I'm a little concerned....

[JimThayner]

umm...I'm a little concerned about some stuff on this website. why do we call democrats 'rats? they call us "repugnants" I think we're above that kind of childish namecalling. I think we're coming down a little too hard on the liberals too. I'm an Independent, and I try to find the truth. well, the TRUTH is that 90% of the time, conservatives are correct. why do i voice opposition? Aren't we above all this stuff that the democrats do? I think we need to prove to America that WE are controlled, clear thinking, intelligent, and sophistacted people. NOT people who go and cheer and jeer at the other side. my suggestion is this: Instead of going out to cheer and geer at the democrats, we should go out and do community service projects, hand out fliers, and do stuff to help the community. THAT is what will separate us from the democrats. WE spend our time living what we chant about, the democrats spend their time chanting all the time. Talkting instead of DOING. I think we need to go beyond a "political party." I DO believe that the liberals will destroy our country if not stopped. However, i don't want us to destroy it in the process of trying to stop them. Lets show them up: do work for others, and such. Organize relief for disaster victims. (headlines: FreeRepublic first on site rendering aid to distaster victims, liberals shocked at being shown how much jerks liberals are" Spend less time and money on trying to talk the liberals to death with reason (obviously that won't work). Spend time DOING. My father knew California State Assemlyman Brian (B.T.) Collins since they were in Boy Scouts together. Look up BT Collins. he was a POPULAR Republican in CALIFORNIA! He spent his time helping other people, and used the phrase "is the world any better because you were in it?" I would like to offer my own version: "Is america better off because of the Republican Party's majority?" What do you all think about this? BTW, don't worry, I'm not a liberal. jim

[colorado tanker]

Right you are! The last election cycle the liberals gave us "rats" and "clymers" in attacks on Bush and Cheney that backfired.

[tonyinv]

There is nothing saying we cant do both. Giving the RATS a pass has gotten us into this mess. Republicans have always been nicer and more civil than the RATS. It has gotten us nowhere.

"There coming for a children!!!"

Remember that? It's the Dems you should be preaching to, nowhere, not even Ann Coulter, have conservatives and Republicans come close to the anger and vitriol of the left. You've been to DU, are we even close to that?

Show me where Ann Coulter or any other conservative is flatout laying about the Dems. Show me where on this board where you find the anger and lies commonly found on DU.

FreeRepublic has always been a place of reasoned thought and common sense. Throwing in a "RAT" or two is harmless and pales in comparison to the accusation and attacks thrown at us.

We must not shrink from the debate. You are correct, we shouldn't get down to their level, but we are far from it at this point.

Here is the difference between us and DEM. When we pass by a Democratic yard sign, we think 'how can I help change that person's mind?' When a Dem passes a Republican sign, they tear it down.

[cake_crumb]

"The namecalling may not be productive ..."

It's a GREAT way to blow off steam and seperate the enemy into categories so we may more easily analogize them with the seperate fronts we're fighting the War for Our Nation on...

...Like "Environazis" and "Femenazis" and "Izlamakazis" and "Palibuddies" and "Je$$e Jacka$$" and "Loonie Louie" and "Hitlery", "Her Heineousness", "Hellary" (etc) and "The Bent One", "Klepto-in-Chief", "Slick Willie", "Wee Willie", "BeezelBubba", "Bubba"... and....ect., ad infinitum for as long as the War to wrest this nation from their greedly, power mad, elitist, Socialist Collectivist PAWS shall last.

[Post Toasties]

Using the term 'Rat on occasion is a shorthand way to flag particularly corrupt, illegal or disingenuous behavior by Democrats, let off steam and have a little fun. You have to admit that the 'Rats' behavior often differs by truly unconscionable degrees from what they profess so that a somewhat jarring term is suitable, IMO, when discussing these instances, since similar pejoratives would usually be employed to describe equivalent behavior absent partisan considerations. Also, reference to their partisan doings as 'Democrat' rather than 'Democratic' which is a political process serves to differentiate the party from what it often has no association with. Furthermore, it is merely a contraction of 'Democrat', so it is arguably not name calling;)

It's usually preferable to behave conventionally, with the maximum level of civility, but sometimes refusing to deviate from norms allows one to be taken to the cleaners, particularly in politics when dealing with corrupt hypocrites and demagogues such as the 'Rats are. OTOH, as soon as Lefties completely disavow their partisan rhetoric, which they are giving no signs at all of doing,of course, it would probably be best for conservatives to also drop the ad hominems.

[William McKinley]

You've got that right, Ivan.

Many powerful Democrats go out of their way to ensure that their core constituencies never get ahead.

Democrats get their most loyal voters from minorities who feel oppressed and the poor. If there was racial harmony, their monolithic support from the first group would vanish. If there was widespread prosperity, there would be fewer people in the latter group.

