Posted on 04/01/2005 4:26:00 PM PST by Poohbah
First, this is NOT an April Fool's joke.
I am leaving Free Republic.
Over the past two years, civility and thoughtful discourse has vanished from this site, replaced with demands for ideological conformity that are straight out of Stalinist Russia or China's Great Cultural Revolution, and unrelenting uncivility if said conformance is not forthcoming. This trend began with the California recall election, where certain posters were allowed to flame the living beejezus out of those who didn't wholeheartedly support Tom McClintock, or thought that he wasn't running a campaign capable of winning. It extended into the Keyes campaign last year, where any critique of Keyes' campaign strategy was shrilly flamed, despite the obviously flawed execution of his campaign.
(Aside: one person who flamed me during the Keyes mess later said that he hadn't intended to start a fight with his remarks that accused me of homosexuality, pedophilia, and other evils; I was instantly reminded of the time I had to bail one of my Marines out of the local lockup. "Honest, Sarge," this Marine told me, "I didn't mean to start a fight when I called that Army Ranger a faggot." My response was not [and still isn't] suitable for public consumption.)
Since then, the Terri Schiavo case has pushed FR over the edge. We had posts calling for people to ensure that "accidents" to befall Schiavo and Judge Greer. We had posts praying that Iran would soon develop nuclear weapons, so that they could destroy the United States. And until the FBI started making arrests, those posts were allowed to stay up, completely abnegating Free Republic's standards.
We had people on both sides of the issue point out that the Schindlers were associating with some people of extremely low character, and that our uncritical embrace of these parties would not rebound to our favor. Rather reasonable attitudes to take, actually; but the loudest of the loud were in no mood to think.
My personal favorite was the following exchange:
The issue is not legality, but public opinion. Which will not be helped in this case if the pro-Terry side becomes associated in the media with Christian Identity, white supremicists, neo-nazis, racists and/or anti-semites.
Diva Betsy Ross made a valiant attempt to...ahem...whitewash Christian Identity, but it didn't work.
To top things off, we had people embracing as some sort of conservative icon, to the extent of posting a fundraising link.
I always thought that conservatism valued thinking over feeling, careful contemplation of facts over wild-eyed repetition of every damn rumor to come down the pipe, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. For a while, Free Republic met those criteria in spades.
Those days are long gone, and I have serious doubt as to whether or not they're coming back.
I know that many of the usual suspects will cheer this on, as their longtime nemesis is leaving them the field.
Be careful what you wish for; you are in the process of getting it. You may succeed in driving the folks who disagree with you from the site; but you will end up being just another collection of shrill voices in Bedlam. When everything is an over-the-top scream, no one will be heard.
Farewell.
I'm sorry to see you go. As a newbie and someone who doesn't have alot of time to post, I've valued your posts and comments.
Bingo.
Damn, I missed you.
See that PD. Gunrunner2 agrees with me. BTW shares of Kleenix are up 5 points in the Asian markets.
Saw my entire backyard deck for the first time since Christmas yesterday. Spring is finally on its way!
that is my number that I signed up. Wow!
I also took a different approach than most here in the Schiavo case, not siding with Michael, but simply criticizing the extremism, such as Randall Terry, Bo Gritz, desecrating American flags and crucifixes, cursing the governor and President, threatening the lives of the Schiavo families, etc, and was severely flamed. It goes with the territory. You, like hchutch seem to have a pretty good slant on things, and I for one, would hate to see such folks disappear leaving only the mindless extremist automatons. You will not find a better site anywhere in spite of it all.
And in spite of inane "don't let the screen-door hit you" crowd that loves to get in that last mindless dig.
Some have recognized how divisive the Schiavo episode had been for Freepers, not unlike the country at large.
Yes, some damage has been done here over that past 2 weeks, but Free Republic is vibrant, still populated by good freepers, and God willing, will continue even stronger than before.
That has been the case on the evolution threads for more than 4 years...still is, worse than ever.
Just take a hyatus Poobah and come back again when you get 'the call'...you've been a good FReeper and we should be chasing these other dodos outta here...not vice versa.
Whew! That's the third time I have had to claim ignorance on the matter. For a moment, I thought I was going insane.
I'm surprised to see that from you.
I feel as if I'm on my way out as well. Tired of being called names. I come here for civil and thoughtful exchanges of ideas and those have been increasingly rare...
C'mon man....have people really gotten to you this much? Enough to leave? I can't believe it.
I'm 24043.
Unfortunately, way back when, I lost my first login from 1998.
Sad, ain't it?
We talked about Terri?
Well, out of the thousands of posts, sorry if it wasn't memorable :-)
Oh, you haven't seen the posts about how MS tried to kill her, how freepers wanted to kill him, cheered that his family was getting death threats, saying the Jewish judges hated the Schindlers because of Schindlers List and the Holocaust, etc.
Well, okay. So everyone who has complained about what I've complained about...we're all just nuts. Glad we have that settled.
LOL...I have to learn how to italicize. It gets me into trouble when I just go spouting off like that. There could be 500 posts by the time I get it and then no one remembers what the heck I'm talking about...Just like my husband...:)
I try to avoid the religion forum. It's a protest over forcing matters of faith forced into the basement. I just can't help it if I live an integrated life.....
Dear Torie,
"I think I read enough posts to get at the nexus of tbe controversy."
That's just the point. There really isn't that much of a real controversy.
"One thing really fascinated me though. When I asked what was that different between the two forms of masses, other than language, few of the combatants knew."
That kind of makes my point.
But then again, maybe you're really just a latent Novus Ordoite. ;-)
sitetest
After about 2 years of lurking, I finally join up and suddenly people are leaving? Should I take that personally?
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