Free Republic Purge: Conservative Web Site Bans Giuliani Supporters

NY Observer ^ | Published: May 24, 2007 | by Rebecca Sinderbrand

[Tijeras_Slim]

I was in college when the whole Jonestown thing happened. We had a party where me mixed grape koolaid and everclear in trash cans.

See, I’ve been a disturbed individual for almost 30 years.

[Eurotwit]

Great to see you back Travis...

Forget about the past, there still is a future to fight for.

Cheers,

Euro.

[MeanWestTexan]

With the exception of “Zeroisanumber” and “areafiftyone” I don’t recognize one of them.

[MeanWestTexan]

“Hildy opused in April, but account still active, just not posting.”

Good. Hildy is one of my favorite posters here.

[MeanWestTexan]

LOL.

[BykrBayb]

I hope you haven’t changed much in the last year. I always enjoyed your posts. Glad you’re back!

[The_Eaglet]

That kinda leaves out the interest on the debt and Chinese ownership of our Government debt. It's pay me now or pay me later. We are today's guardians of the nation's future unless, of course, we are only greedy for ourselves.

That is a good point. The debt issue should not be overlooked.

[Travis McGee]

Thanks, it’s good to be back.

[bootless]

Hey there, Travis. So nice to see you!

[Travis McGee]

Ditto!

[beaversmom]

ping

[JillValentine]

They're a strange bunch, aren't they? I can't think of another candidate who has such a worshipful, strange, cult following.

They snarl like a pack of wolves if you suggest that their god is less than perfect.

And it appears they have no sense of humor at all.

Perhaps the Mothership will come for them soon. ;-)

Sad that they have to be like that. I'm for Fred Thompson, but I realize he has flaws just like everyone else. The Paul-bots can't take the slightest criticism of their unwashed and holy prophet.

[dbehsman]

I’m not sure what word you are referring to, but FR hardly bars vulger language or bans people for using it. a five second google search returns about 600 posts that have not been deleted. Here are just a few from the first search page.

You posted 15 links to various Free Republic threads. I went to look at all of them. Here they are in order.

1. This one deals with rap lyrics from six and a half years ago. The person who posted it was banned or closed their account over five years ago. I don't think you can rightfully accuse someone posting an example of a rap song as "using foul language", they are quoting verbatim.
2. This one is another case of someone quoting a rap song. It's about six months old, and the poster in this case was just simply quoting.
3. This one is an example of someone quoting a posting at the end of a news article on another site. It's a couple of weeks old.
4. This next one is about six years old. A Freeper posted an article written by what appears to be a left wing wacko (I did not have time to read the entire thing). The original article employed a couple of foul words which the poster asterisked out. He missed one. Not a very impressive example.
5. This one was from a couple of weeks ago, and yes, this one would be a fair example of using foul language. The sentence that the Freeper said was "But what the **** is wrong with the American populace ....". The poster should not have written it, but it was not a personal attack against another Freeper.
6. This one is over a month ago, and again the foul language belongs to rap music lyrics.
7. This next one is three years old, and it is quoting the dictionary definition of the origin of the F-word, after someone else complained about a show using foul language.
8. This one is about two years old. The original article contained a quote form Bette Midler who used the F word. A Freeper quoted Bette's quote from the article and replied to it. The Admin Moderator later edited the quote in the article, but must have missed the post.
9. This one is three years old, and it is an article about a bunch of moonbats who wrote some terrible things about Jews. An article about a bunch of uncontrollable left wing wackos writing terrible things.
10. This one is five years old, and yes it is an overboard response to someone else.
11. This one is an article from over two years ago, which contained a quote in it from an unhinged left wing moonbat.
12. This is an article from about a year ago, and contains quote from Chris Hitchens.
13. This one is an opinion piece written by a Marine who was complaining about the left wing anti-war wackos and the news media. Maybe there should have been a warning about the language in the thread title.
14. This one is an article and is three years old. It contains a quote from a person using the F-word.
15. This one is a year old. I didn't take time to read through it all, because it is a relatively long posting. It looks like someone posted a piece of fiction or a short story, and in it the F-word is used once.

In total, 13 of the examples of foul language were quotations from other writers. Two of the bad words originated from the Freepers themselves. Three of the posts were quotations of rap music lyrics, six of the posts were quotations of left wing wackos, one of the posts was the dictionary definition of the F-word. The example from number ten should probably be pulled, regardless that it is five years old.

