Environment & Energy

on speech? Why play "Gotcha" with either trolls or morons? When you're referencing posts written two years ago, you're not making it easy for newcomers to feel welcomed.

I could care about the "poster in question" -- truly. And as I have said elsewhere, I think the deniers are looloobirds. HOWEVER, in the interests of fairness, unless you make that "DENIERS NOT WELCOME" aspect entirely clear in your SOP, you're playing an entrapment game. People join DU every day. Not everyone "knows the culture" or the memes, or what's OK and what's not.

I'll bet you could find morons who don't "believe in" climate change who are reliable Democratic voters for other reasons--like heath care, like equality issues, like "the Democrats helped my (fill in relative) when no one else would." All politics IS local. Not every Dem is a rocket scientist. Not every Democrat adheres to every plank of the platform--it's something that the insular nature of this place seems to forget--a LOT.

If "Outright denialism is over the lline" then just put it in your SOP. Be straightforward. Act with absolute integrity. That way no one can cry, whine, and claim that you're being "mean" to them, sandbagging them, or driving them away.

With a few words you could ratchet down a LOT of drama--why not get together, come up with a sentence or two, and ask Skinner to add it?