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.
There's not all that much difference between the Commies and the Nazis... more style than substance.
No, they're afraid of this thread though. LOL
I had forgotten about the anti-pinging thread -- that was hilarious.
The uniforms. Germans got better looking uniforms.
The nazi accessorized better...
(seriously -- a huge difference between the two groups)
By the way, you shouldn't forget that sneakypete has a permanent place of honor here for blowing the lid off of DITHF.
The Gifted One.
Thread envy?
Not if you were Polish.
Do you not realize it goes on every single day in this country?
I guess that depends on the meaning of the word "lurked". :-) When I really got hooked I signed up in less than a year.
usenet was great until AOL, AOL ruined everything, usenet turned into noise after all the AOLer came on board.
Oh, I love that woofie.
I support people who want to die with dignity being able to.
It is hard to admit
I have no response to that...
Dang -- that is a lot of names. Wonder if they were trying for a record?
LOL
I was trying to remember what my first post was and on what topic. Do you remember the Chief threads.....the freeper that died in the fire? In Houston? I was glued to those threads....refresh...refresh....but never posted.
FR saved me during the Florida nightmare......counting chads....arghhhhhhhhhhh
Yes, it was. And to my eternal credit I only pinged Arthur twice on that thread. My computer crashed after trying to pull up 1400 posts, but that's beside the point.:)
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