Posted on 07/21/2019 3:38:05 PM PDT by DGravalloni
Hello to the people of the Free Republic.
This is in two parts. In Part One, as my first post here, I want to tell you a little about myself and it leads into an issue I want to discuss: A lifelong (for 36 years) Democrat, I did what I could for my beliefs and my country. I did research and gave talks on the far-right groups who I felt wanted a theocracy and blah blah blah. I had several ex-Communist-country friends and they told me how the economy and the media worked and disinformation and so many things. Like all Americans of either party, I was totally against that. While I was disturbed by some directions in my party, you never agree with anyone ALL the time. I did learn to respect some Republicans and Right-Wing people that I felt showed great integrity. Who wrote, spoke, or did things not from ideology but from sticking firmly to facts as they saw them, to thinking and not emotion.
When Trump announced I mocked. But then it got weird His slogan was "Make America Great Again" and always it was in context of economics and military. I was not thrilled with the idea of a ton of money to the military complex but I figured he didn't have a chance anyway. But the mainstream media (MSM) began to say he wanted to go back to Jim Crow and subjugated women. I knew THAT wasn’t what he meant from his own words and yet the whole mainstream media immediately said it. Then videos were spliced together making it appear he praised white supremacists in Charlottesville. And I heard a live speech where Trump said that "These countries release criminals to come to the country with the immigrants, and 95% of them are the violent ones, racist and murderers" or something to that affect. The MSM spliced it to say "Illegal immigrants, 95% of them, are rapists and murderers" and then the commentators were all "He said HISPANICS were rapists and murderers." They did the same thing with his comment that "MS-13 aren't humans, they are animals" to say “illegals are animals” and then they said "He said Hispanics are animals." Because of my ex-communist friends, I began to realize I was seeing very standard-issue communist-style disinformation. I independently researched and pretty much, when the MSM claimed Trump did or said anything, I knew and confirmed he hadn't done or said that.
Holding my nose, I started watching FOX and found, as much as I hated so much of it, that they were more accurate in their news. At the same time, Bernie's commie platform was gaining strength. This obscured just how lefty Hillary was. When she was finally the sole candidate and I heard what she was saying, without Bernie to compare it to. I could see now how much further (way to the left of standard-issue Socialism) she had gone. I still was going to vote for her, but after staring at my mail ballot, getting up, thinking, going back, staring, for hours, and actually moving my pen toward her spot to fill in for her, my hand felt physically dragged to vote for him. Since his election, for 2 1/2 years now, the MSM has never alked accurately about what he has done. They splice together or misrepresent videos of gestures, speeches, meetings with foreigners, pictures, and everyone instantly believes them and freaks. And every time they said he said or did something, it was misrepresentation. Every.time. The only ones who gave me some of what was really happening, much as I might dislike it, was FOX. And of course, his tweets. And so often, the tweets everyone freaked about weren’t actually what he said.
But I started seeing something impossible to deny. His tweets forced the Democrats, by their reaction to them, to expose who they really are. I am in my 50s, I know what a Democrat is, and there was no question, these people are no Democrats. This wasn't the Democrat party. While I am dubious about a wall, I had lost so much respect for Pelosi and Shumer and the rest when, after saying for years we need a wall they flaccidly, FLACCIDLY, wussed out and turned against it under the pressure. But now I had to face it, they had NEVER been for a wall. They had been lying all this time, trying to look like Democrats but Trump had forced out of them what they really thought. I started to feel the knife of having been lied to and realizing I have no party. None. The Republicans, when I analyzed it, spend on social programs and all about what the Democrats used to, fiscally they are Democrats. Libertarians are Democrats socially. Republicans are Republicans socially and Libertarians are Republicans fiscally. Democrats--aren't. That label is a lie, it’s really the Communist party. So both the Democrats and Republicans have to realize that we are without a party. We have to choose between two parties, Republican and Libertarian, that have split our respective agendas. Most Democrats feel that, no matter what the social laws, you can find a way to do or sleep with or whatever, what you want but if that money for programs isn’t there, you’re screwed. So we have to chose the fiscal and vote Republican. It's gross. Republicans tend to go more for the social, so they too, vote Republican and not Libertarian as much. His tweeting, or more the reactions it provoked, made me totally clarify the reality of where we all are.
I disagree.
LOL
Atlas Shrugged also sealed the deal for me. Many decades ago.
Your move.
The quote: "If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative at 30, you have no brain."
The quote is often attributed to Churchill, but he did not say it:
https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/quotes-falsely-attributed/
However, many people did say something similar:
The first time I read it was in college for a class. I was young, wet-behind-the-ears and inexperienced in the ways of the world. I read it but didn't really understand it. "Who is John Galt" was a popular saying but it didn't register with me.
Then I read it again in the Air Force and the light came on. I understood what Ayn Rand was saying. Not big on her objectivism but everything else.
The next time was the summer before the 2012 election when Obama won his second term. I couldn't believe how closely the novel matched what was actually happening in our country at the time. Ayn Rand was very prescient when she wrote this timeless tome back in the 1950s. She seem to foretell by decades what was going to happen with the looters in charge.
I'm getting tired of murder mysteries and historical non-fiction books I read all the time now. So I'm getting ready to read her novel again.
My favorite chapter is on the 20th Century Motor Works and how the spoiled, liberal kids of the deceased owner, run the company into the ground using their socialist ideas. Reminds my of AO-C and how her Green New Deal would do the same.
Thanks.
Welcome and congrates!
Check out Hillsdale College’s course on the Constitution.
Sounds like the quote or something similar is attributed to a lot of people.
That should be on your about page. Welcome to FR. Good luck on your awakening. Watch out for the Viking Kitties.
Reads like a heart felt conversion from liberal to conservative thinking.
Needs better paragraphing, IMO.
It’s a mastermind of a setup if your intention is to troll.
Being blunt because I don’t trust liberals or recently converted liberals.
Time will tell. Welcome to FR.
It is also FR custom to respond to each and every post on your introduction thread.
Congratulations on embarking on your quest for intellectual honesty. It's a whole lotta work. If you keep at it, it will eventually feel more comfortable. It can take a long time.
You will pay a personal price for walking away. Some of your progressive friends will now regard you as apostate. Apostates are sometimes treated very badly by true believers.
Don't back down.
Also, I am sorry to learn that that you lost all your firearms in that tragic boating accident. Many Freepers had a similar experience.
Just an FYI. If the Illegal Invaders Voted Republican instead of Democrat, you would be able to see the Bill Clinton Southern Border Wall from Space.
That tells you all you need to know about the Democrat Party wanting any Border Security. They lied, just like the RINO’s lied.
Welcome. Free Republic is a great place to hang out. Take it slowly, there’s a long-established culture here. Read more than you write for a while, but welcome!
Welcome to FR.
Interesting post and I am looking forward to reading the second part.
A FRiendly bit of advice.
Respond to posts to your thread.
People who post only threads and never respond to them are viewed with suspicion. They are called *hit and run* posters and we have encountered our share of them.
Welcome to FR yourself.
Glad to have you aboard also.
While that is generally true, if all you've ever seen is a steady diet of the lying MSM, then unless you are exposed to the truth, you won't even know it's out there.
Nope, all liberals. I live in a very liberal area.
Nope, all liberal. It was a very liberal area. The news on TV was liberal. Everything was. College was.
Thank you
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