Posted on 03/29/2005 8:58:34 AM PST by Long Cut
We, the Witness Protection Program For Freepers, aka the Wild Turkeys, aka the Coalition of the Sane, have through mutual discussion and rigourous thought, determined that:
1. The discussion threads regarding Terri Schiavo (hereafter referred to as "TS") have become too full of innuendo, rumormongering, hyperbole, hysteria, namecalling, paranoia, and general poor behavior to warrant participation.
2. Said threads have degenerated into "echo chambers", wherein the same, common thoughts are continually posted again and again, and the same old disreputable, unconfirmed and/or false urban myths are propagated.
3. Anyone who joins in said theads with alternative viewpoints to the most extreme posts are routinely driven away with slander, accusations, and vile namecalling.
4. No data or evidence contrary to the "prevailing opinions" are accepted, considered, or discussed; and in fact are rejected outright in most instances.
5. That the continued calls for armed insurrection, military or paramilitary involvement, impeachements of politicians and judges, and death threats are embarassing, stupid, shortsighted, doomed to failure, and contrary to most if not all conservative thought prior to this case, as well as damaging in the extreme to FR and the conservative movement as a whole.
6. That such emotional, hyperbolic, and propaganda-driven hysteria is in fact contrary to all conservatives USED to stand for.
7. That the holding up of swastika and other Nazi imagery towards the police and the Bushes, the use of children as political props, and the disruption of the peace at the Woodside Hospice can only reflect badly on conservatives in general, and should be discouraged.
8. That the pursuit of this issue to the exclusion of all others by the GOP has damaged, perhaps beyond repair, the pursuit of other important issues as well as the reputation of the GOP, FR, and conservatism.
The WPPFF is NOT of one mind as to the case of TS or its correct outcome. In fact, wide disagreement exists within our little group. However, we are united in our wish that reason and sanity be respected in the discussion, as well as the rights of all parties involved or participating. We wish to discuss this as adults and intellectuals, as conservatives and as FRiends, not as children screaming past each other on some playground of hysteria. We wish for facts and evidence to be provided, discussed reasonably, and considered fairly.
We reject all accusations of Naziism, "death cultism", or other slander as methods of debate. We reject the practice of "spamming" multiple threads, of posting unending vanities, and the posting of propaganda and calls for violence. We reject, in fact, all unseemly and childish behavior which has come to characterize this case on FR.
We DO invite others to come and reasonably discuss the issue. We have no problem with FReepers who wish to debate in a rational and fair manner, and with due respect for their fellow FReepers. We have NO problem with those whose views are formed by religion; however we reject "preaching" or "being beaten with a Bible" as legitemite debate tactics. Not all of us are Believers, and such tactics only cheapen the source.
If a FReeper finds this an acceptable meansd to discuss this and other issues, they are welcome to join in and participate. Those who find pleasure in attacks, flame-baiting, slander, stalking, and personal atacks will be ignored, and their egos will go unfed.
We assume this thread to be a zone of sanity in an overheated atmosphere. Thus, a general amnesty is in effect. If posters conduct themselves within the guidlines above, we will be happy to discuss and debate with you. If a poster wishes to apologize for past slips of the tongue, or for possible "over-the-top" statements to another, it will be graciously accepted, and your company welcome.
Please bring a sense of humor; we feel that too many have been taking themselves too seriously lately.
Let the discussion begin!
Signed,
The WPPFF, aka The Wild Turkeys, aka the Coalition of the Sane.
I always disagreed with Rush about that. While I agree there are some things that should be absolute, in most areas a reasonable compromise is better than an extreme position on either side. I think Rush often plays down pragmatism and calls it moderation to discredit it.
Bear in mind I've been a Rush 24/7 member essentially since it's been available and agree with him on many things, too.
Aristotle defined virtue as the 'golden mean' between two extremes. If politics is a bell curve, then 80% of the electorate are 'centrists', with 10% out on the fringes of the left and right.
There are more Democrats willing to vote with the Republicans on getting rid of activist judges...so the yammering bible thumpers can sit out the election all they want, IMO.
I'm with you though....I guess despite my rabid hatred of Liberalism and the Left, I'm just a moderate Republican afterall.
zing
I think many of us FReepers historically classified ourselves in that right 10%, or very close to it. However, we've been out flanked by the Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich crowd. And it's ugly.
I'm going to take the liberty of assuming the consensus answer is "No, she would never have wanted that, ever."
So that being agreed to, does anyone else find it extremely odd, as I do, that MS, the person who claimed to only want to honor his wife's wishes above all, would then do this? I can only come to the conclusion that he is either a liar or a nutjob.
