Unfortunately, I was "bounced" off FR by Jim in 2005. I made a single post stating that "I'll never vote for Schwarzenegger" because he had betrayed the conservative movement and was by the time of his reelection, clearly running policies to the left of his Democrat predecessor. My post was not bombastic, and I didn't attack anyone. I simply stated that I wasn't going to go along with the GOP-e bandwagon, much as some Trump supporters are doing now. Jim replied: "You're not being helpful" in the cause, and ZOT, I was gone. I've stayed away since (reading, but not posting), because I felt that since this was Jim's forum, if he didn't want me here, I'd respect his wishes and leave.
Why change that now? Because FR is not FR anymore. It's morphed into some sort of alternative Democrat Underground universe, with personal attacks on the character and intentions of other conservatives, supported by half-truths and wholesale lies. I hope folks can regain their sense of common purpose and values. The discord is damaging FR, and I believe, hurting the conservative movement. Your attitude and words here are influential, reflecting on every conservative.
In JIMROB's own words, "you're not being helpful" to the conservative movement, nor respectful to the honorable institution that FR has become, when you imitate Alinsky's disciples.
With that, Jim, you can ZOT me again, and **poof**, I'll be gone again for ... ah ... at least ten years if I'm still alive. Best wishes, and FReegards (note: I was the first, actually, to coin that term in maybe my 3rd post back in the 1990's.). PS: Jim, I was still right about Arnie. Hope no hard feelings remain.
OldSaltUSN will become OldZotUSN!
Hear, hear! If you get zotted for this post, then I might as well go, too.
That is an excellent post but ...
This is the age of the death of reason!
No candidate yet. A lot can happen in 9 months’ time.
Ping
Great post
I think this is constructive criticism and very much needed. If we become little more than a mirror image of the Alinsky crowd, then all is lost.
Excellent post!
Thank you for your post. Like many around here, I had decided on my candidate, but knew I’d gladly support “the other guy” if mine didn’t get the nomination. I felt like those two candidates would be best for the country. Once the gloves came off between Cruz and Trump (about the time Cruz starting gaining on Trump in the polls), however, the gloves seemed to come off around FR, too. It’s been almost unbearable lately, but like a train wreck, I can’t help but watch. You are right that Trump and his supporters have driven away plenty who would have voted for him should Cruz lose the nomination (I’m sure the reverse is true, too). I now have no more enthusiasm to support him in the general election than I do Clinton or Sanders.
When typing a post on FR, there is a message under the text box that says “Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, No racism or violence in posts.” Those guidelines for decorum have really gone out the window lately. It’s not that I’ve never heard coarse language before, it’s just that it’s disappointing to see such vulgarity here, of all places. Posts that would have been deleted before now sit proudly diplayed. Last night I saw G*D* (spelled out) in someone’s post for the first time. That, on top of other words that have shown up this election cycle for the first time, have made FR look bad. It isn’t that I am too “Christian/uptight/girlie” to appreciate the language of the fed up conservative electorate; it’s that I hate sounding more and more like DU.
Thanks again for your reasonable post and the reminder that we have to pull together NOW or there will be nothing worth getting out to vote for in November.
Well, come back again sometime, when you can't stay so long...
It is 2016.
I skipped the irrelevant wall of text because one hundred percent of candidates running are devisive.
I disagree with you, Trump can’t win in the end, his negatives are two high.
He is only winning now due to the split field.
Another anybody but Trump.. Well, I supported Cruz in his Senatorial Primary & the General here, but happily voted for Trump here yesterday in Early Voting.
I don’t see Trump as divisive. Watching the two Cubanos yelling at each other in Espanol at the last debate..
That’s divisive to me.
That said, I invest a fair amount of time here and I thoroughly agree with your post which makes a very worthwhile contribution here during this season of ongoing political misery. I supported Scott Walker, the finest governor of this generation and possibly even better than Reagan. When he failed to inspire the celebrity-oriented GOP voters of 2015-2016 and dropped out, I turned to support Cruz and I am thoroughly fed up with many of the attacks on him by the supporters of TRUMP!!!
Now maybe I am just getting old and cranky (no maybe about it!) but I have never experienced anything like the mob mentality supporting TRUMP!!! It is going to take a long time to heal the wounds inflicted by his Alinskyite campaign, if ever those wounds can be healed. Longer than we have before November. AND, if TRUMP!!! is elected, what do WE get? Just another self-centered narcissist like Obozo (as Thomas Sowell observed yesterday) but with a REALLY AMAZINGLY foul mouth to boot.
My mother was deaf and had to drop out of school after graduating grammar school. She worked for decades as a non-union production worker in a garment factory (often treated like dirt until finally she quit) and immediately afterwards, in her final years, opening the mail and filing at the Yale University Undergraduate Admissions Office for lower pay. She came home from Yale every day, marveling that they treated her like a lady, opened doors for her and called her Mrs. _____. Like your mothers and fathers and probably The Donald's, my mom and dad brought me up to have good manners and to speak only the words of a gentleman. All men are fallen and we all occasionally stray from such standards but we don't have to raise it to an art form.
These are simple courtesies, along with keeping a civil tongue in one's mouth, but they made her life far more enjoyable. It is fortunate for her and, maybe for the Donald, that she did not live to see his low rent campaign. The Donald is to civil behavior as Slick Willie was to marital fidelity.
I did not vote for Romney and, if this stuff from TRUMP!!! continues, I may not vote for him either. It is too far to fall in one lifetime between a gentleman like Ronaldus Maximus and, well, TRUMP!!!
It as though Carville and Begala and Axelrod and Jarrett and Soros were orchestrating TRUMP!!!'s campaign in a diabolical effort to destroy the GOP as the only major party vehicle for the translation of conservative ideals into public policy and destroying it effectively.
