Who reads FR? How many accounts on FR? What does FR stand for? Where is FR going?

I'm placing this in breaking news, because there have been several breaking news complaint threads recently. Guess there are a lot of people not understanding the facts about FR, or what we stand for, where we're going, etc.

First of all, who reads FR and how many accounts do we have? I honestly have no idea and the exact number does not concern me. We currently have over 369,000 registered accounts on FR, but as someone pointed out yesterday, not all of them are active and I have no idea how many are active.

Many years ago we had less than 30,000 accounts registered. Then we hit a hundred thousand, a hundred fifty thousand, then two hundred thousand and three or four years ago we approached and went over 300,000. Every few years as we hit a major milestone in registered accounts, I updated our home page with the current number of accounts on FR. I'll probably do it again after we go over 400,000, then 500,000, etc, and maybe I won't. The number of registered accounts doesn't really mean much. And our growth in the last few years has tapered off anyway for various reasons.

Who actually reads FR? Again, we have no idea, but there are hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of readers. All kinds of people read FR. News hounds, liberals, conservatives, politicians, talk show hosts, religious types, atheists, you and me brother and everyone in between. We serve over 1,000,000 pageviews per day.

So why has our growth tapered off? Well, probably the primary reason is we've narrowed our point of view lately as we've moved away from just talking about the issues and have actually started becoming constitutional activists.

The time for talking is over. Now we need to walk the walk. Our focus has become closer to working on our primary goal which is a return to constitutionally limited government and a full restoration of our God-given unalienable rights.

We can't do that by being big tent, all things to all people, non-principled, two-talking politicians. If we are truly interested in advancing our traditional conservative pro-God, pro-family, pro-life, pro-country, pro-liberty principles and positions then we must reject the politicians and people supporting the other way.

As an organization, we cannot be both for and against homosexuality, abortion, big government, border and national security, etc. I don't know about others, but if we must choose, I choose to be on the right side of each and every issue. Why should FR use its limited resources to allow liberals, homosexualists, abortionists, big spenders, big taxers, big government solutions advocates, gun grabbers, pacifists, isolationists, environmentalists, open-borders lobbyists, etc, ply their trade on FR? Well, more and more lately, we don't. And, apparently, that has pissed off a lot of big tent, true blue RINO types and the herd is stampeding. Let them go.

We who share our common traditional conservative principles, values and goals will be better off in the long run. We need to build on our strengths and attract more traditional conservatives to our viewpoints than to water down and weaken our own. It just doesn't make sense to me to support politicians like Giuliani, Romney, Gingrich, et al, who have RINO/liberal track records. It doesn't make sense to allow abortionists, homosexualists, gun-grabbers, big-government solutionists, etc, to have free rein on FR to target and lambast us daily with their repugnant bile. Let them go.

FR will continue on the traditional God, family, country, life and liberty path. If it means fewer accounts or less growth, so be it. If it means we receive fewer in donations, so be it. We will adapt, improvise and overcome and I believe prosper (God willing) in the long run. And, hopefully, someday we can say that we helped restore our beloved republic and our Liberty!

Thanks Jim. Though I’ve occasionally been temporarily banned sometimes mistakenly, sometimes I deserved it the value of FR and your hard work has never been lost on me. I agree with you entirely. We can not support the small tyrannies that some among us believe will make us more acceptable to the progressive political/media class. The best advice they have provided has been proven wrong time and time again. They tell us if only we embraced homosexual activism which provides a huge threat to liberty with the enacting of homosexual-centric laws to silence anyone that believes or dares speak even mildly the truth concerning the nature of the disgusting ‘lifestyle’ that suddenly our political tides would rise and all would be good in the world. They told us the same thing about abortion as if feasting politically on the blood of innocents is a popular cause. They believe these things because they are cowards many of whom seek favor with those in liberal metropolitan centers who they would have us believe is their goal to defeat and no matter how many times these issues have lost at the ballot box they still offer such dumb ideas as some kind of salvation under the guise of big tent which in reality is a very narrow tent because a majority in this country do not support these issues. Most in America don’t believe in killing the unborn as if they are nothing more than a tumor or disease, most don’t see the unnatural illogical egotist sexual behaviors of liberal sexual activists as desirable nor their efforts to create thought crimes to serve their political aims and intimidate their political opponents, most do not see the govt as too little, nor do they believe guns shoot themselves and should be banned. Most in America don’t believe mankind is a mistake nor that we should turn over to politically motivated liberal scientists trillions of dollars to solve a climate problem that doesn’t not exist.

