Well said, Semimojo.
To Hopefullamerican: FR used to be very different, before that vocal minority came on the scene. We had lively (and occasionally boisterous) debates, but reason and goodwill (prerequisites for productive debate and problem solving) prevailed nearly all the time. There were lots of smart Freepers and I learned so much from them. There still some left.
For whatever reason, this newish vocal minority think they are above following Jim Robinson’s rules (which is disrespectful to him as well as to their fellow Freepers here), but it is what it is. Best to ignore these people when possible. As Semimojo pointed out, they cannot be reasoned with.
The rest of us choose to follow the rules no matter what. They are very good commonsense rules. So long as you do that, you’ll be fine. And welcome to FR. Always happy to see another good conservative join us, especially one who is reasonable and polite — and has more thoughtful fare to offer us in our conversations here rather than just Twitter style insults.
Too many purges by management over the years. For a long time group think was mandatory here. It's much better now but the damage was done and many really good posters have gone and they are not coming back.