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
Murray was a kook...
He flat out and stood his back to Eisenhower because he said Ike was was a bigger mass murderer...than Nikata Kruchev(sp)
That aside, no one on Free Republic has posted more stuff from Rockwell's site than me, but Lew is off the deep end more and more these days...
The Islamic Nazis could have just nuked New York city and Lew would still be writing about how it's all our fault... We ain't perfect for sure, but some yankee blue belly like Lew Rockwell, and that's all he is, is a semi kook himself... Sorry Lew... You're a punk..
YAWN.
Sincerly,
BWB
We are not degenerated, we are not on peace welfare dividend, wanting to keep making love while dead bodies fall left and right in NY.
Give me liberty or give me death. Is anti war's motto "Give me liberty and keep me alive, me me me me, poor soul that needs welfare protection benefits so that I can ^keep quacking stupid things on anti-war.com?
Sorry but genetic diversity or unity is not even above liberty, it's actualy quite irrelevant of an argument when dealing between good or evil, a genetic independent attribute, except for Nazies... well, like Malcom Garris
Stop your brownnosing... jimrob is NOT about to make you a moderator... hee hee....
I don't know if that has more to do with the attacks or the fact that JimRob seems to have turned over a lot of the day to day operation to secret moderators(who perhaps do not possess his Solomon-like wisdom when it comes to the health of the forum), or if its a combination of the two, I just don't know. All I do know is the place has experienced a precipitous drop in the quality and diversity of opinions recently.
And to head off the usual responses; yes I know its JimRob's forum, yes actually I do have my own website, and you are correct no one is forcing me to stay here.
I would hope it would be obvious that if I really thought FR was of no value I would just leave, but I've been here for years, I have a lot of friends here, I thoroughly enjoy FR(just not so much lately). I would also hope that the fact that I'm expressing these thoughts shows that I care about what happens to FR, if the trend continues quality people are going to start leaving and the forum and the FR community will be lesser for it.
Lastly, it would be nice if those of us who feel this way could talk about it openly without the looming fear of banishment by secret moderators.
PS if I do get banned for this(I don't really expect to) I'd like to say that I will still love FR, if nothing else for keeping Al Gore from stealing the presidency.
Give me liberty or give me death. Lincoln did not keep a police state, he gave back our liberties, after he got rid of the rising slavery police state of people trading mobsters in the SOuth. antiwar people are liars.
*spew* *choke* *cough* Perhaps the quickest way to tell a neo-con from a paleo-con is asking them what they think of Rothbard.
Now if you want to debabe on the merits of whether we should follow Washington's vision when he was trying to balance between Hamilton and Jefferson fine...
But the notion that we can have a Swiss foreign policy is so naive it's beyond discussion... LOL I mean, a few of the kookier contributors to Lew's site babble about it, but lets just look at it from a very simple point of view...
We withdraw and have a Murray Rothbard foreign policy... The Arabs and Israelis exchange nuclear weapons... The world economy tanks... chaos breaks out... and Rockwell would still be trying to figure out why Friedman's Monetarist nonsense is all wrong... Raimondo well, he'd still be excusing a marxist like Lenoria Fullani...
We can't be the worlds richest economy and have a Swiss foreign policy. We also can't be the worlds policeman... So we need to pick and choose our spots...
I'm a member of the sons of Confederate Veterans...
That's all I need to say...
If you still don't have enough proof that OBL and his miions were responsible for 9 / 11 / 01 then you haven't been paying any attention at all , these last several weeks. Even Pakistan has said that the proof , they've seen, is the real deal. So did Putin, Blair, and a host of others.
If you are having problems with this war / whatever , then just turn off your T.V.,computer, and radio.Also don't read any newspapers nor magazines. Just ignore the whole thing , and maybe, just maybe YOU will be lucky enough to not be touched by any of it ; unlike so many others who have lost a friend and or family member .
During this time of war , people who are NOT with us, are with the terrorists. If you don't like that viewpoint, then take it up with the president. Jim has said that we are in a different time now. If you don't like what the owner of this site says, then by all means take it up with him.
I could give a tiddly about Rothbard and who agrees or disagrees with him. I asked you to look at #80 and I doubt that you read it and understood it.
If you knew anythng about Washington...George, that is...he would have asked you to take a step back and let your brain run faster than your mouth.
My point is, in general, that name-calling, and beating one's chest does not make for reasonable exchanges of points of view, and I'm not the only one who has noted that we are seeing too many FReepers who insert unrelated matter into, hopefully, an intelligent exchange of views.
Read #80 again, and maybe the point of this forum will take on its proper meaning.
We FReepers deserve to exchange views on the main subject, and in this thread, the main subject started out to be this: Are we really exchanging views or are we simply trying to act like armchair generals behind the anonymity of a handle?
Put your money where your mouth is. I've already served my country in the military and would do so again, anytime. And, I've lost a few relatives in a few wars too.
How long I've been around on Free Republic has nothing to do with the logic of what is said on any subject under discussion, and how long you have been around on Free Republic does not prove that you have added anything new to the topic of any thread you join. Let's discuss the subject of the thread; otherwise go to bed, for it's getting late.
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