I've been here for a long time too (under a different screen name), and I remember looking foward to FR's pics and after action reports from Walter Reed and other Bush/Gore protests (The "Get Out of Cheney's House" and RaceBannon's WH protests/costumes of Clinton come to mind.) You East Coasters got to have all the fun :)
I have to say, I share your frustration with Free Republic. The insults, bannings, and lack of any kind of reasoned debate have been bizzare to witness.
I've had run ins here lately, with a 9/11 truther, loads of snarky Christian bashers, pro abortion people, some so called FReepers whose only response is to call me "hater" because I disagree with them, and just recently someone tried to convince me that Boehner is a conservative hero (Say what???).
It's gotten to the point where I want to shout to FR's founder:
"Who are you and what have you done with Jim Robinson and Free Republic?!" And ask Jim if there are any unusual pods laying in his front yard.
But the absolute worst part of all this is seeing so many "Old School Gold" FReepers Opus out.
These are screen names of FReepers I recognize from those protest days-names of people who went out and worked to try and wake up our citizenry.
It's appalling to see how many snarky comments show up when an Old School FReeper leaves.
And those who try to stick it out here are also treated to nasty comments and insults. It's not right.
Jim-the number of long time FReepers Opusing each week can't be good.
Please find a way to adress this and stop the bleeding.
I don't want to see Free Republic go down.
I admit that I am more defensive now, but that is the accurate word: DEFENSIVE
I have seen just too much of this cult of personality surrounding trump
and it just stuns me that a Conservative website has been hijacked by people who defend a lying adulterous draft dodger, when we were founded on opposing a lying adulterous draft dodger!
we went from hating Clinton to supporting Clinton supporters!
DU must be laughing their head off.
[[But the absolute worst part of all this is seeing so many “Old School Gold” FReepers Opus out. ]]
Exactly- but sadly the trump supporters excuse the fact that they drove these people out by claiming the long standing members weren’t ‘patriotic’ and ‘didn’t support the party’ because they didn’t think trump was a true conservative-
[[These are screen names of FReepers I recognize from those protest days-names of people who went out and worked to try and wake up our citizenry. ]]
It’s amazing that they now got banned for trying to continue getting word out and fight for what they believed in-
[[Please find a way to adress this and stop the bleeding.]]
It’s been dealt with- any negative posts or threads about trump are seen as ‘trying to start a flame war- now- so no matter what trump does- anyone mentioning it if it’s negative will be dealt with apparently- according to some freepers which keep posting jim’s ‘call to action’ thread- (of course I believe they are reading into the call- but they now use it as a bludgeoning tool anytime someone brigns up something that isn’t flattering to trump)