Free Republic has over 200,000 registered users. In the ten plus years that Free Republic has been around, over 1,800,000 threads have been posted . The amount of individual responses must run in the five to ten million range. In all of that time with all of that material, you said that Google found around 600 examples of foul language being used that slipped past the mods. If the fifteen examples that you posted are accurately representative of foul language that has been left on Free Republic, then I think we're doing pretty fine. One of those posts should probably be pulled, but the majority of them are quotes from other people or articles. I don't think your charge of posters "using bad language" really works. It's usually rare when it does happen, and usually the mods pull the stuff off.

[dbehsman]

Sounds like a double standard to me, too. Personally, RA was egged on by others cruising to ban people. I’ve seen profanity by other members and they were never banned or suspended.

The rules apply to members, and Radio is no longer a member. There is no double standard. I've had posts pulled, just like Radio did. The only one who was out to get Radio was himself. There was no conspiracy.

[dbehsman]

One other thing, why are you pinging RA? He can’t get pings.

Habit. I was told that whenever a post contains something about a Freeper, it is standard to automatically ping the person in question. Also IF hell actually does freeze over, and Radio decides to come back or is invited back, then I would think that the old pings would register in his "My Comments" page. I figured it would be better to err on the safe side.

[dbehsman]

If dbehsman wasn’t trying to taunt RA, he wouldn’t be putting RadioAstronomer in the ping list for every post he makes while trashing him.

It's not a taunt, however I can see how a person could interpret it as such. Please see my post #1395.

They can make every excuse they want to...just makes them look smaller.

Every time some people want to make a martyr out of Radio, I think it is right to respond.

[dbehsman]

For the benefit of the individual with the Involuntary Micuration Problem ...

Wow, that's a really impressive long word for wetting the pants. It would have been even more impressive if it would have been spelled correctly. Hint: Involuntary Micturition Problem

For the benefit of the individual with the Involuntary Micuration Problem on this thread, and for the lurkers, I hereby offer a sample of the late great FReeper RadioAstronomer's contribution to the intellectual excellence of FreeRepublic:

Yeah, it's such a loss. (/sarcasm)

And what do we have in the way of examples of the persistent bedwetter's intellectual contributions, for comparison?

But because RadioAstronomer used a naughty word in a private FReepmail, he is deemed "unworthy" to be on FR. In view of RA's prodigious intellectual prowess, I can understand why his interlocutor wet himself at the prospect of trying to argue with him.

Are you accusing trussell or js1138 of being bed wetters? Why are you pinging them?

[dbehsman]

FR better get cracking if it plans to expunge the "F" word. A google search reveals that FR has never banned the word or made more than a token effort to reduce its usage.

I think I already satisfactorily answered this charge in my previous post. I think you're reaching for a complaint.

What's really funny is, that if an acceptable (to FR) conservative gets the nomination, he will run from this site with all the speed and agility of Tony Snow. No one with a public life could survive being associated with this site.

Perhaps Tony Snow requested that his posts be removed and his account canceled. There ARE some people in the media who might take one of his posts out of context and try to manufacture an outrage. If no one in public life can survive being associated with this site (according to you), then why are you here? Would you be embarrassed if it was discovered by your coworkers and friends that you're associated with Free Republic? There is nothing wrong with Free Republic, except what your trying to make out of it.

FR has always had kooks, but at least it once had variety and once had a smattering of educated and talented posters.

If you're not happy, I think the answer for you would be self evident. There are other sites to join.

[dbehsman]

Massive and overwhelming rebuttal to THIS comment in reply #1002 of this thread:

"Radio is gone, and I'm glad. He contributed nothing of any real worth."

Longshadow, if you're going to talk about me, I would appreciate it if you would ping me. It's rude at best and pretty cowardly at worst to not do so.

Perhaps I should have rephrased that sentence.

Radio is gone, and I'm glad. He contributed nothing of any real worth to the schiavo threads.

Happy now?

[dbehsman]

There has been a sea change in FR, and support for the military and respect for FReeper veterans has declined.

I haven't seen it. If you can't back that up, I would say that is a terrible slander against Free Republic. What about all of those "Support the Troops" rallies? Where those just figments of everybody's imaginations? What about the counter protests against the anti-war moonbats? Who do you think helped organize, announce and plan those?

There is an existing post on another thread that demeans a FReeper in Iraq. No one commented on it, even after it was pointed out to the mods.

Have you notified Jim? I find it impossible that he would tolerate something like that. If Jim doesn't know about it, how can he do anything about it?

There was a time when FR would not tolerate disrespect for active military members, particularly when the dispute was simply over which Republicans could be supported over Hillary Clinton in a general election.

I think that still pretty much stands.