Posted on 05/26/2007 1:49:34 PM PDT by Eurotwit
A few weeks ago – in between Hillary Clinton’s official entry into the presidential race and the first Republican primary debate of the cycle – the fiery online conservative forum Free Republic marked a decade in operation as one of the premier online forums for right-wing political discussion.
It also experienced one of the biggest internal battles to rock the site since the 2000 election of George W. Bush -- a tumultuous campaign year that nearly tore the site apart, as its founder and chief administrator first cleansed commenting ranks of Bush supporters, then, later, rallied to his support.
At the heart of the latest controversy: the fight over the conservative bona fides of Rudy Giuliani.
Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the “Freeper” community as members sympathetic to the former mayor's candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign on the popular conservative web forum. Another significant chunk of commenters have migrated away from the controversial site over the action, according to a number of former site members and conservative bloggers who have been tracking the situation.
In a plaintive post on the blog “Sweetness & Light,” exiled commenter Steve Gilbert, who says he does not support the former mayor’s campaign, blasted the site’s new “anti-Giuliani, anti-abortion jihad.” Since George W. Bush was elected president, he wrote, “there haven’t been any large scale [Free Republic] purges to speak of – until now.”
The fight began one month ago, when site founder Jim Robinson posted an anti-Giuliani manifesto titled: “Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would be a dagger in the heart of the conservative movement.” Then the virtual ax started to swing. Longtime posters to the freewheeling discussion threads, used to serious no-holds-barred web etiquette, were still stunned by the intensity of the anti-Rudy activity; conservative blogs buzzed with the development.
“Jim Robinson has been going on a tear demonizing Rudy Giuliani, because Rudy (agreeing with the vast majority of Americans), is personally opposed to abortions on a moral level…” complained a user on the GOPUSA Web site. “Anyone who posts any support for Giuliani at the site, if it's at all forceful, will be banned.”
(“Normally, we don't allow complaints about other conservative forums,” chided the moderator, but “…because it is being discussed all over the Internet, I'll make an exception.”)
Just a few months ago, Rudy Giuliani placed second in an early Free Republic straw poll; now, his support on the site has been virtually eliminated. “After the ‘April Purge,’ I don't think there are any Rudybots left around here,” noted Free Republic commenter “upchuck” in one recent post. “And if there are, they're not posting pro-Rudy stuff :).”
The forums weren’t the only venue for the Free Republic’s new antagonism toward Mr. Giuliani, which coincided with a wave of comments expressing similar sentiments from other corners of the conservative movement. A few days after Mr. Giuliani’s equivocal Roe v. Wade comments at the Republican presidential debate on May 3, a new “STOP RUDY NOW News & Information Thread” was featured on the site, and a newly-created stand-alone category debuted via a link from the homepage: “The Giuliani Truth File.” (So far this campaign season, Mr. Giuliani is the only candidate – Republican or Democratic – to be singled out for that level of scrutiny from the Free Republic.)
Why Rudy? Why now? Some conservative bloggers and former commenters contacted for their view of the continuing controversy say they believe that site founder Jim Robinson holds ideologically middling Republicans like Mr. Giuliani responsible for the GOP’s congressional loss and current woes. (They asked that their names be kept out of this story for fear of antagonizing the famously frisky site regulars.)
Others claim that the former mayor’s top-tier status is spurring frantic site administrators into action. Finally, one popular theory holds that the Free Republic is secretly hoping for another Clinton presidency that would send its Alexa ratings soaring back to levels it hasn’t experienced since its halcyon days of the Clinton impeachment, when a since-soured relationship with blog pioneer Matt Drudge and overwhelming anti-Clinton sentiment in Republican ranks helped make Free Republic one of the hottest Web sites in the nation. It hasn't recovered that luster since the Bush administration took over.
“It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s an observation,” said one blogger, who describes himself as a half-hearted Mitt Romney supporter. “They’ve still got a brand name that means something, but they’re not what they were in terms of real-world impact. A Hillary presidency would get them there.”
Robinson himself could not be reached for comment, but his original post laid out his case against Mr. Giuliani – a graphics-heavy presentation of some of the former mayor’s most damning moderate quotes in mainstream media venues, along with a color-coded report card tracking his less-than-doctrinaire positions on abortion, immigration, gays and guns.
