I read posts to gain information. Sometimes it is wonderfully valuable information, sometimes it is really insightful. Sometimes the best it can be taken from it is an understanding that that is how other people think and therefore it might provide clues about how they can be persuaded to my point of view.
If we conservatives are censored by Nancy Pelosi because she has silenced talk radio or she somehow contrives to shut down the Internet, we would all be outraged. But if we do it to ourselves by shouting, "zot" or enforcing a kind of reverse political correctness for insufficient cheerleading, we smugly congratulate ourselves as the whole grand purpose of FreeRepublic is compromised.
Too often on these threads we hear and see people being shouted down because they are insufficiently optimistic (which really means insufficiently doctrinaire) about conservative election chances. If it is our opinion, we should not be intimidated from putting it out there. Let the optimists prove that it is too negative.
We get much the same noise when someone says, "I heard on Olbermann" and 10 posters immediately assault the author for watching Olbermann. What the hell business is it of the theirs what one of our fellow posters watches? Are we afraid of Olbermann?
Please accept my assurances that there is nothing personal in any of my remarks.
I better end the sermon lest you wake up to the fact that I am being preachy.
