Shortly after 9/11, I got a freepmail from some account called "Lead Moderator". The mail asked if I would be willing to help the forum out as a volunteer. The mail said that if I agreed, he would reveal himself to me and I would laugh because it was someone I had a friendship with.
I agreed. And it was someone I had a friendship with; someone I had exchanged mails with several times over activism issues. He asked me to join the moderating crew.
And so it began.
Lead Moderator (LM from now on) set the lead, along with Jim. There were several others. I was the newbie, and was given the "Sidebar Moderator" designation.
After several months, Jim and LM promoted me to Admin Moderator (there are several Admin Moderators).
I have seen some posts by Joe, where he says that LM never wanted me to be a moderator, that he objected to it from the start. That does not jibe with what I saw, including several times where LM went out of his way to not only back me up on some decisions, but go much further. It does not jibe with the many discussions LM and I had, both before and after I became a moderator. But Joe says LM told him it, so I guess it comes down to if you believe Joe at what he claims or not, since LM is not around any longer.
Through some circumstances, Jim invited Joe to be able to view the moderators' discussion boards (we call them the AR boards for "abuse reports" boards).
Joe became quite upset one day when I pulled an article from a website called "Strike-the-root.com", a website for anarchism. We argued over if anarchism was leftist or not, with Joe taking the position that the founding fathers were anarchists.
Jim decided that he didn't want anarchism to be promoted on Free Republic.
Joe then decided that he was going to try to force changes. He revealed my onscreen name, as well as one other moderator's name. He told Jim he wanted us gone, or else. He made lots of threats. He continues to make lots of threats.
He also said several things which turned out to not be quite true. He told Jim that other current moderators had mailed him saying they agreed with him. All of the other current moderators denied doing so. Joe has subsequently said that unless they back him up, Joe will reveal their Freeper identities. Now his threat is unless I was removed, and one other moderator removed, and the stuff you see posted every day on Liberty Post but not here (tax evasion schemes, tin foil conspiracy theories, anarchist propaganda) be allowed here, that he would use what prestige he had here to try and destroy the site.
Jim has his opinions of Joe, which he has shared. Everyone else will have to make up their minds as to what to believe. Myself, I used to think like most of those who are expressing a certain amount of admiration for Joe. I now have seen him to be deceptive, to have reprehensible poltical views, and to be someone who actively seeks to do me harm.
When the ordeal went down, I told Jim that I was going to step down. He asked me not to. I went back and forth with it for quite some time. Eventually I decided to kiss my Dales name goodbye.
So here I am. One of the fabled Texas Chainsaw Moderators, which always struck me as a laughable bit of demogoguery, since I tend to be hands-off. I can't remember the last time Jim had to overturn one of my decisions, other than to pull something I left up.
Maybe this website should be used for the promotion of anarchism. I don't know. If so, it wouldn't be a site I would be comfortable being a part of. But the important thing, Jim said he didn't want it to be that, and I acted in concert with those wishes.
Thanks, AM