Of course, the destruction of the GOP and of our country is also ably assisted by the despicable likes of Boehner, , Ryan-O, McCarthy, McConnell, Cornyn, Light Loafers Graham, Thad Cockroach, LAMAR!!! Alexander, Bob Corker, and so many other Demonrats in GOP drag.
We have had a variety of spectacles, courtesy of The Donald. First, there is his foul mouth. I am quite permanently offended by his lowlife comments on Megyn Kelly having "blood coming out of her whatever" because she asked him about his lowlife comments as to other women. Can anyone remotely imagine Reagan behaving like that? I won't reconsider unless or until he apologizes to Ms. Kelly who is concededly not a perfect conservative either but she DOES deserve to be treated like a lady especially by one applying for the job of POTUS.
There was only one Messiah and TRUMP!!!! clearly ain't Him.
Then we had The Donald telling NBC "News" and Chuck Todd that he favored the availability of partial birth abortion and was as "pro-choice" as anyone in the USA. Then, realizing that he is running in the REPUBLICAN primary and not running with his usual leftist Demonrat pals, he "discovered" that he was actually pro-life when bouncing the REALLY AMAZING baby of a friend in his lap. This leaves many obvious questions which the lamestream media avoids asking to protect The Donald. Weren't his own kids (mostly born BEFORE he talked to NBC and Todd) not REALLY AMAZING too? If not, did they and other more "average" kids deserve to live? How about below average kids? Etc. Many of us were born at night but it was not last night. Again, when Reagan explained his change, he was as credible as The Donald is not.
Did I mention that The Donald insisted on allowing a "transgender" to compete in his "Miss Universe" contest and that he included a striptease joint in his Atlantic City TRUMP!!!! Casino? As is traditional with such operations, was there merely a backroom or a full-scale rent-a-girl accessory "profit center?" In addition to his infernal mouth and his Alinskyite tactics, these are reasons that make it verrrry difficult for a lot of us to vote for TRUMP!!!! even in the finals much less in the primaries. These are not qualities that I seek in a candidate I can favor.
Then we have the matter of TRUMP!!! during this campaign going "Code Pink" on George W. Bush actually accusing him of being responsible for the occurrence of 9/11. Makes you wonder what he smokes in his spare time or what fashionable leftist soiree taught The Donald that lie. Of course that lie is fashionable in The Donald's thoroughly, yes, Establishment Manhattan habitat.
Ahhh, but that should have been no real surprise since The Donald had already long since gone Code PinkO on Single Payer Healthcare just like Comrade Bernie and Comrade Shrillery and a bit further than the unlamented grandfather of Obozocare, Moral Monster Mitt Romney.
Will The Donald's running mate be Kim Kardashian (daughter of an OJ lawyer) or one of the dancing bears? Either might bring improved, ummm, substance to his campaign: Kardashian with acres of silicon enhanced flesh, displayed by "wardrobe malfunctions," as a distraction or the dancing bear by avoiding profanity. A balanced ticket, so to speak! Them that lives by celebrity, dies by celebrity.
Now I do disagree with a couple of your points.
John Ellis Bush was apparently a good governor of Florida, as you say. I was determined to give him a fair hearing this time around. I did. He began, however, to lose me when he insisted on sticking with Common Core which is a euphemism for misedumakating the unwashed to be serfs and to understand their place, if any, in our future as a society.
I did not like Bus h the Elder at all (or Barbara either) and his elitist New World Order scheme and Jeb also seems sympathetic to NWO and to a "reform" of our internal order. Another "transformative" presidency is not what I have in mind. The final straw was his declaring his intent to win the GOP POTUS nomination "without the base." Well, he's not getting the base and that's not all he's not getting.
Final disagreement for now. FR is still FR. The quality of dialogue is, as you say, badly degenerated by the rise of ad hominem argument against other FReepers or attacks on other FReepers as the default position. I am ashamed to say that I have recently been contributing to these sad trends. I owe better to my felow FReepers, no matter the disagreement and no matter the provocation. Your post, OldSaltUSN, gives me a firm intention of mending my recent ways and will similarly inspire others.
Attacking candidates is one thing and often quite justifiable but not personal ad hominem attacks on other FReepers.
So long as Free Republic retains its core of quite conservative and decent and well-informed members (and that obviously includes you), there will be a Free Republic and likely a free republic as well. Conservatism is a beautiful tapestry, somewhat complex with some acceptable internal variables. Conservatism is the tapestry of Western Civilization. We may argue over free trade, tariffs, interventionist vs. isolationist foreign policy, sadly over religious questions which ought not divide us but they do, libertarianism vs. traditionalism, etc., etc., etc., BUT we should agree to agree whenever we can and to disagree civilly and respectfully when we cannot agree.
Again, I am certainly not without fault and I intend by this post no disparagement of any FReeper. If anyone feels offended, that person should look to his/her own faults as I have looked to mine.
We can rebuild a sense of purpose at FR and in the conservative movement generally. Return to first principles. Start a Free Republic "book club" not to sell books but to discuss them. It might be a separate forum like the Smoky Backroom.
When we understand the economics books of Friedrich von Hayek (Road to Serfdom), Ludwig von Mises (On Bureaucracy or On Socialism or The Anti-Capitalist Mentality), Milton Friedman (Capitalism and Freedom), Thomas Sowell (almost anything including his books on ethnicity and race relations); when we understand the history of our nation as explained by James I. Robertson (on the Civil War such as Stonewall), Samuel Eliot Morrison (History of the American People), Paul Johnson (A History of the American People), Larry Schweikart (A Patriot's History of the United States/Schweikart is a fellow FReeper), David McCullough (anything), the rich gold mine of history as to the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, biographies of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution; Free Republic will get over
I salute you sir. Well said.