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Thanks, supremedoctrine. Raw jokes and insult hurling aside — which are enjoyed in moderation and called for given that our republic is at stake — Free Republic is indeed a classy forum.

It is the online place where veterans, professionals of all kinds, and educated people meet in love of our Country. It's where they share their off-the-cuff opinions and express in essays/memes the culture and politics of our time.

As a tech industry analyst/journalist, FR is a splendid sand box for learning and practicing good commentary.

H. L. Mencken — were he alive today — would treasure Free Republic as a resource for keeping up with the American English language. He said in 1925:

We hear new melodies, sometimes far below the staff. We are tripped by strange, occult surprises. A new and rich color appears. There is here something magnificently fascinating. The lesson is never quite learned.

Schoolmarms, of course, profess to teach it. To the lions with them! I am no pedagogue myself, assuredly, but at forty-five a man naturally yearns to wave his beard at the apprentices to his trade.

My advice, brethren, if you would do honor to our incomparable tongue, is that you pay little heed to books, even the best. Listen to it on the street. It is there that it is a alive.

In the end, then, Free Republic is the place where one practices the "street language" of patriots -- and therefore pays homage to the honest, smart, and uniquely American commentary that H. L. Mencken made famous.

BTW I have cataloged most of my FR memes and vanities at a website: freeper.org.

Finally, you can read all of H. L. Mencken's Off the Grand Banks essay (which I quoted above) in a free audio book, Mencken on Mencken.