Neither side here should have a clean conscience.
That is not so clean cut and simple as my question, since according to Terri's best friend, Terri claimed that Michael was abusing her and that she was going to divorce him.
You're probably right although he hardly has the exclusive "lying nutjob" rights in this whole affair. In fact I think Jesse Jackson holds the patent.
To speak to Malachi's post, I remember looking at the terrisfight website a couple of years ago. The parents and siblings were clearly accusing Michael of abuse. The website today is considerably toned down, I'm guessing their attorneys told them to cool it.
All the wild claims that he had abused her, broken bones, choked her... no evidence for it whatsoever. Zip, zilch, nada. Seriously, do you really think she could have hidden a broken femur from her parents? And yet this is what we are asked to believe.
Many have pointed to the seven years which passed before MS 'remembered' Terri's desire not to live in a PVS, as evidence of his lying. Why would he have not brought it up before? The same can be said of the Schindler's claims of abuse. The fact is, no one made any claims of abuse against MS until 2-3 years ago. Nothing indicated in the doctor's reports of her initial hospitalization. Never used as part of the defense by the doctors in the malpractice lawsuit filed against them. Never cited in at least the first several years as a reason to remove guardianship from MS.
Zealots of any stripe are dangerous.
____________________________________
And sometimes put conservatives in a bad light unintentionally; the following is an example of being so emotionally and personally involved with a story that you lose site of FR rules and principles. I was lurking on the TS thread with no intention of posting; just wanted a sense of the various viewpoints.
I was horrified to see that someone had posted what supposedly was a picture of TS on her 12th day, taken surreptiously by a cameraphone. Horrified yes by the picture, but more so by the link to the website that provided it, not a conservative, but a nutty white supremist racist, a creep who already garnered thousands of hits because of the many FReepers who went to the site to see the picture, so I will not repeat his name here.
Not more than a paragraph below the picture was some of this pondscum's screed--that it's a darn good thing the Israeli settlers are in conflict with the moderates, because now all the Jews can kill each other, which would be a great thing. And then he got uglier. I scrolled further down the thread, to see when it was realized what FR was now linked to a neo-Nazi white supremist wack-job; and found that no one had objected to it, either because they didn't read the website or were so wrapped up in the TS saga that they didn't care.
The picture and link were repeated several times further down the thread. Being a relative newbie I don't like to report people, believing that it's better to expose than stifle racists, but a link from FR to neo-Nazis could be used by our enemies on the left to discredit us, so I reported it and also pleaded with the original poster to denounce it and stop using it. Eventually the mods (who were having a hard time keeping up on that thread, there was much that had to be removed) read my report and removed it, but several times had to exhort FReepers who kept posting it to not reference this guy or his web site. There was total irony in the fact that the same people who threw around the Nazi references completely ignored a direct link to a real Nazi sympathizer because they did not take the time to think clearly and read what they were linking to.
This bottom feeder I refer to said on about Daniel Pearl "I could care less about the death of this Jewish pig". So if TS had been Jewish, or black, he would not have bothered to post the picture, which by the way was never verified to have been authentic. To link FR with his website was really appalling, and JR and the mods agreed, though it was done without malice or even awareness by the poster of what she was posting to (and she had the grace and class to apologize and say she was wrong).
The whole episode was very ironic. What bothered me along with having FR linked with this guy, was that his website got thousands of hits out of it that he would not have received, if the poster had been more careful and read the link she was posting to before going ahead and posting it. But, as she herself admitted, she was too upset to think clearly.
Any comments?
Only that you are right and to tell you to stand tough.
I read your profile page and I went through a similar conversion. Horowitz, Bruce, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman et. al. are correct and their brand of conservatism is the most just and moral structure with which to build a free society.
The Democratic party is hopeless (as are all third part alternatives) and so the only option is to change the Republican party from within.
I left liberalism and the Democratic party in 1988, but did not vote Republican until 2000 for the fear of the nutty Theocrats.
I became convinced that tell had no real power and still believe that that is so.
I only hope this sad episode has not damaged the Party so severely that we have awoken a Democratic Party that will dump Micheal Moore and their wacky 10 percenters and thus set us back twenty years.
This pretty well sums up the past two weeks.
A perfect example of someone failing to check sources before posting.
LOL!
I've got Martian real estate for sale...
(No, I haven't disappeared...I'm just a bit ticked off at being vilified)
Maybe we can all get in on a time-share?
Thank you. I have been saying the same for weeks.
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