Posted on 04/01/2005 2:39:59 PM PST by hchutch
Six months ago, Free Republic was riding high, and I was proud to be a part of it. It was coming off having blown the cover off of Dan Rather’s use of forged memos against the President. The President was well on his way to winning re-election. It was a great time to be a Freeper.
However, things have changed. It started with the justifiable removal of ALIPAC. I supported that move by Jim Robinson, but the ugliness directed towards Alberto Gonzales. He was accused of everything under the sun, and Senator Mel Martinez was viciously attacked for speaking Spanish on the Senate floor. The tone and outright viciousness (terms like FROBL and traitor were fired off at anyone who did not toe the line established by Michelle Malkin and Tom Tancredo) on immigration threads had concerned me, but I had concluded it was an isolated incident. After ALIPAC was removed from FR, I had hoped the tone there would improve. But it only got worse. I was point-blank called a traitor because my views on immigration differ from those of Michelle Malkin’s groupies. On immigration threads, questioning the questionable is not allowed. One must accept the unacceptable and allow folks to defend the indefensible. Never mind that VDARE, American Renaissance, and other sites are racist or have no problem hanging out with those that are racists (I’m just going to call a spade a spade here).
There were folks who had the long knives out for Senator Rick Santorum, one of the strongest pro-life members of the United States Senate. Why? Because he endorsed Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey. It was stunning to see these long knives out for a conservative. And all it would accomplish would be his replacement by a Democrat. How in the world replacing Rick Santorum with a Democrat would aid conservatism is beyond me, but it was demanded because Santorum endorsed Specter. The long knives were out, and I suppose it was a sign of what was to come.
The whole Terri Schiavo case has changed everything for me. A mob mentality took over the first few days after the order to pull the tube was given. Anyone who did not toe the line was attacked. I saw a dedicated active-duty member of our armed forces called a “Maine liberal” for simply asking why troops in harm’s way did not get the same sort of “all-nighter” attention that Terri Schiavo got. It was a reasonable question – we have 40-year-old P-3s still out there. We have a war on terrorism still going on, in case folks have not noticed. We have to get Social Security fixed. I say this as a person who believes that at best, Michael Schiavo’s relationship with a woman (and having two kids with her) meant he had a conflict of interest – and that he had decided that Terri was inconvenient. I cannot take his word alone that Terri would have wanted this. I also believe that George Felos is a supporter of euthanasia, and that he is using this case for his own ends. Those folks give me the creeps, and I think that Jim Robinson was on the right side of this issue. However, I also got a very bad feeling when the Schindlers embraced the likes of Randall Terry and Bo Gritz. I had to wonder what has happened to the conservative movement when the threads were allowed to spiral so out of control. The concept of euthanasia is repulsive and disgusting, but it does not excuse allowing the threads to spin out of control.
I have seen the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and the Governor of Florida, John Ellis Bush, take huge political risks in an effort to save Terri’s life. I believe they were doing their best to do the right thing, and that the original law passed in 2003 was a reasonable one that was wrongly stuck down by Judge Greer and the Florida Supreme Court. I think that the Republican Party has taken a huge risk to give Terri a chance at life, and I am disgusted with those who seek a pretext that will justify leaving the GOP in the lurch. I’m sick of the way the Terri threads spun out of control, and the vicious attacks launched at reasonable people who came to a different conclusions about the situation or who pointed out facts that certain people found inconvenient. This is not what I signed on here for.
I believe in a strong national defense, cutting taxes, and in general trying to keep government involvement as minimal as possible (there are times when the best one can do is to limit government involvement in a situation). I am pro-life (with exceptions for rape, incest, and to protect the life of the mother) and pro-Second Amendment. However, I do NOT want the federal government to be involved in any culture war. “Culture” was never mentioned in the constitution, thus I believe it is left to the States or TO THE PEOPLE (see the Tenth Amendment). I do NOT think immigration is a problem, but I believe some mistakes were made along the way (like eliminating the bracero program). I also think that the President of the United States has proposed a sensible plan that will go a long way towards solving the problems on our border with Mexico and do much to alleviate the problems surrounding illegal immigration. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me and Free Republic to part company, because Free Republic has left this limited-government neoconservative. In the process of Free Republic leaving me, I now find that I fear the social conservatives as much as I fear the loony left. As a result of coming to this conclusion, I ask that my account be deleted and all posts I have made, save for this opus and the ping to my friends be removed.
I do this with regret, since I will miss some of those who I have met here, but I feel no other choice. So long.
As the saying goes: "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya." What I truly do not understand is why people think we care why they are not here any more. Can't you just tell the people who care or is it just about getting attention?
Oh, the humanity.
I hope you left a key under the mat at the back door.
LMAO!!
They sure did. I had to log off a couple of times, or I would have been banned for sure. There's sooooo much I wanted to say...
You brought a valuable and reasonable approach to the important topics of the day and you will be sorely missed by me. I urge you to reconsider because I have the hope, if not the expectation, that Free Republic will return as place where people can disagree without being disagreeable.
If it can't, or if it becomes a forum completely dominated by the issues of the religious right and the xenophobes, then your decision seems perfectly reasonable to me, and I expect a lot more of the long time well-respected posters to follow your lead.
Good riddance, I say.
It is for these reasons that I would suggest you reconsider your decision. Sanity is a rare comodity.
Now I have likely steped in "it" as well. :o)
I guarantee nobody read your entire opus. A simple "Bye" would've sufficed.
Sorry to see you go, hchutch. You raised a lot of good points here.
Some are simply jerks.
I can’t help but feel that was directed at me. I’m outta here!
You've got a hell of a lot of nerve painting yourself as a "victim" when you were one of the prime rock-throwers on the TS threads.
doh!
It's just about getting attention. It takes a special kind of pathetic to post the farewell manifesto to an internet forum, and I'm pathetically drawn in to marvel at it every time it happens.
Adios.
Don't be a smartass. The Smokey Backroom was created fro the purposes of being the place where teh flame wars and nastiness occurred, keeping the main forum rather enjoyable...
But, I guess you didn't understand the irony of what I said, so...
You know what I was thinking just a bit ago?
Terri Schiavo is dead but we have a contingent of unlawful enemy combatants in Guantanamo that are STILL alive – those that weren’t let go, that is.
Yep…
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