Posted on 01/04/2002 10:01:12 PM PST by Vigilant1
FREE REPUBLIC ADMITS IT IS PRO-WAR AND CENSORS ALL POSTS NOT IN ACCORD WITH US GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA
NOW MAKING THE ROUNDS ON THE NET. Cited under "fair use" for educational purposes.
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Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 02:50:39 -0800
From: "Jim Robinson"
Organization: Free Republic
To: "Larry McDonald"
Subject: Re: What Are You Scared Of?
Those who are coming in here to post a bunch of propaganda to smear Bush or otherwise harm the war effort are going to be deleted.
I guess you missed my posts where I said that I am 100% behind our President and the war. I don't care if it's Ron Paul, Larry McDonald, or the head of the John Birch Society himself. I do not want it on FR. And I do not want a bunch of 40 year old conspiracy crap. Not interested.
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There you have it. Free Republic is not an objective reporter of the facts but a blatent supporter of the Bush administrations' war for oil, and by Jim Robinson's own admission.
In another post, Jim states...
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Jim Robinson (Free Republic)
by JIM ROBINSON in This thread
Lots of grumbling lately about deleted posts. Well, my friends, the simple truth is the game has changed. We are now at war.
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Of course, Jim Robinson has it wrong. We're not at war. Only Congress can state otherwise and there has been no formal declaration of war by anyone. Bush hasn't gone to Congress to ask for such a declaration because that would restore Congress to its role in the balance of powers doctrine on which the nation was founded. Bush has no intention of allowing Congress to second-guess him, and indeed Bush has flat out declared that he will not bother informing Congress of intelligence operations from this point forward as is required by law.
Yes, we have been attacked, but it's not really known by whom. Even the FBI admits the IDs on which they based their accusations were faked using the stolen identities of middle eastern Arabs, some of whom have since turned up alive. From this it should be obvious that we cannot really know who was on those planes, only who we are supposed to blame.
But Jim Robinson isn't interested in these facts. He's spiked threads pointing out that the FBI admitted the IDs used by the hijackers were phony. Jim Robinson has spiked threads about how some of the accused hijackers have turned up alive. Jim Robinson has spiked many of the threads dealing with the Israeli spy scandal and the fact that the US has classified evidence linking some of the arrested Israeli spies with the events of 9/11. Jim Robinson has spiked threads suggestng that Bush has exceeed his constitutional authority. Jim Robinson will tolerate no doubts about the righteousness of Bush's war for oil.
But more than that, Jim Robinson displays an arrogant assumption that the presence of a war justifies anything. He argues that we should get behind the government because (he claims) there is a war. But translate that to Germany of 1939. Was it the right thing for the German people to unquestioningly back Hitler because there was a war on? Or would the German people (and the world) have been better served taking a pause and a closer look at just what the government was doing? And if Germany should have examined their government's claims a lot closer, then how can we not do the same now?
Free Republic has shown its true colors. Jim is "not interested" in facts, only in selling Bush's wars. Free Republic isn't about news any more, only about propaganda.
It is said that this is a site that is "watched" for its activism... perhaps that is why some folks are not posting here anymore... the watchers may have had a talk with them.
FR currently ranks as the 2,583rd most active site on the web.
WRH.com ranks as the 55,577th most active site on the web.
Now those numbers are pretty humbling to the WRHers just as they are. But you also have to consider how those rankings are assigned: There's a big mess of sites, the top 5,000 or so, (which includes FR) that get tons and tons of daily hits, so much so that the difference between rank 2,583 and 2,553 could only be a few hundred hits a week.
Thern there's a big mess of ranking in the middle. The rank of sites in this section (roughtly 5,000-50,000) are far more spread out, and anymeasurbable increase or decrease in their hit counts during a week could propel them far higher or sink them far further down.