The Democrats have a vested interest in keeping racial strife abundant, in spreading proverty and economic despair, and generally spreading misery.

[Texas_Jarhead]

welcome to FR

[11B3]

Being "nice" to a group of people who are the complete antithesis of what one believes in only strengthens that enemy. Being "nice" is what has gotten the nation to the point where it is today - if we as conservatives had been more vocal, more combative long ago we wouldn't need to regain so many things that have been taken away by the left. We almost slept too long and lost it all during Clinton's reign. Now it's time to take the gloves off and do everything we can to expose the Rats for what they are: OUR NATION'S ENEMIES. I'll be damned if I'm going to kiss their asses for civility - they have NO CIVIL RIGHTS in my eyes, and are merely parasites that require extermination ideologically, politically, and if need be - militarily.

[Political Junkie Too]

More to the point: During the election, the Republicans ran an ad that used fancy MTV-like graphics that computer-cut the word Democrats across the screen in MTV-like flashes. This was done by a computer and left the ending RATS flashed on the screen for a few seconds. A newspaper mentioned this coincidental graphic as an asided in a story, but it didn't go anywhere. A few weeks later, a Democrat strategist pointed this out to someone and they made a big issue of "subliminal" messages by Republicans. You have to remember, this was a known story for weeks, but Democrats sat on it until they could make the most of it.

I guess it just caught on to call Democrats RATS, and in defense, they came up with a similar moniker for Republicans, REPUGS.

Shortly afterwards, someone else noted how the Fox News Channel graphic in the upper left corner rotates between the words FOX and LIVE, but because of computer animation there is a split-second where the word FOE appears over an American flag. This is all computer generated graphics without the active hand of a person, but others will make it out to be whatever suits them at the moment.

-PJ

[TC Rider]

I personally like it better when we called them 'Clymers'.

It's a much better story.

[MadIvan]

You obviously were not around for impeachment. To expect the Left to respond rationally to rational arguments is the height of optimism. This is not bourne out by reality - indeed, when the legal arguments for removing Clinton became clearer and clearer, that was when the Left went on an ever increasingly irrational tangent.

And let us be clear, impeachment was a watershed - it showed that the Left holds a single value above all others: power at all costs, power at the expense of the rule of law, power at the expense of individual liberties.

I will accept some are misguided. But many are simply evil. To be restrained in the face of it is no virtue.

Ivan

[MrB]

Liberals, Progressives Socialists, Democrats, Leftists, etc...are all pejoratives

Nah, most don't start out being perjoratives. But the people who take on those labels make them into perjoratives.

If you put the label "Roses" on a can of crap long enough, the word "Roses" becomes a synonym for "can of crap".

[gc4nra]

"liberals want to end crime"

OK, so why haven't Bill, Hillary, Teddy, Gary Condit or the Torch confessed or pleaded guilty?

[Constitution Day]

Don't let the work catch you!

It's gaining on me!

[piasa]

I call them rats because it is much more polite than what I want to call them, and as someone else pointed out, it's a term they gave themselves by drawing attention to a campaign ad where no one even saw the word rat until they pointed it out, as if rat hasn't been part of democrat all along.

As for community service, many of us here have better community service records than the other side does anyway- only in our case, it wasn't assigned to us by a judge.

;-D

[MadIvan]

It's the same here with Labour. Nothing gets me more angry when I see some Labour politician telling ethnic minorities that they cannot succeed without voting socialist. Nonsense. No one succeeds by voting socialist - that is the recipe for failure. People succeed when they are determined to succeed and persist until they do. To say anything else is a lie. A destructive lie which oppresses far more than anything the Right has ever said.

Regards, Ivan

[billhilly]

Thank you for your cogent and mature essay.

[the_Watchman]

Should I stop calling Mrs. Clinton Hitlery?

Yes, please stop, at least in the headings. Altering people's names is part of the reason we have duplicate posts. The second potential poster should not have to go look for all the variants. It also impedes the use of the website for archival lookup.

I believe we should strive for civility on this site so that visiting moderates won't be put off. We have a chance to convince people, but not if they trivialize our message, because they can't see through the invective. One of my friends, who is a moderate, has type-cast FreeRepublic as a bunch of loons and if you have a preconeption of "right-wingers", then it is easy to see.

I realize that this would impede treating FR as a conservative chat-room just among us friends, but it really has the potential of being much more than that. With the wide-ranging news posts FR has, this site could serve as a major news source. Right now, we are wasting the opportunity.

[TheDon]

I like RATS too, but Democheaters seems more apt these days.

[cake_crumb]

"I've seen this site go through lots of changes lately and the "rats" thing is just the latest craze sweeping FR."

LOL...LATEST?? HELLO...this is the year 2002! I've been around this forum only for about four years...and the RATS thing has been around just as long...it got really popular at the beginning of the 2000 presidential almost-fiasco. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?