Robinson, it should be noted, famously blasted George W. Bush’s presidential candidacy back in 2000, before a dramatic late-campaign about-face that saw him emerge as one of the GOP ticket’s biggest supporters. But whether or not Free Republic experiences a similar election-year shift this cycle, the site’s current campaign is spreading a dangerous primary-season meme of Rudy Giuliani as big-city liberal – and turning one of the most influential web forums in conservatism into an exclusive gathering place for those who share that view.
thank you dear!
I never got her.
but she sure got me....I’ll give her that.
And I might add....anyone who depends on "words" written or spoken emanating from liberal politicians or liberal judges...is a fool.
i.e. Judge Blackmun in Roe v. Wade. "emanations from the penumbras of the Constitution".
After that, all their decisions became suspect.
Scalia said: "words have meaning". Unfortunately they are now meaningless when coming from a liberal.
sw
Agree with you totally.
VERY good point.
Now that they have their own forum, MadIvan's trying his darnedest to keep the anti-freeping off the public threads. Like herding cats.
That is totally sick.
I wasn't aware of it either until a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I signed up on DarwinCentral to find out why a prominent evolutionist here was banned, Below is the relevant portion if his response followed by his last post.
” Things had been increasingly hostile for science threads, so my "this is not an opus" post was the first I had made there for a few weeks. It was also my last post. It got deleted about an hour before the whole thread was deleted, but then it all got restored the next day. None of that was ever explained; but it seemed as if either JR or a mod regarded my post to be offensive, or maybe embarrassing.Here is PartickHenry’s last post #1031:”After that post I remained registered at FR for a few more months, doing nothing (except answering some freepmail inquiring about my inactivity), and one day it was discovered (by someone searching on my name) that I had been banned. There was no warning, and no activity whatsoever, online or off, that indicated what might be involved. That one "no opus" post was my only interaction with JR in my seven years at that website. My guess is that the banning was solely due to my registration here at DC -- where I never criticized FR or JR”
”Jim: “I haven't been posting since the 11th of this month, after a science news thread got transferred to the Religion forum, and I kinda gave up on science news around here -- at least for a while.I see lots of other former Freeper evolution proponents on Darwin Central. I don’t know their stories but a lot of griping about JimRob’s “purges” on two threads.“When I registered back in '99 it was because this site had been recommended to me by a good friend -- brace yourself! -- Jack Thompson. I looked, I read your mission statement, I liked what I saw. When I discovered that you also had active science threads I was doubly delighted.
“As my homepage said, I've long been concerned by the left's propaganda that conservatives are idiots, while intellectuals belong to them, and I thought that myth should be exploded. I've had a great time helping to keep this website interesting for dozens of scientists, engineers, and university professors. You've had loads of PhDs here, with degrees in physics, chemistry, math, biology, astronomy, etc. Several have said to me that on their liberal campuses they've had no one to talk with, but here they can chat with like-minded conservatives. We loved this place! My science ping lists had just short of 400 names. And -- wouldja believe it? -- most of them are religious people. That's no contradiction.
“Most Christian denominations aren't anti-science, and most scientists aren't anti-religion. We (the people on my ping list) have always tried to walk that line, and to make it clear that our interest in science isn't because of any antagonism to religion. For the most part we've done that rather well -- but you can't please everyone. I don't bash religion, and I've always avoided atheism threads -- I don't start them, don't ping to them.
“However, some folks are hyper-sensitive. If someone says -- correctly -- that Noah's Ark isn't supported by scientific evidence, in my mind that's not Christian-bashing, or Marxism, or devil worship, or an endorsement of homosexuality. But if someone starts complaining that such a scientific view amounts to bashing his religion, well ... he's wrong, and he shouldn't be on the science threads, just as a belligerent atheist doesn't belong in the religion threads. But if he mashes the abuse button and complains to the mods, it requires a mod who understands what's going on.
“Since Dales left, we haven't had a mod who cared enough to follow our threads so that he'd know who was making trouble. It's been a rough year without Dales. Once I even asked the admin mod if there were another mod with whom I could work to smooth out problems, but I got a brush-off. Fair enough. We slogged along, and a lot of science threads ended up in the Backroom that didn't need to go there. Some judicious moderation would have calmed things down, but it just wasn't there. We endured. But then ... my homepage vanished. That was March 6 of this year (or the 5th, I no longer remember).
