We just had more disrupters because more people are aware of FreeRepublic.
Generally, although the opinions were strong on both sides, if you looked at the screen names, most of the long time posters were still decent to each other.
I probably made some rather harsh comments...I'm not going to deny that. I was attacked by both sides of the argument - especially on one thread where I refused to agree that President Bush and Governor Bush were accomplices to murder. On another thread I was compared to the Sept. 11 terrorists and attacked for being Baptist.
I wasn't the most rational person....not by a long shot. I did apologize.
I agree. There are people who registered in 2003, 2002, 2004 who talk about our current time as if it is so unique. They do not realize fights over Buchannan, Outsourcing of Jobs, War on Drugs, Homosexuality, abortion have been happening for a very long time now and happen all the time. The only difference is there are more people posting to FR than ever before thanks to the media attention FR gets. If you go to the threads from 98,99, 00, and 01 I can gaurantee you won't recognize half the names there, b/c people come and go all the time but never made a big stink about it. The only difference now is admin mods aren't yanking vanities as often as they used to. I remember they used to be really strict about vanities, but now anyone with any gripe can air it freely as an independent post. That was not very common previously.