For every thread calling M.S. a murderer, there was one accusing the Schindlers of glorying in the media attention or being out for monetary gain.That's some alternate universe. An easy search of the archives will prove that to anyone. And it's just not a count of the threads, but the behavior on those threads. Anyone who defended the rulings of the judges based on the actual legal issues before them was shouted down.
The truth is that the Schindlers did not have very good attorneys. They made the wrong case and they did it in an awful way. Even when that was clearly demonstrated, most here felt the judges should have been activists in the cause of Terri and ruled on matters not even before them.
I understand the passions involved and I even understand wanting the judges to be activist judges when the cause is so dear, as hypocritical to the conservative movement as that is.
What I don't understand is the nastiness in which that was expressed. The countless calls for Greer's and Michael Schiavo's death from pro-lifers? Calling people here with long track records of reasonable, intelligent, and conservative posts "nazis", "pro-deathers", ad nauseum? Even when some of those posts got pulled, the damage is largely done.
We've had people here calling for the drawing up of lists of Freepers they hate so they can do something with it; I'm not sure what.
So, I don't buy that it was even-handed or merely rough and tumble stuff here at the forum. It was ugly, and it was largely one-sided.
I think I would be a little more sympathetic if Poohbah wasn't one of the old school. I mean, how could anyone post through the Trixie Wars, BatJack Thompson, CaL/Keyes, the Buchanan Brushfire, etc., and still say this was hot and heavy? I think the fact that remembered wounds seem less deep, combined with the fact that this time he was in the minority, skewed his perspective.
But you know, it's more than that. We all grow, and not always in the direction we want to. How many friends have you kept for literally all of your life (up until now)? Sometimes it's time to move on. He's obviously reached that point, which is fine and I respect. But the need to somehow find the cause in "everybody else" is just a little self-serving.
Look, I've been called really nasty stuff by some pretty "important" people here back in the old days (CaL being one... though we sorta' patched things up later). There have been times when the stuff that was posted and the way it was posted really p*ssed me off, so bad I couldn't even open threads on those subjects because I wanted to hit the CRT screen. The difference is that I wasn't ready to leave. I still could find some use and value in FR. If he can't, that's fine, but you'll have a hard time convincing me that the fundamental change is in FR and not him (sure, FR's flavor changes as the people change, but the root has always been the same).
It's the anthropomorphic fallacy: things are different, so you must have changed (not me)! It's human nature, and I don't fault him for that. But an objective observer has to say that FR isn't at some catastrophic low point in rhetoric. Were you here for Elian?!? Talk about venom!!!!
People leave FR when they a looking for something else. Dramatics aside, I wish Poohbah well. But his going says more about him (and his personal "place") right now than it does FR.