Replies

....the climate sure has changed around here during the past few months
Hmmmm....seems I read that comment about 2,3 times a year for the last four years now....

Only two or three times a year?! Sometimes I think I see it every week. And of course, they're right, the world is not a static place, things do change. There's a clear ebb and flow to FR, seems to match the ebb and flow of the outside world though. IMHO reality as a whole becomes less civil in the summer, it's the heat; so things are a bit viscious around here lately, it's summer. But as temperatures drop things will get better, that's how life works.

Hmmmm....seems I read that comment about 2,3 times a year for the last four years now....

Used to have to walk five miles through the snow to get here.
Uphill.
both directions!

seems I read that comment about 2,3 times a year for the last four years now....
They come and they go.
Mostly it's those who never seem to grasp that this ISN'T their board.

Hmmmm....seems I read that comment about 2,3 times a year for the last four years now....

Only the last four? Remember Deb?

For those bemoaning the lack of civility, remember that it's just a debate between the naive and the informed.

We all pretty much agree that Kennedy and Clinton are pond scum.

Personal attacks, petty (and not so petty) bickering, flame wars, feuding, etc.
There's been a lot of it lately. My abuse report runneth over. I don't like it. It tears us apart and makes Free Republic look petty and vindictive, discrediting us and driving away our readers. That's why you see my reminder right there in bold letters on the posting form every time you post: "NO personal attacks!"
Believe it or not, Free Republic was not established as an "anything goes" free speech forum, or as a liberal debating society. This forum was established as a working forum for like-minded lovers of individual rights to work toward preserving a concept near and dear to our hearts. Freedom. And for restoring our formerly free republic to its former greatness and original intent as established by our Founding Fathers. And to fight against the very real threat of losing it all.
We are not here to fuss and fight with each other. Your personal gripes and petty dislikes are not interesting to anyone but yourself. Keep it to yourself. Keep it off the forum. If you do not like an argument advanced by a poster, critique the argument. Advance your own side of the issue. But do not insult or attack the poster. And please do not allow a difference of opinion to become a forum disrupting flame war or long-lasting thread killing feud.
When we started this forum, we only had a few posters, and except for a few disrupters, we had relatively few flame wars. Someone would find and post an interesting article that exposed some specific instance of government abuse or corruption, and or a mainstream liberal editorial calling for expanding some government program or defending some corrupt politician, and then we would discuss the item. There was only a tiny fraction of the current daily posts and yet we were able to keep ourselves informed by reading and freely discussing the most important news of the day, without being overwhelmed with a flood of nonsense and bickering. Also, with fewer participants and less fluff, there was less bandwidth consumed and less cost to operate. Hmmmm... this leads me to believe that thinning our numbers might be a good idea.
Nah... dumb thinking. We want to increase our numbers. That's the only prayer we have of winning the real war, the war against the leftists who want to destroy our republic and rob us of our freedom. The war against those who are killing our unborn, destroying our families, destroying our society, making a mockery of our way of life and our American heritage, waging war against our right to the free exercise of religion, blocking our freedom of speech, drugging our children and indoctrinating them with leftist propaganda and introducing them to depraved life-styles, disarming us and depriving us of our right to self defense and our last defense against tyranny, invading our privacy, abusing our rights against government intrusion, expanding government abuses, illegal search and seizure, unconstitutional over taxation, crippling over regulation, depriving us of our right to self-government, etc., etc., etc.
Liberty. Freedom. Individual rights. Freedom of religion. Limited government. Moral government. The rule of law. Just and equal treatment under the law. Government that abides by the supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution. Government that governs at the consent of the governed. The best government is the least government. Self-government. These are the principles we are fighting for. These are the principles that draw us together as like-minded individuals. "Securing the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Posterity" is our goal. These are the principles that we fight and die for, and are, I hope, the primary reasons why most of us are here.
Now, to be realistic, I realize that we have varying degrees of reduction of government control in mind. The more Libertarian among us are for more drastic cuts in government than are the more moderate Republican members. But I'd like to remind the Libertarians that there is a huge difference between the Republicans and the liberal Democrats, even if from your vantage point you cannot see it. Republicans are not "statists." That term is just as insulting and degrading to them as the term "druggie" is to Libertarians who are opposed to the drug war. Republicans do want smaller government, more freedom and less taxes than do Democrats. They are not socialists. There is hope for them.
And Libertarians are not druggies. Libertarians call for an end to the drug war. There is understandable logic behind this. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that authorizes the federal government to wage war against the citizens of the United States, no matter how well-meaning the intent. The Bill of Rights means just as much today, as it did on the day it was written. And its protections are just as valid and just as important to freedom today, as they were to our Founders two hundred years ago. The danger of the drug war is that it erodes away those rights. Once the fourth amendment is meaningless, it's just that much easier to erode away the first and then the second, etc. Soon we'll have no rights at all.
And obviously, there are many more differences between the goals and beliefs of the Republicans, Libertarians, Reformers, et al, in the areas of social issues, trade issues, immigration, national defense, taxation, spending, you name it. But we should strive to understand these differences and respect them and learn from them, and perhaps develop reconciliations so that we can advance against the liberals, as opposed to using them to bludgeon ourselves, thereby guaranteeing a liberal win. Let's try to join together where we can to fight the left and not be so willing to destroy each other because of our differences. I guess this is my can't we all just get along plea.
In the not too distant future, we hope to roll out some new features on Free Republic, including the ability to setup separate and independently moderated forums. When we get there, I anticipate setting up separate forums for discussing opinions, religion, education, homosexuality, drug wars, just about any issue we can name and want to have a concentrated discussion on without diluting our main news forum. We also want to setup forums for discussing specialized features, such as the Word of the Day or the Daily Prayer or for special prayer events or for activism projects and even special chat forums or chat rooms. I'm also proposing introducing a special "smoke filled back room" forum where you enter at your own risk to join a less structured political discussion. We're hoping that each of these forums can be used by those who favor the subject matter and where they will be free to discuss the issues at hand without the disruption of those who object to having the discussion at all.
I know that there is a lot of bickering continuing, even after I deleted several threads and sent warnings to several posters asking them to stop the personal attacks and name calling. We may be forced to revoke a few accounts if we cannot convince people to respect the forum guidelines. So, once again, please abide by the rules, and please concentrate your fire on the real enemy. Let's use the combined forum as best we can until we get to the point that we can separate off some of the more divisive issues.
I would close with the customary "flame away," but I'm afraid that might conflict with the message I'm trying to convey.
Thanks,
Jim Robinson

Posting to this thread in a really untimely manner... Well over a day late!

Perhaps the thread referenced above needs to be re-posted so it can be replied to again since:

Posting to this article is temporarily disabled.

REASON: All articles posted prior to 9/4/01 are currently locked read-only.

Also whatever happened to this:

I'm also proposing introducing a special "smoke filled back room" forum where you enter at your own risk to join a less structured political discussion.

?