Posted on 05/03/2011 4:46:53 AM PDT by Huck
Yesterday should have been a glorious day around here. There should have been fireworks and celebration. There should have been somber remembrances. There should have been patriotic tributes. There should have been shared joy at the news that our guys had finally gotten Bin Laden.
Instead, when I visited the site, what I found was a lot of carping. I found people focused more on the political spin than on the great news. I found people transferring their birther mentality onto this event, talking about Obama faking this news, photoshopping information, etc. It wasn't everybody, but it was a LOT of people. It made me sick.
Yesterday Free Republic seemed like DU. It makes me wonder what the hell is going on. Are Freepers getting younger? I always assume that DU is so pathetically immature because they must be younger. Free Republic has always been a place dominated by great class, and wit, and decency. Not this time. What I saw yesterday was a pathetic embarrassment and totally unworthy of this great forum.
As some of you may know, I was in lower Manhattan on 9-11. I was just across the street from the WTC when the first plane hit. I still remember the beautiful clear blue sky that day. I remember walking in between the towers just a minute or so before 8:46am, on my normal route to work. I remember my co-workers screaming in panic when they watched from an office window as the second plane hit the south tower. I remember women crying and screaming hysterically. I remember not being able to contact my wife to tell her I was OK. I remember people jumping to their deaths. I remember seeing the north tower go down with my own eyes, hearing it with my own ears. I remember fleeing Manhattan. I remember it was a Tuesday.
I remember returning to work the following Monday, riding the ferry passed the site, noxious smoke still billowing from the wreckage. I remember armed troops on the sidewalks. I remember wearing a breathing mask inside my building because the foul odor was seeping in through the ventilation system. I remember thinking we'd really gotten kicked in the teeth. They had killed innocent people, they had traumatized our women and children, and I really wanted revenge. I hung a picture on my wall of the American eagle sharpening his talons.
It has been a long time since that day. It's hard to believe how fast time flies. Then again, if you lost your loved one, I imagine time hasn't gone so fast. I love my wife so much, I can empathize with anyone who has lost the one they love. I can't imagine how that would be, and don't want to know, but I can cry for those people because I know what it is like to find your one true love.
I'm not an Obama fan. I hate socialism. But I am so happy that Bin Laden is killed, and that we have exacted some real revenge. It's about time. The politics don't even play into it for me. I still have the little flag, now tattered, that I flew on my car antenna after 9-11. I want to take it out of storage and put it on my car. I want to see American flags on cars like we saw back then. But it's not going to happen, and partially because the normally patriotic conservatives such as the ones here on Free Republic are instead focused on the politics and the fact that a socialist Democrat was president and will get some of the credit.
I guess you all would have been pissed on D-Day too. FDR was as big a socialist as anyone. I guess VE day and VJ day would have chapped your hides, since Truman was a DEM. I don't mean to paint with a broad brush. I know it wasn't every Freeper acting this way. But when I went on the board, that was the general impression, and it was really disappointing. It should have been a great day here. Instead, I saw a lack of patriotism and a lack of class. Free Republic should be better than this. If conservatives lose their patriotism and class, then what will happen to those virtues? I hope we can get them back soon. In the meantime, thanks for reading.
Respectfully,
Huck
“Did you have bozos and yahoos yelling all day long at you when you exposed the Rathergate memo? At the time, I’m sure there must have been some who called you a conspiracy nut with your tin-foil hat on a little too tight, and things like that.”
No. There were some who were dubious, but they were eventually persuaded because the evidence from all quarters was overwhelming. But that is not the point.
All things change, including FR. Huck’s observations are validated by the large number of concurring posts on this thread. It is what it is.
LOL WHAT? That's not accurate at all. FR was like the wild west back then. The forum is completely tame compared to the early days.
Very good thoughts. I am embarrassed that I let loose in an F-laden tirade yesterday against somebody that was doing just what you say....saying Obama conspiracy, even questioning if the guy with the USA shirt at the Phillies game was an Obama plant sent by the WH.
My reaction was not appropriate, but I was outraged and honestly shocked at how many Freepers reacted.
