduction in the size and budget of the federal government, although during his terms in office the government size and budget both increased rather than decreasing due to tax-and-spend Democrats.”
from “The Crusades”:
“One of the main purposes of the crusades was to make Jerusalem safe for Christian pilgrimages. Fed up with reports of the murdering of defenseless Christian pilgrims, in 1095 Pope Urban II called for feudal knights to retake the Holy Land from the Seljuk Turks.”
Grrr… bad history makes me mad. Bad people doing bad history makes me madder. There’s a difference between “Separatists” and “Puritans.” The entry on the Crusades makes me want to spew.
Re: Deadsidedemon: She sounds like someone with whom I would get along well! However, I’m not sure I understand why she warrants an entry, given that googling the name gave me a bunch of links that seem to indicate that she’s simply someone out there playing WoW…
Re: Community Property: Hey, Puerto Rico’s a state now? How’d I miss that?
I think I’m going to go poke around there myself for a little while…
Ooh, choice quote: “President Ronald Reagan finally ended the Cold War in 1989 because he caused the Soviet Union to fall.” Hmm…
Hm. So… full… of rage…
Number of errors in the “Pilgrim” entry alone: at least four.
I HONESTLY believe that this is a VERY good parody. IT HAS TO BE! Think Landover Baptist. Look at the Reagan entry! No conservative would DARE mention that Reagan actually increased government. It’s beautiful snark.
The problem is that Landover Baptist is funny and unmistakably parodic. This is not quite so clearly parody — for instance, the entry on the crusades comes close to being almost accurate on a couple of points. So I dunno. I guess maybe some of the posters are trying for parody?
I suspect we’re seeing a mix of parody and genuine stupidity. Landover is a few people at most, creating a persona church, if you will. Conservapedia has plenty of editors, and no doubt some are engaged in some parodic activity. Others, though, are absolutely serious, I’m convinced. I mean, the pilgrims entry might be funny, but where’s the parody?
This is unbelievable, and proves the old adage: The power of the press belongs to those that have them. I guess this goes for websites too. Conservative re-writing of history is nothing new, but this is blatant exercise in bringing coals to Newcastle is silly and pathetic.