Long-time Freeper Has No Complaints About FreeRepublic or its Management

Long-time Freeper William Wallace announced today that he has no complaints whatsoever about FreeRepublic. Wallace claims he harbors no animosity, deep-seated grudges or pathological hatred toward forum management and moderators.

“I’m not as active on FR as I was during the Clinton years and the election controversy,” Wallace admitted. “I lurk a bit, but rarely post these days.” Wallace went through a period where he spent most of his free time here, but now mainly uses the forum as another news source and antidote to the mainstream media spin. “For the most part, the forum meets my expectations and I am generally satisfied with it in this regard,” he said.

Wallace joined FreeRepublic in October 1998 and attended the impeachment rally in Washington, D.C. later that month. His participation on the forum has waned considerably since the halcyon days of the Elian Gonzalez saga and the 2000 Presidential election crisis. “I probably won’t even have time to respond to posts on this thread,” Wallace admits. “But I’ll enjoy reading the comments later, especially the insults.”

Wallace states he is basically indifferent toward issues regarding administration and operation of the forum that galvanize other long-time and former Freepers. “I’ve visited some of the Anti-Freeper sites,” he said. “The vitriolic fulminations directed at an Internet political forum and its management are surreal, entertaining and pathetic at the same time. Don’t these people have lives?” he wondered.

Wallace admits to occasional run-ins with forum moderators, including a couple of warnings from Jim Rob to “knock it off.” “I thought they were perfectly justified,” Wallace insists. “Once I received flack over a flame war somebody else instigated, but I never had the impression I was being singled out for punishment or treated unfairly,” he said. “It’s unreasonable to expect Jim Rob or the moderators to review every single post of every thread. I think they do a good job under difficult circumstances.”

Wallace understands that his views represent a radical departure from the norm for vanity and opus threads, if only for his total lack of resentment toward forum management and implied assumption that their purpose in life need not revolve around accommodating his every demand and expectation. “Believe it or not, I’ve never even contemplated posting a farewell opus or starting a web site exclusively dedicated to bashing FreeRepublic,” Wallace said, “or a web site dedicated to bashing sites that bash FreeRepublic, for that matter,” he added.

Despite his uncharacteristic lack of fixation with FR and its management, Wallace tries to resist the urge to stereotype all Anti-Freepers as disgruntled malcontents who should seek professional help. “Some clearly fall under this classification: Eschoir and his myriad incarnations for example, but others are misguided or troubled souls whose passion and sincerity I respect, however misdirected.”

We had to use candles to be able to see the keyboard to type in those days....

****  The "We Were Poor" Sketch                                     ****
****  From "Monty Python Live at City Center" and                   ****
****  "Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl"                     ****

Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.  "Farewell
to Thee" being played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.

Michael Palin:  Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine,
                ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam:  You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle:      Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin'
                here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye.  In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup
    o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup.  We used to have to drink out of a
    rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye.  BECAUSE we were poor.  My old Dad used to say to me, "Money
    doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right.  I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'.  We used to
    live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House?  You were lucky to have a HOUSE!  We used to live in one
    room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture.  Half the
    floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for
    fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM!  *We* used to have to live in a
    corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor!  Woulda' been a
    palace to us.  We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish
    tip.  We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting
    fish dumped all over us!  House!?  Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered
    by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and
    live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE!  There were a hundred and sixty
    of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky.  We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in
    a septic tank.  We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the
    morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down
    mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out.  When we got home,
    our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury.  We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in
    the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to
    work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad
    would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we
    were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough.  We used to have to get up out of the shoebox
    at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues.
    We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four
    hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we
    got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right.  I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night,
    half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump
    of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill
    owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home,
    our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves
    singing "Hallelujah."
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't
    believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope..

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