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.
Que bella voce
Call me silly too. I just googled Christian Identity and found out what it is. I would have thought it was just what the name infers. Sounds like some misunderstandings contributed to this inferno.
HE WAS MURDERED. :-(
This is hugh
Of course, which is why your posts are pretty much exclusively you calling other people names.
My son and daughter steered me to FR. My son gave me his old computer..though I was not really interested, silly me.(delivered it, hooked it up, got me on dialup)..
I lurked for a long time..got a new computer,got cable registered and relearned to type during the live threads on the invasion of Baghdad..Reading FR kept me sane in 2000.
Esperanto.
LOL
Just somebody Jim got sometime today; but it is one person. Persistent. But those nicks don't ring a bell.
Thank you.
And I still don't know what "pinging" really is or how it is done.
Jes!
Ok ...so did OJ do it or not?
very emotional issue, my rule is never say anything you would not put your name too. real name. keeps me out of all kinds of truble. but every now and then I will get hot and flame someone big time and when I do I sign it with my real name.
You got pung here, Arthur.
And Social Security
And Income Tax reform. (Fair Tax!)
Maybe the Senate.
ping
"Nobody, but NOBODY lurks for years."
Thats not true at all. I did.
Even while attending freeper functions such as the managers dinner, and the freeper ball.
Frankly, the signon date is not nearly as important as what the poster actually has to say...or contribute to the site.
Thats what I look at first.
In general though...some of the old timers have a lot of posting history under their belts...and deserve their due.
For one...I still say that Alamo Girl is the best freeper poster of all time...bar none.
Remember Jethro Tull and A+bert (signs in the yard Pat)?
Have you seen those guys around lately?
If my old laptop hardrive hadnt crashed...I would dig up alot of old memorabilia posts.
I remember a thread in which you asked that people stop pinging you to random threads...and I remember how that simple request resulted in hundreds more pings to you from that thread.
I hope you were able to laugh about that.
That's a great idea. There are many times I have written up something and then decided not to post after reading. Preview helps a lot.
Got to take issue there. I'm a Catholic conservative with a rather strong libertarian streak, and I thought what was done to Terri was damn wrong. I'm also staunchly pro-life.
Government killed her. You know what libertarians think of government.
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