And then there are the losers. The sites that are ranked by Alisa only because they asked Alisa to do so, and so Alisa does. Down in this sub-50,000 area, jumping a few spots up or down doesn't really count for much; neither does huge jumps up or down count for much. Why? Because most of these sites are getting essentially no traffic whatsoever. An extra hit or two a week may well help you jump up from 55,577 to 53,305. Who knows. But either way, it doesn't matter. It just means to did a little better compared to all the tens of thousands of nobody, personal web sites that are surrounding you .
To to summarize: Giving these goons any linkage on FR could be enough to pull these wankers from the dead zone of Alexa into the middle ground ... at least for one week. They're doing this purely for hits. They write something offensive to freepers, it gets posted here, and hundreds of freepers angrily load up the page in question, garnering them their "Best Week Ever in circulation!"
F 'em. My suggestion: Let the story stand, but one of the moderators should yank all the hotlinks.
On the contrary, I find that we are "eye to eye" often, which is why I invited you to the old Reunion. Needless to say, I was surprised by your intensely negative reaction. LOL.
Sounds like the same tactics Osama's goons used with us.
Yes and no. Obviously a state of war can objectively exist whether or not Congress passes a resolution declaring war. But the purpose of that provision in the Constitution was to invest the war-making power in Congress rather than the President. It is eminently sensible that it should take more than the whim of one man (the President) to drag this country into a war, and therefore it is the responsibility of Congress to make such a decision.
Obviously there are circumstances where emergency action must be taken in self-defense, and insufficient time is available to seek Congressional approval. An example from decades past was the threat of a massive nuclear attack by Soviet Union ICBMs: It was recognized that the President might have to order a response before the enemy wave of ICBMs struck and destroyed our own nuclear assets. Complex systems and procedures were authorized ahead of time by Congress in an attempt to deal with such situations.
But when adequate time is available, as was the case after the 9-11 attacks, there is no reason not to utilize the proper Constitutional procedures by having Congress pass an official declaration of war. There is some consolation in the fact that Congress did approve military action, so that the President was not in fact acting unilaterally. But why not go all the way and actually declare war as specified in the Constitution? That would be so much cleaner, and would eliminate any possible objections as to whether our nation was really at war and should be acting accordingly.
Not to bust on you or anything but Constitutionally, there's a big difference between Kosovo and the WOT. Clinton's Kosovo misadventure failed it's Congressional War Powers authorization by a wide margin. Otoh Congress quickly granted the WOT it's War Powers authorization and by nearly unanimous vote. So yes, JR is in line with the Constitution since Bush's actions have Constitutional legitimacy via the Congressional War Powers resolution in support of it.
In our modern, incremental nuclear age a War Powers Resolution = War in the Constituional sense. If we'd been strict adherants to the Constitution the Soviets likely would have nuked us decades ago.
There has been some noticeable change here. And I do at times, miss the old ways. LOTSA religion here. Not as much "breaking" news or rumors... that could be researched and then confirmed or denied... not so much "position" posting for political purposes... and a little more Politically Correct "baiting" by some folks, and then the "tattle to jim" or "sidebar moderators" stuff.
I have been told it is necessary. Its the way things are so be it.... but I still miss the old days. And then there is what I perceive as a switch from an apache server to IIS...
I miss michael rivero's stuff... wacko, and supportive at times of the bad guys... but some of it very very interesting indeed. Varied perspectives provide valuable insights. Things are a little monolithic now.. and we seem to be losing some of our libertarians... to the joy of some and the disdain of others.
I cannot stand you... good to see ya... GRIN.... ;-)
Posts on Bush family involvement with Nazi's are routinely deleted. Yeah, it's a personal website, and Jim can run it as he wants, but I do think it's rather useful to get some perspective on the President who established the Homeland Defense, among other all-powerful government designs.
LOL.
Having followed every twist and turn of the GOP on its bewildering journey from triumphant and unapologetic conservatism under Reagan to me-too Clintonism under clan Bush, I fully realize that the last thing so-called Republican strategists want to do is THINK. And surely the thing they fear most is a THINKING electorate. Therefore, I found your post all too predictable given your FReeper name.
Where are my earplugs?
Shouldn't that read, "As an old time anti-Freeper..."?
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