Posted on 04/01/2005 4:26:00 PM PST by Poohbah
First, this is NOT an April Fool's joke.
I am leaving Free Republic.
Over the past two years, civility and thoughtful discourse has vanished from this site, replaced with demands for ideological conformity that are straight out of Stalinist Russia or China's Great Cultural Revolution, and unrelenting uncivility if said conformance is not forthcoming. This trend began with the California recall election, where certain posters were allowed to flame the living beejezus out of those who didn't wholeheartedly support Tom McClintock, or thought that he wasn't running a campaign capable of winning. It extended into the Keyes campaign last year, where any critique of Keyes' campaign strategy was shrilly flamed, despite the obviously flawed execution of his campaign.
(Aside: one person who flamed me during the Keyes mess later said that he hadn't intended to start a fight with his remarks that accused me of homosexuality, pedophilia, and other evils; I was instantly reminded of the time I had to bail one of my Marines out of the local lockup. "Honest, Sarge," this Marine told me, "I didn't mean to start a fight when I called that Army Ranger a faggot." My response was not [and still isn't] suitable for public consumption.)
Since then, the Terri Schiavo case has pushed FR over the edge. We had posts calling for people to ensure that "accidents" to befall Schiavo and Judge Greer. We had posts praying that Iran would soon develop nuclear weapons, so that they could destroy the United States. And until the FBI started making arrests, those posts were allowed to stay up, completely abnegating Free Republic's standards.
We had people on both sides of the issue point out that the Schindlers were associating with some people of extremely low character, and that our uncritical embrace of these parties would not rebound to our favor. Rather reasonable attitudes to take, actually; but the loudest of the loud were in no mood to think.
My personal favorite was the following exchange:
The issue is not legality, but public opinion. Which will not be helped in this case if the pro-Terry side becomes associated in the media with Christian Identity, white supremicists, neo-nazis, racists and/or anti-semites.
Diva Betsy Ross made a valiant attempt to...ahem...whitewash Christian Identity, but it didn't work.
To top things off, we had people embracing as some sort of conservative icon, to the extent of posting a fundraising link.
I always thought that conservatism valued thinking over feeling, careful contemplation of facts over wild-eyed repetition of every damn rumor to come down the pipe, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. For a while, Free Republic met those criteria in spades.
Those days are long gone, and I have serious doubt as to whether or not they're coming back.
I know that many of the usual suspects will cheer this on, as their longtime nemesis is leaving them the field.
Be careful what you wish for; you are in the process of getting it. You may succeed in driving the folks who disagree with you from the site; but you will end up being just another collection of shrill voices in Bedlam. When everything is an over-the-top scream, no one will be heard.
Farewell.
LOL!!! I was sitting here wondering the same thing if this was a record for an Opus since we don't have many of them anymore.
Agreed.
Crying "Nazi" is totally inappropriate in a thread like "Ford v. Chevy" or "Mac v. PC," but there are obvious reasons to discuss Nazism when the topic is killing the disabled.
Who let the Italians loose?
Nam Vet
Dunno - I think one of OWK's opera may have reached 500, but this one's for the book.
BTW, once again you have a thread over there. :-)
It read to me like they're trying to clean up the name "KKK." You know, white people of the world unite!
There you go again....Its all about you isnt it?
LOL! Those were the good old days where if you forgot to end a bold you were doomed -- it would go on for some time until someone fixed it.
Not only do I remember them but I post them to all the volcano threads.
Jellybean and Deb for a while.
I made a comment last week that ultimately, a forum like FR and blogs will be dependent upon the news media.
I made the comment because someone asked why Terri is news but all the others who died in a similar way are not.
It is big because the MSM made it big. And we are feeding off of their making it news.
We will sometimes uncover something ourselves, like what we did with Dan Rather, but those times will be rare.
And when we do, I still bet you it will be uncovering something related to a MSM report, not actually finding out some true new news that has not been reported in the press. Thank goodness we are here and the MSM does not have a monopoly. But, those who think FR or blogs will replace news are wrong. Blogs themselves rarely generate their own news, but always comment on MSM stories.
It is dang comforting knowing there will always be a news media since I want to do that for a career.
I should hope so! =)
Remember when I got mad and went after TLB over there?
I knew I searched this thread out for a reason.. ;)
Yep
Got a problem with that ;-)
That was good!!
You're older. :o)
I lurked since late '97, but Boston's "Help create the Washington Times ad" finally drew me out.
You?
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