Not Enough Zits!
Posted on 06/08/2024 2:35:05 PM PDT by LukeL
In the past couple of years I have noticed there is a complete lake of regard for other posters on this site. Not only that but swearing seems to be tolerated. In the past day I have been called gay, a lair, that I am talking out of my *** and I am full of ****. Do we even have to go into the fighting on any thread about Ukraine or Russia. Even hard facts from multiple sources no longer seem to matter. Instead it is whoever can come up with the snarkiest reply.
A lot of the change may be due to the fact that we don’t meet in our local chapters like we used to. Nor do we have those big old FR events in Washington from time to time.
It’s easier to be snarky when you don’t know the other freeper personally. And just having personal friends who are reading FR kind of keeps you more polite, even when you’re responding to someone you haven’t met.
Also, not just to say something nice, but I have noticed a new sophistication and depth of knowledge on some of the very political threads. So that is a good change.
Well, that clears things up on my end.
No, just the occasional taking the Lords Name in Vain when it pops up. I
I tend toward civility and reason. Yet I have been zotted.
This place at times is a campus safe zone for Trump followers. Rather than anything resembling a Free Republic.
I don’t reflexively back or excuse everything Trump.
And I don’t agree with American involvement in Ukraine.
I value and support Freedom and original American ideals.
Lately, I notice that people often reply generally to the original post if they have a disagreement with another post. They get their position stated on the thread without risking a confrontation.
I try to adopt a simple, neutral tone if I make a serious reply to a specific post. (Often my posts are not very serious.) If someone replies coarsely, I either try to address their point without escalating the snark or I simply don’t reply.
Try not to take it personally. Most of the time, I don’t think it’s intended to be. (Though if you point out bad behavior, some posters will double-down.) I would let it go. (I know. A stranger gets the snarky last word. For me, so be it.) Let the mods know about the really bad apples and then drop it.
I went so far as to request my username be changed to A-hole_n_one but was denied
All I have now is a cherished memory.
Maybe this site could save money by shutting down 4 hours per day due to the tightwad non donors.
Not Enough Zits!
Well, that to me highlights one of the things that is still great about this forum.
Here, you will be hoisted on your own petard of rhetoric if not your lack of critical thinking. Nobody knows what you look like, and often, even what sex you are.
I kind of find that very equalizing here.
I am guilty of incivility here. I just spent three or four days going back and forth with a few Freepers, and I deliberately strayed from my own efforts to keep things civil. It was on a subject I find critical, and have wrestled with one of them for a long time on it.
But, I always try to pick myself up, dust myself off, and try to resist incivility. I try, but am not always successful.
Even still-you can still get civil and informative discourse here. It is possible. And it is still a good, early source of news. I was visiting a friend in Florida, driving home the next day, and surfing the Internet well after midnight, after the time the ship hit the bridge in Baltimore, and FR shouted it out pretty quick.
I get annoyed by the tenor of the threads on the Ukraine-Russia war.
You can only be a “Putin Lover” (Pro-Russian) or a worshiper of the “Globohomo Alliance” (Pro-Ukraine).
I generally avoid them, but sometimes poke in to see if anything has changed, or for the entertainment value, but that isn’t worth the calories.
Yeah!
And Trump should be impeached and shunned because of his mean tweets!!!
“You don’t see this level of trump-hating “conservatives” anywhere else. “
Where is “anywhere else”? What other conservative discussion/news aggregation sites are there?
Yeah lots of fake tough guys that throw insults and declare themselves the winner. Then when you point they’re still wrong they whine they can’t discuss anything with you. There’s still some good folks. Just gotta ignore the d-bags.
I agree. If you ever saw the movie Gran Torino, folks that age grew up in a time where guys who knew one another well gave one another a lot of heavy (but good-natured) “ribbing.” I think that sometimes goes on here without the courtesy to state or clarify it. A growing number of posters will put a “/s” [“close sarcasm or snark’ tag] or emojis after their post put across to readers that they are just kidding and not seriously trying to offend.
“...the people being rude are in their 70s or 80s...”
Hey!!!! That hurts!!!!
I resemble that!!!!
Luke - I’m not going to even get into reading the replies to your post - I’m sure you are getting trashed.
I’ll just say this - about 99.5% of replies on this forum consist of the equivalent to your old crazy uncle that sit’s in his chair yelling at everything and everybody.
That being said there is that .5% of really good stuff - you just gotta be patient to find it.
And just stay out of the threads that you know everybody will be arguing and yelling at each other.
It’s like - do you really want to go over to your crazy uncles place everyday? Or ever?
TO ALL:
FREEPATHON ALERT! Folks, we have only LESS THAN A MONTH of the quarter left, and we’re only at 57% to goal...gotta get’r’done!
I have thick skin, but I’m just getting tired of the stalking mean girls ganging up on one or two girls, the stupid gay memes, being called a “zeeper”, a Biden supporter or whatever insult is handy in the moment.
All a waste of time and emotion, so I’m skimming past the now familiar comments from all the usual players, while I wonder whether or not they’re paid professional posters or just opinionated amateurs like me.
For me, the darker emotions those very few anti-Ukraine posters here make me feel just sucks the joy out of donating to Free Republic.
And, since they are as nasty as they want to be with little to no onsite intervention, I figure they own the place, so they can make up the difference in donations, too.
“You don’t sound pompous are condescending at all. You are the truest example of enlightened perfection”
Why, thank you. Thank you so much!
“You do know that the Founding Fathers used to battle each other in the newspapers like rabid dogs and they won our independence, right?”
No. I know nothing about the Founding Fathers. I’m DAR and Descendants Of The Mayflower Society. I know nothing about the Founding Fathers.
They were brainiacs, so when they battled and fought, their level of discourse reflected that. They weren’t calling each other poopy heads, or saying, “I know you are, but what am I?”
> Now it’s all Biden crapped his pants at Normandy (didn’t happen)
Did you see the video? Sure looked like it to me.
Ha!
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