What these big tent people want to do is suppress the big tent from rising, they want to keep out those who don’t fit their urban culture of shallow ‘doo-goodery’. They believe they are so intelligent as to be above question not even by God who they don’t even believe exists even though most of American does believe even if they don’t attend a church.
They know that unless they intimidate us into silence that their goals will be achieved through attrition without firing a shot and our America, the America of our founders and of our forebears will be gone.

As for those who want to focus on FreeRepublic for wielding a heavy hand I’d like to see them go over to Redstate or MotherRussiaState as I sometimes like to call it. I was banned for my first unfavorable reply to a post concerning Mark Kirk. See these open minded Rhinos are like liberals, they don’t like us caring about social issues or being rigid or single issue even though they most certainly do care and are. One doesn’t not protest or legislate what they do not care about.

Re: “I have no problem with people posting left wing articles and left wing comments. I have no problem debating with people who direct their lives by the twin principles of premeditated ignorance and practiced irrationality. I have no problem searching out the original truths proving the sound bites liberals use for their points are no more than mantras chanted for a godless orthodoxy. As far as I am concerned, bring it on. I and others will bury them.”

That is the benefit I get from FreeRepublic. The vigorous, but civilized debates help to clarify issues.

I work in a very liberal environment. From reading on FR, I sometimes have read the debate about the latest demo talking points and have been able to contribute opposing viewpoints to my colleagues’ discussions without animosity. Often it makes them THINK!

At work I avoid directly criticizing 0bammy because many see any criticism of him as an attack upon their race. However, one colleague and I had a long discussion the other day about the deleterious effect of ‘taxing the rich” upon the economy. He did not know that NY and NJ have had measurable deceases in the total numbers of “rich” taxpayers and that no, or low tax states have had increases in population. He seemed to agree that higher taxes may not the solution to the budget crisis. We talked about the increases in the costs of Medicaid and Medicare and how those costs were not anticipated at the time they were implemented.

We have had several conversations like that. He knows I am the “Conservative” in the office, but that we can talk about issues without rancor. I think he at least listens to our points of view and that plants a seed.

Because I have sometimes read Freeper dissections by you or others, of the Libtard positions on this forum, I can sometimes present a reasoned response to some of their talking points, even in areas with which I am not particularly well versed.

I fear that if FR becomes a site where thoughtful debate is stifled, because an issue is presented by a non-believer and he or she gets zotted, there will be no forum available to see all sides of an issue being discussed.

I have looked upon FR as being the “free market of ideas” I have enjoyed the discussions of issues in a civilized manner. (Thank you, Moderators!) Ad hominem attacks, the first technique of the Libtards, are usually not successful in mis-directing the debate. Some Freeper will weigh in with a reasoned comment that will encourage the thread back to the issue.

Does this new policy mean that Freepers who may agree with a non-orthodox position will be zapped? If so, I fear that our FRiends with whom I disagree may disappear and I will not have the benefit of seeing other Freepers disassemble their positions in a reasoned, mutually respectful manner.

Mr. Reagan’s comment “Now there you go again” comes to mind.” He disagreed with his opponents but never displayed a lack of respect for them. So too many Freepers. I hope we do not lose that civil disagreement and devolve into something resembling DU or KOS

As an organization, we cannot be both for and against homosexuality, abortion, big government, border and national security, etc. I don’t know about others, but if we must choose, I choose to be on the right side of each and every issue. Why should FR use it’s limited resources to allow liberals, homosexualists, abortionists, big spenders, big taxers, big government solutions advocates, gun grabbers, pacifists, isolationists, environmentalists, open-borders lobbyists, etc, ply their trade on FR?

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