Posted on 04/28/2016 8:36:16 PM PDT by cowboyway
The year was 2012. Zero was running for reelection and the Repubs desperately needed a better candidate than they fielded in 2008 if they were going to regain the White House.
As usual, Freepers were posting articles and comments about the upcoming election, the candidates running for the Republican nomination, how to defeat Zero, etc. During the primary season of 2012 Free Republics owner enthusiastically campaigned against one of the candidates, Mitt Romney. If the only information that you had about Romney was what FR's owner posted you would have had to conclude that Romney was pure evil concentrated. However, when Romney was nominated to run against Zero, FR's owner reversed course and got behind the nominee.
I became disappointed in what I perceived as extreme hypocrisy from the head of the premier conservative forum on the internet and quietly left the site for several years.
With the 2016 campaign season being free of Zero and shaping up to be one of the more interesting campaigns of our maturing republic I found my password and logged back in hoping to engage in interesting, civil and conservative dialog. Everything looked the same but there was a different feel to the place. A lot of anger, a lot of fear and a lot of hatred of conservatives for conservatives.
I do not particularly like Mr. Trump and expressed my opinion on the subject. Of course that resulted in being attacked with reckless abandon by the Trump faithful. When I retaliated I quickly earned a couple of timeouts and limited posting privileges, in other words, second class membership, while those who attacked me continued posting their vicious slanders against anybody and everybody that wasn't on board the Trump Train. The double standard couldn't be more obvious.
Then, on 4/23/16, the owner of the site pledged total support to Mr. Trump believing that Trump is the only path to victory over the presumed democommie candidate, Hillary Clinton, regardless of the fact that Trump is not a conservative. Freepers who openly refused to pledge their support for Mr. Trump were quickly purged with Trump's exuberant peanut gallery fearlessly and gleefully shouting insults and catcalls for all non-Trump supporters to 'ride the lightning'.
Welcome to Trump Republic.
Opus over.
Cowboyway out.
I don't know anyone sensible that is a dyed-in-the-wool Trumpster either.
A lot of people are saddened about our choices for the highest office in the land, and still maybe on the face of the Earth. Hopefully if Trump gets past the Hildebeast or the Bern he will keep his word and build a wall. Then it will at least stop the spigot of anti-American bigots from continuing to flood our shores.
But we will still have Yuge deficits, a bought-and-paid-for congress, and a Supreme Court that wants desperately to be loved more than they want to follow the law as written in the Constitution.
It's not all black and white. People who are leery about Trump are not necessarily haters. I love the guy as an entertainer. He seems to be a decent businessman as well. I'm not certain that he will be a great president. Anyone who believes at this point that they know he will be is smoking something that is legal in only a few states.
I liked Cruz at one time, but he seems to be mimicking Martin Sheen's character in "The Dead Zone", i.e anything to get elected.
Hillary's a criminal. Bernie's a socialist. Cruz may very well be a psychopath. Trump is definitely a 100% American, but there are some Americans that are just plain old slimy snake-oil salesmen.
What's going on now is just reaffirmation that the US as an empire is in its death throes. It might take a couple hundred years to final go the way that the Roman Empire did, but it may be sooner if we don't get the leadership we need.
Whatever happens, I am certain we will get the leadership we deserve.
Not me! I think Trump will be a historical President. 20 years from now, Republicans will be calling themselves "Trump Republicans."
People who are leery about Trump are not necessarily haters.
No, but the ones who claim Cruz is the Messiah and we are sinners for giving in to Donald Trump are basically retarded.
I cannot get beyond Cruz’s ineligibility to ever be President.
Well, I could, but I don’t need to.
I could put up lots of items to demonstrate that Cruz is a sorry candidate unlikely to win anything, but I won’t.
Canadians cannot become President.
If only people would opus because they are interested in engaging in that topic, but they don’t.
I agree with you on that point.
I wasn’t crazy about Cruz. I remember Cruz supporters getting mad at me before Trump was even in the race. But what am I supposed to be blaming on him? I just think he didn’t have a good temperament and he didn’t understand the Reagan approach. But I don’t believe in all the media conspiracy theories about him.
**** I just come here for the chicks, man ****
Some of the Eye Bleach is pretty good
Mostly I show up here for sanity, insanity and the Laz Countdown, it gives me hope.