I don’t care who the president is...yesterday was a good day for America.
A great day for America. It made me proud.
Free Republic? No.
Then I guess you won’t like this if you read it:
http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2011/05/another-obama-fabrication.html
Is there a ping list for excessive use of 1st person pronouns?
Wow, you hung a poster and flew a flag. I'm overwhelmed by your personal sacrifice for our nation.
Thank you.
He says, wagging his finger. lol.
I don’t like the waiting four months part either, but they were preparing, too. I think they wanted to make darn sure he would not slip away.
I imagine they had a drone watching him the entire time ready to take him out that way if he tried to run.
That’s my hope, anyway.
I agree with you, but don’t make it an opus.
Frankly, we are living in times that many of us could not have conceived of even in the 1980’s. People are on the brink of calling BS on a rigged game.
Getting UBL restores a lot of credibility in our military and our intelligence community, but our basic congressional and executive leadership is in horrible shape.
My point of optimism from getting UBL came from the fact that Obama green lit the op. That’s not an insignificant act if one reflects on the fecklessness of his actions with the Somali pirate incident early in his admin.
I feel safer today, and I feel like our intelligence and military’s plan - instituted by President Bush - worked, and continues to work.
I’ll go further. I think Hillary Clinton shoved Obama against the wall and basically said, “Your signature or your balls on this op order.” She’s been a hawk, and I think she’s getting an education of a lifetime. This op very clearly could have gone the way of Carter’s Iranian hostage rescue attempt, which would have sealed Obama’s fate forever.
MAYBE there’s some sort of logic in operation in government that recognizes that the status quo must change, that this isn’t a game, and that we have more in common as citizens of this great nation than we have in dispute.
What we have in dispute, however, is all the difference, and we can no longer compromise on our position on those things. It’s amazing to say that the margin for compromise is gone, but it is.
The US’s debt rating should be BBB at least. It isn’t. Our kids won’t recognize the place. Canada’s a cold place, but it’s looking good right now. If that basket of leftist loonies can turn it around up there, maybe we can down here.
Huck, we’re at the point where we should overthrow our government, but not at the point where an individual can pull the trigger to kill their own rep. Sorry, but that’s where I see it. Maybe you’re seeing a bit of that, and it needs to be cranked in to the calculus and tenor of the posts.
Lastly, guys like you provide the control rods in the reactor, as it were. I hope it gets better, but I really don’t know if it will. I listen to suggestions of China becoming the new world leader and I laugh. Only perspective and a study of history can allow someone to take such statements for what they are.
Around the world, people are contemplating a world without subsidized national defense, courtesy of the US. Socialist governments are the biggest beneficiaries, and witness their carping to the free ride they’ve been getting for the last sixty years. It’s what kept people do - complain.
Now that Pax Americana is in question, people everywhere are considering a world without the GI and the American Taxpayer.
We’ll see what happens.
Ditto
A conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain an event by hypothesizing that the event was caused by a group operating behind the scenes.
There have been innumerable threads on FreeRepublic. A partial list of the more significant subjects would include Mena, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Truthers, Birthers, various Elections, Waco, OKC Bombing, Timothy McVeigh, Flight 800, Y2K, etc.
Any large group will include a fairly significant percentage that shares a belief that some critical event was caused/covered up by a secret group. Some studies have indicated that the percentage is fairly constant across the political spectrum. Only subject and details of the conspiracy vary. Rather interestingly, the belief in conspiracy theories tends to be positively correlated to education.
For example, when Clinton (or Obama) was/is President, a significant percentage of the right believes they are out to destroy the country, dismantle the constitution, and out to dominate the world. A very similar percentage of the left believed that Bush41 was out to destroy the country, dismantle the constitution, and dominate the world. BTW, this paragraph should not be construed to read that I believe or disbelieve either of these, only that I find it fascinating that both the left and the right and in similar numbers believe the same things about each other.
If you want to do some research or verify some of the above, try reading “Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History” by David Aaronovitch.
A sign of a strong and free republic is vigorous debate Stell Wolf. Only dictatorships is where everyone gets along.