“The unexplained disappearance of my homepage is literally the reason for the creation of Darwin Central. On March 7 -- the day after the homepage takedown -- we started an emergency site at Yahoo, just like FR has. It was a place where we could find each other in case something crazy happened. I thought I was being zotted. When seemingly senseless things happen (like the homepage takedown) for no apparent reason, people will assume that something's gone wrong, and they will expect more of the same. DC was created as a fall-back site where we could find one another in case a bunch of us got banned -- a fate that was reasonable to expect under the circumstances.
“The non-response to my inquiries to the mods and to John R was troublesome; it was attributed to your distance from day-to-day affairs. It was assumed that you had delegated too much authority to assistants with an anti-science agenda, and that some rogue mod was on a private rampage.
“Seriously, Jim, I had no clue what was happening. I "knew" it wasn't you, because I've had years of happy experience here at FR. I naturally assumed the problem was a rogue mod or maybe computer hacking, and I asked John R to look into it for me. I really wish you had said something to me. But we've never talked. Perhaps it's too late now, but I wanted to lay out my side of all this.
“Anyway, the motive for Darwin Central's creation wasn't anti-FR. It was self-defense. You're the godfather, Jim.
“We're not socialists, nor homos, nor ACLU freaks, nor anti-FR. We'd like nothing more than to have things the way they were, back when Dales was a concerned moderator who understood what was happening in our threads. If that's not to be, okay. It's your website, and we're not your enemies.
“I've always wished you well, and I continue to do so. I'm going to vote straight "R" as I always do. I'll pray for the troops, and you, and for our great country.
“And no, this isn't an opus.”
They’ve been most likely suspended...they’ll be back one day.
They don't have the b@lls to do their anti-FReeping out in the open because they want to have the option of coming back when Roody's candidacy implodes and their site folds up.
Ouch! Don’t tell Jim or I’ll be the next ex-freeper!
Reagan gets a pass on O'Conner and Kennedy from me. O'Conner was the result of pressure to appoint the first female justice and Kennedy got the nod only after the "borking" of Bork and Douglas Ginsburg. If either Bork or Ginsburg had made it through O'Conner would have been irrelevant and Roe would be a bad memory by now.
Howlin is gone, which I just noticed. But, I haven’t been paying much attention to what is going on here. Been busy as it is with real-life stuff.
Perhaps, but Soros would need to buy the votes of a solid majority of Congresspeople and Senators in order to wield any real power through Obama. And if he could do that with Obama in power, he could also do it without Obama in power. At any rate, Soros is getting old and I think he’s on his way down in terms of wielding serious power in any arena.
Good to see you...
Very likely.
kind of a long time freeper, wasn’t she?
i never saw anything hateful come from her...always posted articles IIRC
maybe i’m thinking of another poster...
One day, when enough men have changed enough diapers or enough women have gone through engineering or architecture schools, there will be special "baby sinks" in family houses that feature a molded baby-holder in a safety sink, a reliable water-temperature controller, and a sprayer like the one at the kitchen sink, so you can spray the poopy bottom with tepid water and avoid the wiping and mess. The waste and water will drain into a flushable tank like a garbage disposal without the blades, and there will also be a disinfecting function, a rediapering surface next to the sink, and a dirty diaper receptacle – with consumer choices for trash-compacter style (for disposable dipes) or soaker style (for cloth dipes).
The WA folks want it both ways.
Their spiel on FR and on WA still making snide remarks
about FR.
They continue to post on FR baiting and more snide remarks.
They prove what most WA folks are, they are over at a site where all in stepford lockstep and still not satisfied in kumbaya mode that they were seeking so post back at FR
to argue and bait.
When President Bush leaves office after the ‘08 election
and neither Rudy or Mitt is the candidate the WA folks
will be out there in limbo, except for what will be left,
social conservtives, vs. social Liberals..
Stay tuned, this should be fun to watch.
My comments stand. It's a lot more complex than one man; he has a vast organization which doubtless has an even more radical succession plan, and powerful influence over much of the mainstream media and various far-left orgs. Most importantly, any weakling will be exploited by unelected forces.
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