It's really not. Some people do feel this way and pointing it out isn't vitriol.

The worst thing that can happen to a cause is some crazy jackass being held up by the media as the spokesperson.

I was on board for the tea party until the media grabbed a few nut bags and made them the de facto spokespeople for the cause. It was purely about limited government until it got co-opted.

I feel as though I am gathered at the feet of a dispirited grandparent, being told tales of the purity they would have espoused if they hadn't been so rudely interrupted by the persistent existence of the world undermining their certainty.

In my hay days the youth still behaved.. We were stealing apples all day. Todays youth..they form a line to the shop that would make the krauts proud.

I think you're falling prey to the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. All political groups have multiple goals (as they have multiple people in them, it is inevitable). Politics is the coordination of these goals.

Perhaps. But I would argue that the media plays a large part in undermining any movement they don't like.

They get to pick the person who they hand the microphone to and they will pick the craziest bat-shit insane person for that role if they don't like what your selling.

I'm just speaking from experience.

The only legitimate role of government is to protect capital!

Yes, but it's still true, as my own conversations with conservative in-laws shows.

And in my case, quite false as a conservative with many conservative friends that disagree with your anecdote. This is always the problem, personal anecdotes rarely equal data.

The problem here (and the reason you are getting downvoted, I believe) is you think your anecdote of your friends' opinions trumps falcolas' anecdote about his/her family as untrue, instead of imagining the colorful world it is with various shades of conservatism living side by side.

For what its worth, I have family that believe like grandparent's family. Your anecdotes cannot convince them or me what their beliefs really are. This line of opinion does exist.

We know the real reason for down votes is it's voicing support for conservative views and questions the HN group think bubble.

You can dress it up with whatever fancy logic you want, HN commenters are as bias and unthinking as any others.

The original comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC didn't characterize conservative views or conservative ideology on this issue; they characterized what many people believed.

Empirically, this is true.

If those many people are wrong on net neutrality because they do not understand the issues, why is it that HN commenters are the biased and unthinking ones?

You can not change what you do not try to understand, you cant deconstruct something you keep from trespassing in your mind.

If you put the fingers in your ears and sing lalala i cant hear you- you end what might have been a discussion. I found most conservatives i met not to reactionary dictator supporters. They are just people with reasonable concerns, finding and in constant fear of some radical social discussion dominance bombers showing up shutting any chance on discussion with a warcrime down.

Well unfortunately, you and your conservative friends differ in opinion from the conservatives elected into power, which is who we're talking about. People's anecdotes don't matter; it's the prevailing opinion fed to the masses through conservative politicians and media that needs to change.

I took the copious use of quotation marks in the comment to indicate that it was a caricature of a type of opinion that, sadly, is out there.

I'd give it more up-votes if I could.