You are not the only freeper that has military service here. There are many of us on free republic that have military service too. Some freepers even are from the intelligence agencies. At any rate, I do not see anyone bashing the military. They are bashing the political leadership that uses our wonderful military for political gain.
Like you I am happy they finally got OBL. At the very same time I’m not happy that Obama has known where OBL was since last August. Why was he waiting? Furthermore, the fact that OBL lived there for 6 years is even more disturbing about why we did not know this. It leads to A LOT of tough questions.
It just seems to me that the ONLY reason why OBL is dead today is because Trump basing Obama on this issue. Trump was challenging Obama’s loyalty (that is at the root of the birth issue and going after OBL). This action was done within days of the re release of the long form Certificate of Live Birth too. In other words it looks VERY political and it’s why so many people on here are upset.
The fact that everybody in Germany could have smelled the burning flesh is proof that Auschwitz never happened.
That’s your logic, in a nutshell.
Sure the comments were not tame at all....but when I joined, VANITIES were not allowed.
Especially in the “news” forum.
Clicking on a thread you think is a news headline, and turns out to be just another Freeper lecturing how awful FR has become, is not my thing.
It is a bore. Take it to management.
Let me put this another way. There is mistrust surrounding Obama. He is a radical liar. PERIOD. But as far as conspiracy about Obama Bin Laden being really dead is foolish. The DNC and possibly a hack Hawaii Gov. may lie for Obama but the US military and Seal team operations cannot lie.So your vanity post is baseless. If a few posted on this forum they do not believe OBL is dead they were flamed and told how stupid they were.
So OBL is dead. Obama is such a pathetic CIC and leader to release OBL’s photo today to prove he is dead. It is obvious he saw his polls didn’t bounce up in his favor and he some how thinks proving OBL is dead will? The MSM can pin a purple star on Obama with BaBa Wawa until they are freaking purple in the face. America is awake. Obama cannot fool all of the people all of the time even with the media lying and covering for him.
Didn’t mean to say “bye” to you!
Applause.
An assassination is carried out to exterminate a high profile target for military gain. A murder is carried out when it is a matter of Obama’s political gain due to the Birther issue being proved now in Mr. Obama is a criminal.
The blow fly eyes of Obama are repulsive as he announced this, in his relishing the death. I do not know one normal human being who would watch people having their heads blown off and then go on television hours later with a gleam in their eye reliving it all like a Ted Bundy mass murderer.
Yet this is Barack Hussein Obama.
In all of this, the Muslim mind will hear the following that Sheik bin Laden was with his family, did not fight back, his wife heroically tried to protect him, he was going to surrender as he never fired his weapon, and in turn the Obama regime murdered him..............
.........and the case being Obama deposed of the body immediately, the world will never know if Sheik bin Laden was dead years ago, months ago or days ago and this was all just something more in the 2 million dollar scheme to hide Obama’s birth status as a foreigner.
I personally am distraught over this as it is one thing for a Marine Sniper to assassinate a French pedophile who is about to torture captured Americans in Vietnam. It is another to make United States Soldiers die in Afghanistan under ‘rules of engagement” in which a terrorist must fire on Soldiers before they can fire.........and Obama violates his own rules and shoots the terrorist bin Laden down in cold blood.
Who is going to charge Obama in the JAG for violating his own war rules?
This was pure murder and is typical of the Obama regime. He has now so completely undone Ronald Reagan’s moral high ground that the Muslim terrorists now have the moral high ground.
Obama is the one murdering Khadaffi’s children for oil. Obama is the one murdering bin Laden for political cover.
The reality of what Barack Obama carried out and the WMD terror backlash should have Americans and the Western peoples in a furor. This is thee most unAmerican of acts ever in history.
The moral high ground is gone for America which Ronald Reagan established and George W. Bush maintained in this terror war. Barack Hussein Obama in his incessant murders is making terrorists superior to American beliefs.
http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2011/05/giving-terrorists-moral-high-ground.html
I would remind you that sniveling in defense of liberty is no vice!
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