"Before Free Republic - this was shortly after Clinton got elected - I was a regular poster on the Prodigy bulletin board about Whitewater," said Jim Robinson, founder and operator of FreeRepublic.com. "We were posting newspaper articles and commenting on them, just as we do with Free Republic. Later, I switched to the Internet and in 1996, I created Free Republic...We have 40,000 to 50,000 visitors a day now. Sometime in 1997, Matt Drudge posted a link to my site. That's when the hits started pouring in."
Free Republic has built a reputation for providing an on-line community for constitutionalist conservatives around the country. "There's grassroots conservatives, mostly Republicans," said Robinson. "There are a lot of Libertarians...we have a lot of people from California, Florida; Texas is big. We do have a lot in the Washington, D.C. area."
When asked what issues are most important to Free Republic's denizens, Robinson listed the life issue first. "Right to life, right to bear arms, free speech, less government, less taxes," he said.
Free Republic's home page features appeals for help on various hot topics. "Defend our Property Rights! Help the people of the Klamath River Basin win their battle against the tyrannical federal government over their water rights vs. the 'rights' of the suckerfish," says one. "We suckers may pay taxes, but suckerfish do not. Click the banner for the Klamath Basin Crisis Website. Join a forum discussion thread. Sign the petition to keep the water flowing."
Free Republic's site lists some specific points of agreement for most of its members with which some conservatives today may disagree, but which are in keeping with the original vision of the Constitution. One of them is the rollback of the popular election of senators.
"We call for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which will reverse the independence of the Senate and reestablish the Senate as a representative of the state governments, as intended by the Founding Fathers", says Free Republic. "This arrangement was intended to be a critical check against illegal federal expansion over the states, and the people residing in the various states, and will act to return the powers not granted to the fedral government, as enumerated in the Constitution, to the states."
In addition, we call for the repeal of the 16th Amendment and to abolish (sic) the income tax and the IRS. Revenues to the government should come from excise taxes and tariffs." Not only that, but "we believe that the United States should disassociate itself from the UN and that the UN should be forced to leave the United States."
Free Republic has been expanding its activities to include protests and the like. "We're trying to get other groups to work with us," said Robinson. "We have been working with the American Conservative Union..." Says the website, "Free Republic is the group who put on the nationally televised 'March for Justice' rally in October 1998 at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. and the 'Judgement Day' rally on the Capitol steps in December."
Free Republic's cooperation with other groups has led to FreeRepublic.net, a separate entity like Free Republic's state chapters, and over which Robinson has no control.
Since 1998, Free Republic has been under legal attack from mainstream media outlets, which allege copyright infringement because participants in Free Republic's forums often post the full text of newspaper articles. So far, Free Republic has been losing the battle. "Free Republic has been injoined from allowing users to post full-text articles from the Los Angeles Times (LAT) and the Washington Post (WP)", says the website. "Please do not post full text from these sources until and unless we can get this order overturned on appeal. Any full text articles from the LAT or WP will be deleted in compliance with this court order."
Robinson said that he may have made a mistake by incorporating Free Republic as an LLC to protect himself from liability after the legal threat appeared. "The judge said we are a commercial enterprise, but we're not," he said. "We are non-commercial and do not have a profit." Free Republic is supported solely by contributions. "I'm thinking about dissolving it and going back to a sole proprietor," he said. But he acknowledges that "legal precedent" in on the side of the plaintiffs.
Since the media ginats are not seeking damages, said Robinson, Free republic should survive the legal case. "We won't be able to have the 'full text' of articles," he said. "But we will still be here".
This is from the March 11th issue of HUMAN EVENTS, and was authored by Joseph A. D'Agostino.
For those of you who TRULY appreciate the time and effort to manually enter this article into the forum; cookies would be MOST WELCOME at Christmas time!