As if it matters anymore, I will vote for Ted or Donald whoever it ends up being
The Vote Counters are a far bigger problem than the candidates
Continue insulting us with 24/7 anti-Trump diatribes and insults, your opus will be assumed.
Jim Robinson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3424005/posts
>> It’s a time for self-reflection rather than another opportunity for a Two Minute Hate. <<
+1
I appreciate and agree with your comments.
I’m not what they’re calling #nevertrump, but at this point, that’s only because I’m #neverhillary.
She has yuge...tracts of land!
Well then you're still not paying attention, at least in the vast majority of cases.
Don't forget also, that when someone sez "Jim I hate you, you dirty Trump-loving SOB - #NeverTrump", that post itself could be deleted as well as a zot occurring.
But any attempt to push the false idea that people are being zotted merely for supporting Cruz is simply incorrect. Too many members have seen these raging flameouts with our own eyes.
We are each individuals, and moderator decisions, therefore, are unique to that individual. IMHO, the vast majority of zots have been richly deserved.
Jim is the only person with his finger on the zot button, as far as I know.
Some people, when they have lost an argument (whether based on fact, emotion, or both) exhibit a tendency to go antisocial and "flame out" in their self-rightious rage.
Either that, or they really are trying to be propaganda mouthpieces for the Establishment.
There's a debate that occurred in this community. The debate has been settled, and it has been settled with a massive amount of consensus, which has shifted from the early favorite, Ted Cruz, to the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
At some point, therefore, posting vehement and slanted propaganda becomes, in and of itself, a detriment to the community. When the owner of the site, therefore, announces new guidelines for what constitutes abuse of the forum, the "guidelines" should be honored, not pissed on.
This site is Moderated. If it weren't, any number of trolls (Leftist or otherwise) would have wrecked the place already.
My point is, JimRob is perfectly entitled to exercise editorial control over what gets published on his site, when he thinks it is merited. I, personally, happen to concur with his desire that his web site not be used as a conduit for Enemy/GOPe propaganda.
I don't think JimRob needs to be guilt-tripped for his actions, which were and are reasonable enough.
In short, I totally reject the accusations made by the vast-majority of those who have had their accounts suspended.
They'll get over their butthurt, and, unless their crimes are particularly egregious, they'll come back when they have gained a little more self-control.
Donald Trump has won, and the "NeverTrump"/Cruz fanboy flameouts are unnecessary at this point.
Vote Trump
Boy isn’t that the truth!
Back for more of people attacking him/her with “reckless abandon”.
They always come back.
trusTEDlusTED
busTED
conflicTED
disgusTED
combusTED
muTED
mooTED
BYE!
exiTED
No, it doesn't. And in any event, there haven't been a "large number of recent opuses", certainly not significantly more than occur during any other Presidential campaign.
The phenomenon is fed by the rage-filled hysteria of a tiny, tiny group of people who can't control themselves on FR when an argument goes decisively against them. Ultimately, they end up attacking the community that they claim to care about, and they attack the owner of that community because they don't like his new "posting guidelines".
There's nothing sinister occurring on FR, and any characterizations to that affect are misguided, if not outright malicious.
What there is is are needless Cruz fanboy/NeverTrump/"contested convention" flameouts.
Butthurt, in other words.
Let's just say that advocating for a contested GOP convention (insane), chanting "NeverTrump" (insane) and the like are currently not in vogue in this community, and leave it at that.
Vote Trump
Now see, that's just ignorant...
Vote Trump
I Love the opuses.. The Cruzlims were the worst among us. Good riddance.
That's just a malicious smear on Donald Trump, uncalled for, and without rational basis. It's the kind of garbage that helps the Enemy, and that we don't need in this community.
Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee. He has earned the support of Jim Robinson and an overwhelming consensus of this community, and imagine that most of us will continue to support him at least until such time as he defeats Hillary Clinton in November, and hopefully much further.
Undermining Donald Trump from this point forward only helps Hillary Clinton.
Vote Trump
Trump University was not a point in his favor.
Continue insulting us with 24/7 anti-Trump diatribes and insults, your opus will be assumed.
Jim Robinson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3424005/posts
I can say with a clear conscience that I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments Jim expressed above.
And, knowing that was the sentiment, a few members felt it incumbent on themselves to push their luck.
Vote Trump
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