Posted on 05/27/2011 10:36:25 AM PDT by Dr. Zzyzx
Freeper Friends,
I was saddened by JimRob's imperious pronouncement yesterday, and the ensuing comments & zots. Here's why. One of this site's primary pillars is the Bill of Rights which calls for Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Right to a trial by jury. We believe in those things. We believe in them to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them. And yet on this site, when a JimRob cuts people off for what they say or believe Freepers cheer him like Baghdad Bob would cheer Saddam Hussein! That's not America folks!
"He owns the site!" you say. Tell that to Steven Jobs who got dumped a few years ago from the company he started because he created an IPO to get financial support from others. Once JimRob started taking YOUR money, it became YOUR site. YOU provide the content, YOU provide the financing. Without YOU, Jim would be a lonely guy staring at a monitor in his den.
How can we say we want freedoms out one side of our mouths, and stand by and cheer as Jim zots dissenters in a way that would make medieval Europe's most dictatorial tyrants proud?
John Stuart Mill had the right approach--let all the ideas fight it out in the arena. If they're foolish ideas, they will eventually be seen as such. We don't have anything to fear from hearing someone else's point of view.
Now. In case you're wondering:
My membership date is actually one and a half years earlier than the November 1999 date shown. (Had to re-enlist because of computer and email trouble)
I was raised in Arizona but live in Utah. I fly the Arizona flag on my profile because I'm proud of their stance on immigration.
Ive told anyone that will listen that I think Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are shifty weasels.
I served on the city council and as the mayor of my community.
I played a part in the grassroots effort to throw Bob Bennett out of office, and hope soon to do the same to Orrin Hatch.
I waged a pitched battle in the newspapers and amongst my fellow teachers against the president, officers, and organization of the Utah Education Association, an arm of the NEA.
I became disenchanted with the Republican party after some of the things George Bush (though I admire his courage and determination) did that I felt were harmful to the financial well-being of America.
In other words, I'm not a newbie troll. I just have a genuine concern with how members are treated here, and you should too.
To save you the electrons of posting replies, I'll post them for you:
Jim owns the site, he can do what he wants.
ZOT!
Put on your asbestos suit.
Put on your tin foil hat.
Viking Kitties!
Don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!
A cheese-eating moose bit my sister.
Please. This “amen corner” solely relates to Rooty and Romney.
Look, apparently you have a problem with the way I choose to manage my website. I let your insults slide, but responded to your complaint and explained my position and now you want to argue about that? As I said, take it or leave it. If you can't live with my positions, leave. No one's forcing you to post here.
What are you, in seventh grade?
You left out one - maybe more:
Freedom of ASSOCIATION
It sure IS!!
Have you seen the poll of us OWNERS that AGREE with Jim?
Over 95%, IMHO.
Guess what that means!
My local newspaper 'takes my money', too, but I have NO control over content.
I get to READ it and comment (letters to the editor) and even then what I get to say in the paper is subject to the WHIMS of the editor.
Might as well be in RUSSIA!
My sister bit a moose!!
The Donner party was COOL!
OUR names are SPARTACUS!
“The intelligent posters on this site with their outstanding responses to the lefties, give me ammo for my daily dealings with lefties here, in Austin. “
Agreed. Me too. The “whole” of this site - made up by the sum of its parts - is the ultimate Conservative mind. I wish I were as smart as even half the commentators.
Jim Robinson has built a one of a kind gathering place that shouldn’t be eroded. He’s right (and it is his right!) to guard against that erosion.
Afraid?
We ain’t afraid; we just don’t LIKE them!
Twisty little passages; all alike...
Some of my best friends on FR have been those atheists who spoke RESPECTFULLY and "phrased their answers in the form of a question" -- and had the humility to admit either that they didn't know, or that a "mere" believer might have happened to stumble across, or deduce, an answer which they themselves had not yet thought of.
The same thing applies to Romneybots, Paulbots, and the like.
It tends to get annoying to be addressed continually with an air of noblesse oblige by one's intellectual inferiors. And even more annoying that the inferiors like to touch themselves excitedly over the air of consternation thus caused.
Prometheus is how Lucifer likes to tell his story to himself. Or, to quote the demon-possessed Weston in Perelandra, "It is for this that I came here, that you may have death in abundance."
Many of the RINO and lib candidates are presenting the same thing, in the long run. Some of them are even dimly aware of it, but feel that as long as they can make and enjoy their pile, but kick the can down the road for others to deal with, any problems which accumulate to the point of intractability and dire consequences are neither their responsibility, nor on their conscience; indeed, they have corrupted their conscience to the point of feeling vaguely self-congratulatory about the whole affair. (cf The Screwtape Letters XXIV, "What you want is to keep a sly self-congratulation mixing with all his thoughts and never allow him to raise the question What, precisely, am I congratulating myself about?")
And, finally, in cartoon language, to make absolutely SURE we haven't gone over your head:
Cheers!
Bah!
It wasn't NEAR as good as MINE on #16!!!
A 'true' Conservative would KNOW that.
HMMmmm...
I hate worthless vanities like yours.
Make that freedomof DISSOCIATION (e.g. multiple personalities).
These libertarian trolls are crazy!
Cheers!
The problem, as I see it, is that letting a Pomeranian heel biter have it's way with you is GREAT fun for a while, but if it goes on TOO long; SOMEone's ass is gonna get kicked across the yard!
You know, Ravi Zacharias is an international Christian apologist. In one of his books, he describes the over-extended mania we have of allowing people to state "both sides" of an argument.
The example he gives -- which shows the ludicrous extreme we go to when we don't set some boundaries -- is a classroom where a teacher allows a "debate" between a protagonist and an antagonist.
We might readily think, "Hey, that's great. Here's a teacher who loves academic freedom. They're allowing both sides to be heard."
But what if I then added the content of the "debate" Ravi mentioned in his hypothetical? What if the "debate" was whether it was OK to abuse children...and there was actually a "pro"-abuse discussion being advocated.
I wouldn't think much of an educator allowing the pro-child abuse position to be debated under the guise of "academic freedom." Likewise, I commend Jim's well-thought out boundaries here.
Abortion is, after all, the ultimate child abuse. Each baby who has brainwaves and a heartbeat is dismembered by a machine with mega the power of a vacuum cleaner.
I think of Mitt Romney's Dec 2007 interview with Katie Couric...where one sentence he's discussing embryos being adopted out by adoptive parents; and the next he's saying he thinks it's great that embryos could be offered up for "research" -- destruction.
Here we have a RINO candidate who keeps having these pro-child abuse & anti-child abuse "debates" in his own head...and he can't come to a once-and-for all conclusion even in his own mind.
I don't think FR needs to become yet another forum where pro-child abuse arguments are openly welcomed -- all in the name of libertarian or academic freedom.
How can you infer THAT?
'Biting' and 'eating' are similar, but still different.
The moose took ONE bite; found out she WASN'T cheese - and moved along to the NEXT sister!
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