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.
Just can't help but get that last dig in, can ya?
I agree.
They're too late to save Dan Rather, but the destruction of FR would certainly let them breathe easier.
The Zogby poll found that, if a person becomes incapacitated and has not expressed their preference for medical treatment, as in Terri's case, 43 percent say "the law presume that the person wants to live, even if the person is receiving food and water through a tube" while just 30 percent disagree.
If more people knew the facts of this case, it'd turn out they actually agree with President Bush and most of us conservatives. The MSM played a very large role in the murder of Terri Shiavo.
That's the problem.
I've seen posters who attacked sinkspur with impunity.
Impunity? LOL! They mostly were not "suspended more than once", they were banned entirely. Yep, Teflon just isn't what it used to be. With certain notable exceptions.
There will be elements of "facts" and facts in any debate. The same way he dismisses the poster facts is the same way another poster will dismiss his facts.
If there was clear undeniable evidence of sth and the FRPRs and JR dismisses it, then you can worry. What the poster have is not gospel truth. Quite frankly, a lot of what we have is not gospel truth. Only God knows the real and absolute truth.
Bump for tomorrow
That stuff continues. Personally, I find it ultra-weird.
"The MSM played a very large role in the murder of Terri Shiavo."
Which is why FReepers need to understand who the enemuy is and keep their eye on the ball.
There was one way to look at it, from what I could see, and some of us had questions, stood by the rule of law when many were screaming to send in the Marines, and decided that use of the swastika was out of bounds.
If that's "in favor of starvation," then I'll let the forum decide whether you've sized up the situation fairly.
Try because you're not smart for #1 and have no respect for #2.
And don't insult everyone's intelligence. It's all there for anyone to see. Your tag-team member Peach, was mocking the owner AGAIN and you thought it was a joke.
Dear sinkspur,
Well, your post that I quoted is evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps if you wish to complain about folks demonizing one side, you should abstain from demonizing the other.
sitetest
I used to post on the religion forum, but don't much anymore.
I know a lot of the behind-the-scenes attempts to get my friends banned by some posters, and it stinks.
There just aren't many Calvinists left. Many are responsible for their own banning by goading the RM. But, sometimes non-Calvinists just seem to get away with things no matter what they say. It just isn't any fun anymore when there aren't enough left to make for fun discussion.
But, I don't like the attacks on the RM because I know the mod from before FR. The RM isn't in on some conspiracy to get people.
Nope, not there either..
Its a series of monologue's by Protestants, Roman Catholics, other kinds of Catholics, Atheists, Gnostics, Evos, ID'ers, and other sundry 'ists...
I have this habit when I see a post that is off the wall, I check sign-up dates -- agree with you most were within the last year and a lot within the last month. Have had my share of battles on here but these folks were different. Nastiest group I have seen and the most vanities by new people as well.
I'm very interested in seeing how this mega-huge problem (what happened to Terri) will be addressed, legally and politically.
The good old days.
Yep. And belief has a couple of dimensions. Moral principles, and evidence. Most of the content of FR is lean on the "evidence" side; the "noise" part of signal to noise. But the signal part here is 100 times better than the signal anywhere else.
Honest debate is hard to come by, even on FR. But again, the honest debate here is better than anywhere else that I have ever seen.
As in "eschew Eschoir"? Is that right?
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