Posted on 10/08/2001 10:25:47 PM PDT by ouroboros
Anyone who has visited this once great conservative forum will by now have noticed a crackdown on certain opinions regarding this quagmire into which America’s military has so enthusiastically launched itself. Quite aside from the warmongering comments that now saturate the forum, opinion pieces that are strongly critical of our president, foreign policy, or sacred cows such as Ann Coulter tend to get yanked from their server pretty quickly. Admittedly, not all antiwar pieces that are posted get pulled, but they are predictably panned and trolled by these self-righteous armchair generals. Oh, there are still a few voices of reason and noninterventionism on the forum, but they number maybe a couple of dozen, at most, while the warmongering majority rank in the several thousand. Disheartening, to say the least.
Nor has the forum always been this uncritical of American foreign policy. During the Kosovo war and after, voices critical of NATO and U.S. involvement seemed to be in the majority. It was enough to begin to give one hope that real change for the better might be possible. And it illustrated excellently how the antiwar movement had shifted to the right. Of course, since Bush Jr. became president, none of the damage done to the Balkans has been undone, and the US is still involved militarily there even today. In this matter, Freepers now prefer to look the other way, or to think that it has no relevance to current events. And besides, it’s all Bill Clinton’s fault anyway.
Posting images of nuclear explosions are a particularly popular form of patriotic expression these days, often accompanied by comments such as "Lets Roll!" or "If only we had the will to use it!" Absolutely charming. They must be proud to be able to express such genocidal feelings so openly. If it took an attack on America's home soil to spark this kind of patriotism, one can only imagine the amount of "patriotism" abroad that decades of US military interventionism have succeeded in cultivating around the globe. I strongly suspect that in the case of FR’s nuke-‘em-all crowd, they have at least secretly harbored the desire to drop the big-one on the "ragheads" years before September 11th, and now feeling vindicated, they are able to come out of the closet.
In addition to the absolutely rabid warmongering, there is the new American-syle Hitler Youth/Gestapo mindset. For example, an article written by Justin Raimondo will often bring out the junior G-men on the forum with remarks like: "Who is this Justin Raimondo/Antiwar.com (or Lew Rockwell for that matter)? Has the FBI/CIA/IRS looked into them?" Geez Louise! No doubt these folks on the forum were never good friends of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to begin with, and were staunch supporters of the war-on-drugs. But now, with a new war (and the old one isn’t even over yet) to sink their fangs into and a potential police state just around the corner, they too, are able to come out of the closet.
To the credit of many Freepers, a good number of them (not necessarily a majority) are still questioning some proposals such as national id cards. However, I suspect that this too will get worse, as more and more decide that trading their liberties for security is worth it.
But now a brand new facet in the quest for self-censorship has appeared. One that would be laughable if it weren’t so sad: Under their new "Loose Lips Sink Ships" philosophy FR is now yanking breaking news stories regarding attacks launched on the Taliban, even though anyone can turn on the TV or go to one of the major news sites and get the information for themselves.
Oh, eventually FreeRepublic gets around to keeping the story up on their server. But darn, FR used to be such a great source for breaking news!
October 9, 2001
Malcolm Garris (send him mail) is in charge of web graphics for Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com.
Copyright © 2001 LewRockwell.com
You can count me among the 'wacko libertarians', the past few weeks my views apear to be more libertarian than republican, as quite a few republicans have no problems with the government checking everybody and keeping track of everybody and giving up a few liberties here and there. I hear fellow conservatives at work and on here saying things that a year ago would have come from liberals
It's Lew's site.
Does he decide what goes on his site 6 days a week? I don't have a clue. But whenever there's a story from the New York Times he always links to it from Free Republic. In fact, when Lew started his site in 1999 someone posted a huge announcement here... Most people have never heard of Rockwell. I think it's safe to say 95 percent of Freepers had never heard of him till people like me started posting his articles over here.. So he got lots of juice from this site with out a doubt. I've had lots of beefs with this site, but I don't make a point to trash it...
This goes back to feuds between the Rothbardians, Conservatives and Randian type libertarians. I'm not old enough to know what happened in the 50s, 60s, and 70s... nor do I care.
Though the teenagers make the most noise here, they're the minority.
Wake up and face reality!!!
You venture that you are more conservative than I? Well, that's your opinion, but it's a tired philosophy and statement. That's akin to where I'm from and the blacker than thou philosophy. They both mean absolutely nothing.
I never served a day in the military? Ha! But since I can't convince you otherwise, then, whatever you say, dude.
I never said that what I wrote was unique, that's your summation, which is fine with me. But I don't make a distinction, which means you and your ilk are my sworn enemy, just like those damned leftwing, socialist, peaceniks, cause there isn't a damn bit of difference between you.
Got it? Good.
It's not a good idea to let others deconstruct your language and redefine concepts like patriotism to their advantage.
1)Bush and Cheney need TO PROVE OBL's guilt.
They only need to prove Al Qaeda's involvement in the attack. OBL, as the head of Al Qaeda, can then be held responsible.
2)They need to stop holding Gov'ts responsible for the actions of thier outlaws.
That depends on whether the government sponsors the outlaws and/or fails to do its part to eradicate them.
3)Before we are " in a war " we need the damn president to declare war...or maybe Congress.
It was originally supposed to be that way. But for some reason congress permits presidents to wage undeclared wars.
4)This country of our IS NOT a democracy if they pull this nonsense!!!!
It's a constitutional Republic, though the language of the constitution can be deconstructed and redefined too.
1. Garris pent very little time researching this piece at FR; and
2. It was time for another one of Lew's PR campaigns.
If this guy had spent time reading your threads of Lew's Lackeys, Pat Buchanan, Justin Raimondo AND the occasional neo-con, he'd know that he's talking nonsense. This piece reminds me of an FR hit piece by I think, Lew Lackey Karen DeCoster a few months ago. She quoted some atypical FReepers, and made comments about FR, that made it clear that she was unfamiliar with the site, and an intellectual flyweight.
Look for a new cycle of attacks on Big, Bad Jonah Goldberg, the WSJ, and the weekly reader. Hey, I've got nothing against PR work, but the LLs tend toward the sophomoric and the ignorant, like the last frat boys still awake at a kegger who are drunk off their nut, and who laugh uproariously at every pathetic stab any of them takes at humor.
To do this sort of thing right, it helps to know your target, and to aim at an audience larger than your editor and your three best frineds.
P.S. Have Stu Morgenstern and Gene Callahan yet done a song parody, titled, "Bad, Bad, Jonah Goldberg"? If not, I think it would be right up their ally.
It's caused controversy because of the thread nannies having inexplicably deleted entire threads, that did not violate any of the FR criteria.
Semper Fi!
TS
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