I'm still working on that one. I think there's an element of sorta a "virtue signaling" turned sideways. They are signaling that they are the rationale ones. That they are not kookoobirds. I think they see it as their mission to represent FreeRepublic as anything but a "conspiracy site."
They are keeping us pure and unsullied, in their minds. Their mission is to put us down like the mad dogs they would portray us as. They have been conditioned this way by the very enemy we fight. They are good people. Most Freepers and Conservatives are. But sometimes even they don't understand how they have been conditioned.
I have many theories. This one is not completely settled on yet.
People who come to the Q threads, similar to those who would haunt the 0bola research threads, may have those motivations; to keep FR pure and unsullied from kookdom.
In those days, some were outright hired entities, others were perhaps volunteer “debunkers” just for the sake of hassling, or to somehow feel superior.
Here’s my take on this as a general principle, an old Zen story:
A student wanted to be accepted by a noted Zen master. The student finally had a meeting with the teacher, and kept talking and talking about his previous practices, his realizations, his studies, and on and on. He didn’t let the teacher have a word in edgewise.
Finally the teacher asked, “Would you like a cup of tea?” The student would (probably had a dry mouth from talking so much!).
The teacher gave him a cup and proceeded to pour tea into it from a pot. The tea went up to the top, but he teacher kept pouring and pouring. The studend said in a loud voice, “The cup is full, don’t you see??
The teacher answered: Your mind is full - you think you knoe - in order to learn, first you have to empty your cup.
I like to say that a thirst for truth is the greatest treasure in the world, which includes the willingness to realize “I don’t know everything” and “Maybe some things I do know aren’t true” and be willing to learn even if it goes against something I think I know.
No one can take this treasure away from you.
Not quite.
Your analogy of your wrongly being identified as a "mad dog" and the Q-deniers (not my term) as trying to put you down isn't quite right. It certainly enhances your victimhood status, but it's a little over the top.
A better analogy is one friend trying to convince another friend that the "sea monkeys" he saw in the back of the magazine weren't actually sea monkeys, just brine shrimp. The friend has been there before. Perhaps he even got duped in the past and spent his entire allowance on sea monkeys, just to realize the truth when the stupid brine shrimp turned out to be just brine shrimp. Trying to shake some sense into you.