How Free is Free Republic

kuro5hin.org ^ | Mon Dec 29th, 2003 at 09:53:55 PM EST | felixrayman

[arete]

This is a gathering place for conservatives only.

No, that is incorrect. FR is a gathering place for republican party loyalists, bots and assorted pod people. Few true conservatives are supporting the current administrations agenda.

Richard W.

[AgThorn]

Free Republic is privately owned and funded. We exercise our right to control the use and content of our website. We also exersize our right to freedom of association. Liberal trolls and their posts are usually removed. We do not want to waste our time or resources on their nonsense. Free Republic is not a liberal debating society

In that I can agree .. but Jim (and I have to read the rest of this thread to see if this hasn't already been done), can you address the 3-4 comments that he references as being pulled ... i.e. were they as neutral as they sound? If so, it bears some discussion I would think, no?

[Lead Moderator]

He's gone

[Howlin]

Or so you'd like to think, eh?

[Quix]

This ilk of thing gets tiresome.

It's tolerable to a point because I'm well skilled in page down and scroll keys.

Still, it's somewhat of an offensive drag just to see this sort of thing in the list of threads.

It seems to me that DU etc. is plenty of room for the idiots to roam around in.

[Fledermaus]

As usual with most idiots, felixrayman confuses the articles posted versus the opinions and statements of others.

If he has a problem with what SOMEONE ELSE writes that a Free Republic member post and links to, that's shows his inadequate ability to discriminate between what was posted and the comments that follow.

Boy, they are really afraid of this forum out there, aren't they?

[BraveMan]

This "article" is just one more rant in a rather substantial list of leftist hit pieces penned by the author. His biting insights and rapier wit will not be missed . . .

felixrayman's Diary

[Andy from Beaverton]

I've tried to post some crazy articles written on the left, but becasue they were originqlly posted on a left wing site the moderator pulled them. Not very free(Republic)?

[highlander_UW]

2 of his examples of pulled responses are for the same post. Either he's got his links wrong, or he's padding the amount of posts pulled. It's impossible to make any sort of evaluative call on his contentions because it's not possible to determine if he used obscene language or something of the sort.

Ironically, I just finished reading a very long thread at DU where someone stated they had some conservative views and asked if he should bother to post there. A large number responded no, he was not welcome. They did not want to be exposed to views that differed from their own. (not all were as bad, there was a few reasonable ones as well). I would like to think that well reasoned and respectful posts, even if they represent a dissenting view might be allowed here...at least within some reason (don't want the board spammed in any way).

[Behind Liberal Lines]

If "Promoting [a] left wing site" gets threads pulled we should all stop posting from the mainstream media.

[stopem]

Jim Robinson, thanks for all you do for all of us.
I just recently joined Free Republic and couldn't imagine a day without reading all the great articles and posts.

This forum is an asset to Republicans everywhere!

And a great place to vent about some issues that we may find upsetting. ;)

Everyone has treated me (my posts) with the utmost respect even when we disagree ;)

[White Eagle]

If we are going to pick nits on this dollar amount, it is entirely possible that Lake County and Sangamon County have larger budgets than DuPage. And certainly Cook County has the largest budget in the state of Illinois.

Finally, there are various funds paid by the federal government directly to the states that would not show up in an individual county budget. So, if you compare apples to apples, there may ve 10-15 counties in Illinois with larger budgets than Vermont.

And if you've read this far and you're still awake, if Howard Dean was mayor of Milwaukee, that would probably mean he bowls and eats brats, which would make him a better person.

[tutstar]

If facts were misquoted in an article it would be due to the error of the author, not an error by a FR poster or FR itself.
I'm sure there are articles on the other sites which have inaccuracies in them as well. It is the nature of the beast. At least some of us have figured out we can't trust the 'propaganda machine', uh, media to spoon feed us.
Anyone who has followed the threads on Terri Schiavo knows well that news articles can be full of inaccuracies. This is but one example.

[Tench_Coxe]

"Free Republic is not a liberal debating society."

Apologzing for the crudeness beforehand, I think 'debating' should be struck and replaced with 'mental masturbation' to provide accuracy.

[NeoCaveman]

I think 'debating' should be struck and replaced with 'mental masturbation' to provide accuracy.

I call it intellectual onanism.

[Jim Robinson]

If we allowed these people to take over FR, it'd soon be unusable.

Example:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1051438/posts#4

[cyborg]

LOL AIDS monkey???

[cyborg]

FR could easily be taken over by liberals or vile bigoted skinheads, who to me are family separated at birth. I am glad there is some moderation, but would like more ZOT threads to be left open longer for more viking kitty fun.

[Modernman]

What makes you think that Free Republic champions free speech?

If the management didn't support an open exchange of ideas and demanded orthodoxy in the views of all posters, very few of us would be here. If FR isn't about ideas and debate, I don't know what is.