Replies

Well I'm with you on your goals. I think you should just go ahead and spill the beans on the plan at this point. Too much buildup is hookey. This isn't a pyramid scheme after all.

Free Republic is a wonderful cultural treasure for conservatives. But the focus and POWER that we had early on (I've been here since 1998) has largely disapated. This happens. It's unfortunate in some ways but its also a measure of success. Jim has elected to have a very, very broad based community and allow the widest possible discussions to take place, with only some minimal rules. It's amazing that it has worked so well.

Maybe you should for a Yahoo board to do what you want. Thats what Boston T. Party is doing with the FSW. (In fact there are several, one for 'lurkers' , one for people who have signed on).

FR is *NOT* about restoring the Constitution as a sort of mission (no matter what the outdated mission statement says) IMHO. It's about a building a place for conservatives to chat, about everything.

Here is a random list of FR topics:
Key facts about Stanley Tookie Williams case
Riots Erupt in Australia
Anti-Arab rioters smash cars, windows in Sydney
DA must prove DeLay purposely avoided fund ban
Italy tape: 'Joy' over beheading
Police Find Assault Weapon Near Supreme Court
Statement by the President [on Tueni assassination
Whirlpool to lay off 730 U.S. workers [Mexico Gains]
Was California Gov. Arnold ... Tookie Williams?
EU Official Calls for End to Death Penalty
Immigration booming as Congress grapples with border
Possible White House FREEP
Minutemen at the Polls
British Oil-Fire Cloud Spreads to France
Bush Says 30,000 Iraqis Killed in War
Crips Founder Williams Denied Clemency
Gang killings up, number of investigators down in LA
Warner Disney
Saudi Businessman Donates Millions to Georgetown and
Governor Declines To Stop Williams Execution
Bomb Ripped Apart Vehicle Carrying Canadian
Judge throws out Yosemite death lawsuit
USSC TO DECIDE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF TEXAS REDISTRICTING
Italian Player Accused of Fascist Salute (Drudge)
Japan Brokerage Must Compensate for Error
ESR's Tenth Annual Person of the Year
Donkeys vs. Christians
Investigation and Indictment of John F. Kerry
Illegal Alien Day Laborers in Shirlington
Report: Israel prepares to strike Iran
La. Governor Postpones New Orleans Vote
Vote for Alex (Freep this Poll-Vote for Little Girl
Death of an American City
A Serial Killer Shakes Up a City and a Cultural Myth
Left, Lefter and Leftest (Nemesis following hubris in
Economics for dummies
The Truth About the Chronicles of Narnia

What do you see? Lots of tabloid news, lots of celebrity news, book review, movie reivews, international news, business news. What you don't see is any particular focus on anything like restoring the republic. That might be why you come here but objectively it's now what this place is about anymore.

I actually responded to a thread on Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and said something like "can't you do this elsewhere? what does this have to do with politics?" But its not my board to make those calls. Ditto the sports threads, daily vanity threads, pray for Bush threads, follow the talk radio threads, all this and more happily exists here.

This place is a lot more like Google News than any focused goal driven group. If that's what you want I think you need to go elswhere (and drop in here once in a while).

As I said, from what you've said I am broadly in support of your concerns and goals. Please accept this as the constructive criticism I intend it to be.

"Well I'm with you on your goals. I think you should just go ahead and spill the beans on the plan at this point. Too much buildup is hookey...Free Republic is a wonderful cultural treasure for conservatives. But the focus and POWER that we had early on (I've been here since 1998) has largely disapated."

Your insight is excellent. Some of your other comments are also very salient, "..place for conservatives to chat..What you don't see is any particular focus on anything like restoring the republic." And, "If that's what you want I think you need to go elswhere (and drop in here once in a while..from what you've said I am broadly in support of your concerns and goals. Please accept this as the constructive criticism I intend it to be."

Our group considered everything you said, including your recommendation. We decided to make our case on FreeRepublic for several reasons:

First, FreeRepublic is large enough and has enough band width to not only accomodate conservative chat, but also plenty of room for serious discussion of any number of conservative issues including the restoration of the Constitution. Since the virtual space of our discussion hall is essentialy infinite, there is no reason why all of these discussions cannot take place side by side without disturbing any other discussion. And on occassion, these side by side discussions might become resources for each other.
Secondly, I suspect there are more conservative eyeballs that grace these pages than other conservative forum environments. Exposing our material to more eyeballs increases the odds that it will ultimately connect with the individuals that can actually effect the restoration.
To some extent, the actions we would like to produce resemble the chain reactions of a nuclear reactor. If we can incite a reaction in one individual, that individual may contact and incite reactions in many others. Eventually, we might reach the people that can actually put our in plan into effect.
Quanity of reactions is not the only thing offered by FreeRepublic. Important conservatives commonly peruse the site. If we capture the right hit on FreeRepublic, in truth, as you will see, we only have to change a single mind if the right individual happens to review our material and realize what we have to offer.
It is literally true, we only need to convince a single individual of our plan, and assuming it is the right individual, that person will change the minds of all the other millions of minds that will need to be convinced.

As for the stringing out of the material, there are several reasons why we have chosen to do it, and a couple of reasons why it absolutely necessary. If you have paid attention to the number of views of articles posted on FreeRepublic, you have undoubtedly noticed that some can produce more than 100,000 views while others may produce less than a hundred. Some articles similar to some of these were published on another site with average hits in the high hundreds or low one thousand range without producing a critical mass reaction. We don't want to be a one shot flash in the pan; we want to generate a sustainable reaction that it will see itself through to completion. One of the prior articles alluded to our main reason for not presenting too much in a single article.

Slogans and sound bytes are great for selling Christmas cards, "When you care enough to send the very best," or winning elections, "It's the economy stupid." We admit that we aren't salesmen, but we do believe that to change 90 years of history in less than a decade and pursuade hundreds of millions of people to end socialism before socialism ends the United States is going to take more than a slogan or a sound byte. We are going to have to present a truly great debate that carries the day.

We hope you will join us in this effort and invite you and every Freeper to conisder taking The Pledge.