Posted on 02/15/2002 10:23:06 PM PST by churchillbuff
FreeRepugnant.com
By Debby Morse Of The Examiner Staff
AFTER MY COLUMN last Friday about President Bush's decision to classify fetuses as children, I received a spate of angry mail. One kind soul e-mailed me an alert that the column had been posted on FreeRepublic.com, "The Premier Conservative News Forum," and predicted that I'd be getting "an onslaught of hate mail from rabid right-wing freaks."
(Quick glimpse at some of the messages I got: "Is that the way you spend all your time? Hating people?" "Would you look down from Heaven and defend your mother if she had aborted you?" "Your panic and fear is obvious by the way you write.")
So I thought I ought to pay a visit to the Web site. On the FreeRepublic home page, I was welcomed thus: "We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!" No objections there from me. Freedom of speech; gotta love it. And who's in favor of political fraud and corruption? Not I. Still ... I don't know why, but that "Hoo-yah!" unsettled me. (Maybe because it's like "yahoo" backwards?)
Anyway, the site is a collection of forums and postings on various umbrella topics such as foreign affairs, activism and philosophy, with links to sites like the Cato Institute (a libertarian forum on public policy), the Drudge Report, the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank), the Rush Limbaugh show and the Linda Tripp Defense Fund (with a post-make-over photo -- hey, why not?).
And here's the best part: It's a great opportunity to "eavesdrop" on the conversations of people who chat there, seemingly secure in the belief that they are among friends and can say whatever they want. They can! First Amendment! But, boy, a lot of what they said there about my column is even nastier than what they e-mailed to me. * * *
LET'S LISTEN IN. Breakem writes: "Come out with your legs up and let the baby go and nobody gets hurt." Clintonh8r says: "Debby's a little crampy today, huh?" MissAmericanPie wishes me this fortune: "May her uterus be as barren as her soul. I pity the unlucky man that finds his way there, or the baby that tries to find warmth, love, or life in that cold, void, steel locker she calls her uterus."
Some of the postings were so bizarre that saner heads felt obliged to butt in and warn them to cool it. Following a useless exchange of comments that fetuses are "respiring" beings, Hank Kerchief pleads: "These continued ignorant arguments are playing right into the hands of the pro-choice movement. Please think before helping to increase the number of abortions being performed every day."
One of the shoddier bits of logic came in an e-mail: "You hate President Bush because he is a conservative and a Republican. I despise you because you are a traitor to this country. You tear down a president during wartime with false charges. You may be a citizen of this country, but you are not an American. You are also a pretty lousy feminist; you promote an outdated, divisive political agenda that does not serve women. You want to deal in reality? Here is the scoop. Most of my friends and I have concluded that being home is a fabulous choice. We choose our families. You liberals choose an outdated, dangerous political agenda which certainly contributed to the 9-11 horror. Liberals elected President Clinton who 'fiddled' while bin Laden plotted. You mock the victims of 9-11 with your despicable column."
Honey, I'm going to have to revoke your license to argue.
I also received an e-mail with a photo of a very mature fetus' arm protruding through -- what? -- a hole in a pregnant belly? A bloody image meant to shock. Turns out the same photo is posted on the FreeRepublic thread about my column, but the contributor, calling himself Revelation 911, confides that it's actually a picture of in-utero surgery and that the gestation went full-term. * * *
THESE PEOPLE SEEM to hate women. Even MissAmericanPie says, "No doubt her kind are very odd, the Jane Fonda militant female type. I've always kind of pictured Eve as being like that, more feline than female, resentful and rebellious against everything she was meant to be, finding no satisfaction in anything else either."
There are a couple of ugly remarks regarding anatomy and even rape, and a bunch of digs at San Francisco. A few people suggested it was time for another earthquake here. It was supposed to be funny, but it amounts to a wish for my death. There's a lot of that among pro-lifers, I guess. Someone suggested advocates for choice should commit suicide!
