Examiner columnist blasts "FreeRepugnant.com"

sf examiner ^ | Feb 15, 02 | Debby Morse

[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

[sweetliberty]

"They made a joke about an earthquake in San Francisco so this means they are threatening meeeeeee "

Oh now surely you've heard about the conspiracy to detonate something underground powerful enough to trigger an earthquake that with pinpoint precision will seek her out and destroy her. < /sarcasm >

[RonDog]

This is my e-mail to "dear Debbie."

"The Premier Conservative News Forum," and predicted that I'd be getting "an onslaught of hate mail from rabid right-wing freaks."

Your generalization of conservatives is narrow-minded. Tell me, have you ever written anything about rabid left-wing freaks? Or is it only conservative activists that you are concerned about? The members of Free Republic make the "wheels" of this country work. We are people in every walk of life, in every state of the union. You give no credibility to yourself when you write such trash. Remember, we also purchase the newspapers of this country. To generalize in such a despicable way about one group of people is like "biting the hand that feeds you." - CnsrvatvLdy

Bingo, CnsrvatvLdy!

AnnaZ recently wrote a POWERFUL editorial about this type of "word bias" called:

Name Dropping
Posted on 1/25/02 2:14 AM Pacific by Mercuria

In that thread, she talked about one way to measure the built-in bias in language is to do a Google search:

"rabid right-wing" - 497 references

"rabid left-wing" - 37 references

[RonDog]

And why shouldn't we be angry?

Right on, sweetliberty! Also, "ANGER" does NOT equal "HATE" - It is a common tactic of MANY on the left to describe every passionate emotion expressed by conservatives as "hate," in an effort to marginalize our truly heartfelt beliefs.

[section9]

A hit and run artist is a hit and run artist. Think of Debby Morse as MurryMom with a salary.

This columnist has a graduate degree from Stanford, yet she doesn't want to come on here and play ball with the Big Dogs.

Precisely because she knows that she can't.

She knew that she was getting emails from a few of the real extremists on the board, but she decided to use those as a broad brush with which to paint FR. The fact is, she understands that. Despite what some of you might believe, she is an intelligent woman. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she understood exactly the lie she was peddling. Any assertion otherwise is an out and out falsehood, and she knows it.

But since we know that she is lying about us, the question we must ask is why?

Some people can't handle the truth. That a child might have the right to life from the moment of conception gets in the way of Man's arrogation of that power (of life and death) reserved to the Almighty. Modernists (and post-modernists) have no time for a concept of the Hereafter, so they do not believe that we must be accountable to a Divine Being. This kind of thinking leads to the kinds of squalid regimes that peppered the 20th Century. It really is a short conceptual leap, shorter than most feminists realize, from the abortion mill to Auschwitz. Once the killing begins, it becomes rather easy.

That's what the SS Einsatzkommandos said when they were debriefed after the war, anyway.

Debby Morse wants the right to kill without consequence. You can wrap it up in a "right to privacy" or a "right to control my body" all you want, but in the end, women like Debby want the right to kill without being called on it. That is "all" she is asking for. The Freepers were simply reminding her of a truth that she didn't want to hear.

Her greatest mistake is self-evident, then. For there will be an accounting, only not by an earthly judge.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[TLBSHOW]

"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."

Yep that says it all. Debby you are a liberal worthless bit*h

[alcuin]

Calm down.

Please?

Stay well.

[RonDog]

Thank you RonDog, you opinion means alot to me, ya made me feel good even suffering through this flu that keeps sending me to my pillow, lol.

You are welcome. Now, get well soon!
And, when you feel better, please write a "Letter to the Editor."

Since YOU were mentioned so prominently in her article, they will feel that they owe you "equal time."
(And the chance to use your screen name should be IRRESISTIBLE to any editor worth his salt, even a lefty.)

Please give Free Republic a BIG plug! (I KNOW that you will represent us magnificently.)

From www.Examiner.com/opinion:

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Hoo-yah!

[sweetliberty]

And to Deb, should you be here exploring this thread, I challenge you to look at the pictures on the link posted below. If you find the pictures "disturbing" just think how much more disturbing the the reality is.

Warning:Graphic Images

[gg188]

Damn! You mean the liberals are ONTO us?? Well, we're busted. :-)

[Pistias]

Maybe we'll eventually get angry enough to do something about it as the forefathers intended and take our country back.

You're right, we have plenty of cause for anger--and it's a mark of good character that your spirit chafes at being wronged so. But the Founders knew that such a condition was the worst one in which one can contemplate anything of middling complication, much less the proper course of action to take back the Republic.

Admittedly some of us get a bit out of control at times and say things that do nobody any good. I know that I have a very hard time being civil to some people on this forum, although thankfully they are the exception

I know what you mean...and most of us are good about it. It's the few bad apples that make it worse for the rest of us, and we need to remember that anger is only a good servant--one of the finest servants a person has; however, it's an extremely poor master.

"It is man's peculiar distinction to love even those who err and go astray. Such a love is born as soon as you realize that they are your brothers; that they are stumbling in ignorance, and not wilfully; that in a short while both of you will be no more; and, above all, that you yourself have taken no hurt, for your master-reason has not been made a jot worse than it was before."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations VII.22

[Pistias]

Right you are. Please see my recent one to sweetliberty in case I wasn't clear in my last post.

[RonDog]

A hit and run artist is a hit and run artist. Think of Debby Morse as MurryMom with a salary.

Debby Morse may not be registered to post here - yet! - but MurryMom is.

It is customary to PING a fellow FReeper whenever you discuss them, however cleverly you do so. ;)

[DallasMike]

the very conservative Morning News had a free shot. Have they gone left????

Has the Pope gone Catholic? Has Billy Graham gone Protestant? Has Bill Clinton gone sex crazy?

The Dallas Morning News still has its occasional good moments but, in terms of editors and management, the spineless numbskulls now outnumber the clear thinkers.

[section9]

I wouldn't ping MurryMom if you paid me. That git is a waste of space.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[sweetliberty]

"I wish she falls down a flight of stairs and breaks her neck"

That is a terrible thing to say about anybody. They may be ignorant. Many may even be evil. But they're not beyond redemption and remarks like that make their argument that we are mean-spirited.

[Dec31,1999]

I wonder how many of those Emails were sent by Liberals to denigrate Conservatives and FR.

[Mercuria]

Nastygrams...PROOF POSITIVE that all of Free Republic and the right are evil demons!

"I am woman, hear me whine"?

"You insulted me. You hate me. I'm a woman. Therefore, you must hate women."

As a woman myself, I say...welcome to the wonderful world of the Political Grudge Match! I've seen some real beauts of "mean-spiritedness" from both sides. It's part of the territory, whether it should be or not.

Got guts, Debby?

If so, welcome to the party, and roll with the punches.

If not, get me a beer...because some of us paleo-feminists are working up quite a thirst trying to break up this Big Government's Co-Dependent Girlfriend Idea you're proposing for every woman in America...

[sweetliberty]

"Maybe she should put a little thought into trying to understand why so many people find her position on this issue totally despicable."

Isn't that asking a bit much? That would require her to exercise qualities that are virtually nonexistent in liberals....or at least dormant, such as reason, common sense and decency. You are assuming that she would seek "truth" and that is a far-fetched assumption when dealing with the promoters of infanticide.

[MissAmericanPie]

ROFL...let'er rip.

[TLBSHOW]

You said it better than me, I think she is a worthless, well you know!