A RationalWiki piece informs its very-intelligent readers that American Thinker is a “wingnut publication”.

In a sub-link which explains the word “wingnut”, moonbat  RationalWiki says that “not all conservatives are wingnuts”. Nonetheless, American Thinker is a “wingnut publication”. That must mean that RationalWiki believes that American Thinker isn't even a good kind of conservative publication. Bad conservatives, apparently, are “reactionary” or “radical right”: unlike the good ones.

It must now be asked whether or not this distinction between wingnut conservatives and rational conservatives is simply disingenuous. In other words, would this writer be willing to cite those conservatives he thinks are good? Would he also be willing to tell us why, exactly, he thinks that they are good? Judging from the tone of this piece and RationalWiki generally, I doubt that he would - or even could - do that. 

Anyway, American Thinker is either reactionary or radical right (not both?). On top of that, people like me are “paranoid” and “authoritarian”. We also “refuse to accept any source as information” (what the hell does that mean?); as well as being prone to “conspiracy theories”, “psychological projection” and “crackpot theories”. 

It gets worse. 

American Thinker writers are also likely to be a “racist”, “misogynist” and “homophobic”. 

Nonetheless, RationalWiki does acknowledge the possibility that “not all wingnuts” suffer from all these maladies at once. Despite saying that, such a bundle of evil and irrationality in a single human being “seems all the more common every day”. 

It's fairly clear – to my irrational mind – that this writer might not have read a single American Thinker article. (As Uncyclopedia hints at later, he seems to rely on other Wikipedia articles.) For example, he comes out with this claim:

“The magazine, of course, is chock-full of right-wing concpiracy theories, woo, pesudoscience, and anti-science.” 

All this is stated without a single argument of any kind. All we have is smugness and sarcasm.

So apart from the smugness and heightened self-belief, RationalWiki's main thing seems to be its position on what it sees as “pseudoscience” and general irrationality.

Firstly, is there a RationalWiki piece on left-wing “conspiracy theories”? (Answer: no.) Secondly, I've never seen a single piece of “pseudoscience” in American Thinker. (Though that may be because, as an irrational wingnut, I wouldn't recognize pseudoscience even if it slapped me in the face.) As for “anti-science”.... now that's simply outrageous. (What a pipsqueak this RationalWiki writer is!)

What this writer doesn't realize is that – to a rational thinker -- generalizing about your opponent is supposed to be a very bad thing. Ad hominems are generally to be avoided too.

So when he says that “they promote” (i.e., American Thinker promotes), he really means that a particular American Thinker writer has promoted X or Y. (I doubt that I can even trust him on this claim.)

Now how many articles did this boy actually read? I can't answer that for sure. My bet is probably one or less. It's highly likely that he got all his information from elsewhere. Nonetheless, his very specific references to Jared Taylor and Vince Foster seem to suggest that he might have spent at least ten minutes writing this RationalWiki piece on American Thinker. 

RationalWiki

RationalWiki sells itself in this way:

“Our purpose here at RationalWiki includes:

1. Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement.

2. Documenting the full range of crank ideas.

3. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism.

4. Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.”

(RationalWiki also tells us that at one point it was receiving “32,000 unique visitors per day”.)

The comedic Uncyclopedia, on the other hand, sells RationalWiki in this way. It says:

“RationalWiki is a wiki full of rational articles, which are part truth and part copied off Wikipedia. A majority of the userbase on RationalWiki are established liberal thinkers whose liberal interpretation of everything including the wiki's rules allows them to ban any fundamentalists who stick to the rules. On RationalWiki, the users frequently relish in taking IQ tests to prove themselves worthy of copying and pasting bits of Wikipedia on a blank page.....”

Unlike the sometimes-excellent Uncyclopedia, there's no hint that RationalWiki is actually designed to be funny. (That may explain why it isn't.) Nonetheless, in most of the pieces I've read there is some studentile sarcasm (though little humor) in almost every sentence. 

So what about that adjective “rational” (as in RationalWiki)? 

It's strange, really, because in this article -- and in most of the others I've read at RationalWiki -- there are virtually no arguments. There's a lot of sarcasm (as I said); though not much logical reasoning, argumentation or even discussion. It's as if the very fact these writers/editors have used the self-description “rational” (as well as the fact that it has a left-liberal - sometimes outright Leftist - slant) is all it takes to be, well, rational. 

Similarly, RationalWiki believes that all it takes for someone to be irrational is to be a “right-winger”; or, worse still, be a writer for American Thinker.

RationalWiki's frequent citicisms of pseudoscience seem to be tied very closely to a lot of student sarcasm against the Right. And, of course, all conservatives (or “wingnuts”) are very “anti-science”; as well as being very susceptible to all sorts of “pseudoscience”. We're also extremely likely to be “authoritarian” and “fundamentalist”. 

Contrawise, authoritarianism and fundamentalism are virtually unknown in the Left. Indeed almost every Leftist and Left-Liberal on the planet is a supremely “rational” being. Equally, the pious upholders of science can never -- by (self)definition -- be fundamentalist or authoritarian. 

All that, my friend, is a scientific truth. And to believe otherwise is to be a wingnut. 

RationalWiki on Other Things

To be fair, a few RationalWiki pieces do offer a little bit more – though not much more – detail. So it may be that American Thinker simply doesn't warrant much space. Nonetheless, the article on the UK's Daily Mail (which is slightly longer) informs us that “by any objective standards the Mail is Fascist”.... Yes, I'll repeat that just in case you think it's a misprint. RationalWiki believes -- objectively believes -- that the Daily Mail is fascist. 

In addition, it's apparently the case -- rationally speaking -- that all Ukip supporters are “more-or-less completely scientifically illiterate”. (Yes, you can almost taste the combined smugness and snobbery here.) 

And even in RationalWiki's slightly-more-detailed pieces there's still a superabundance of sarcasm and almost zero argument. I stress argument here because this website is called RationalWiki. And rationality -- more than anything - should include genuine argumentation and debate. 

So I wonder what purpose -- other than grandstanding its own cleverness -- RationalWiki serves.