After reading "arguments" like that, I'm more dedicated than ever to wanting to keep my body private.
E-mail Debby Morse at dmorse@sfexaminer.com
Read the postings at : www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/624590/posts
Stop sweating the small stuff, Debby, and trying to find little hidden meanings in everything. That's part of your problem right there. You liberals are just plain weird.
Maybe she should put a little thought into trying to understand why so many people find her position on this issue totally despicable.
"After reading "arguments" like that, I'm more dedicated than ever to wanting to keep my body private."
"That's fine with me. I have absolutly no interest in her body, or what she does with it. But her right to privacy does not void another persons right to life, be it 6 months before birth or 6 months after birth "
Additionally, if she wants to "keep her body private" she ought to immediately drop any desire (which can be safely assumed) for public tax dollars in her "reproductive healthcare", or anyone else's, for that matter. As long as there is a solitary cent of public tax money finding it's way to the abortion practice, anyone who asserts a claim of "privacy" to shield the practice on that basis is, shall we say, unconvincing.
You must've hit a nerve and in order to do that, there had to be truth in it.
Is this the same paper that Matthews writes for? He's another phony.
Stop sweating the small stuff, Debby, and trying to find little hidden meanings in everything. That's part of your problem right there. You liberals are just plain weird. "
The academic left (to elevate her status with the adjective), especially those in the humanities - exist to "unpack" usually nonexistent "inner meanings" of text. Meanings, strangely, that they seem to have exclusive access to. Don't blame her, though. She probably cannot help herself. I overcame this utterly pointless compulsion myself, but only after learning how to program computers, conduct business in the real world, and maintain various types of firearms.
Mercifully, technology has rendered such academics obsolete.
But more to the point, the vast majority of leftists have no knowledge of the origin of that rallying cry, anyway. The rest that do know the cry, and mock it wherever it appears, simply loathe the military or any expression of civilian appreciation for it. They assume those who willingly comprise the military to be psychologically deficient, or merely bloodthirsty barbarians.
OMG. That is a great post !! I love it!!! May a decent man never make the error of traveling there!
"*snort of derisive laughter* Morse should be happy. The Examiner is such a disaster of a newspaper - even by the standards of San Francisco, which is generally acknowledged in the industry to have the worst newspapers of any major city in the United States - that the posting of her column posted here probably resulted in it reaching ten times as many readers.Good analysis, Timesink!She is right about one thing, though;
any thread that touches on anything even slightly related to abortion - as her column did - is guaranteed to bring out of the woodwork the worst psychopaths FR has to offer.
I don't doubt for a minute that she got some truly vicious, ultrawacko emails from some of them." - Timesink
Personally, I do not care very much about what a "second-rate writer at a third-rate newspaper" has to say about this forum.
I do care, however, that some of the "loose cannons" around here may have given us ALL a bad name by sending her some poorly-considered inflammatory attacks - in the name of Free Republic - that can be used against the good name of this noble endeavor. At least if such bone-headed comments are made HERE, we have the option of hitting the "abuse" button, and getting those inappropriate rants pulled.
That said, I am proud to be associated with any group of people who can generate a comment as elegant as the one from MissAmericanPie that Ms. Morse quoted in her "hit" piece:
"May her uterus be as barren as her soul.Way to go, MissAmericanPie!!! Now, THAT is good writing!
I pity the unlucky man that finds his way there, or the baby that tries to find warmth, love, or life in that cold, void, steel locker she calls her uterus." - MissAmericanPie
.
(If you want OFF - or ON - my "Hugh Hewitt PING list" - please let me know.)
Please do. And your musings as well.
Now I don't want to start a flame war over this BUT I am forced to defend the honor of the Mpls (red)Star Tribune! A newspaper called loony by the NY Times. :-)
"Hoo--Yah" is the scream of the militiaman fighting for the freedoms and rights of his country its supposed to be unsettling to those who would hold you in the chains of tyrrany !
It ain't private if you've gotta go to a gubmint run clinic, hon...
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