How Free is Free Republic

kuro5hin.org ^ | Mon Dec 29th, 2003 at 09:53:55 PM EST | felixrayman

[visagoth]

I didn't find this posted here on FR - so here we go.....

	How Free is Free Republic? By felixrayman Mon Dec 29th, 2003 at 09:53:55 PM EST
	Free Republic is an online story and discussion site similar to Kuro5hin.org, but with an explicitly conservative bias. The site proclaims itself to be "an online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web." Intrigued, I proceeded to offer some comments to stories there, addressing some factual errors and dissenting with some conservative views. The result was a quick lesson in the right-wing view of free expression. The experiment left an open question - where do you go on the web to engage conservatives in open debate? Where is the right-wing version of k5?

One article on the Free Republic site entitled "Dean Finally Shoots Self Somewhere Other Than Own Foot" attacks Howard Dean for his statement that "The capture of Saddam has not made America safer". The poster of the article goes on to claim, "If any of the Left is paying attention, Dean has just officially proven the he is DEFINITELY clueless when it comes to foreign policy. Another in a long line of RATS that just doesn't get it". My reply that "Actually it's pretty obvious that the capture of Saddam hasn't made the world safer - international airline flights had to be cancelled a few days ago due to threats of terrorism and in Iraq the last few days have been as bloody for coalition forces as the days before Saddam's capture" was removed by a moderator within a few minutes. A comment posted to another Free Republic story, "Howard Dean: The Mayor of Milwaukee", in an attempt to belittle Howard Dean's fiscal record claimed that the budget of one county in Illinois was larger than the budget of the state of Vermont. It claimed the budget of the County of DuPage, near Chicago, to be $1.6 billion, and that the budget for the entire state of Vermont was $73 million. After a quick google search, I found this assertion to be incorrect. The reply I posted 'The "$73 million" figure you quote is for the Vermont Municipal Employees' Retirement System, not the entire Vermont budget. Vermont's budget calls for 1.8 billion in state spending with another billion in federal spending', was removed within a few minutes. The Free Republic claims in its help section that, "While Free Republic is not edited or censored, it does reserve the right to remove any postings that are considered inappropriate. Examples of inappropriate posts are those that are off-subject or contain advertising, pornography, obscene material, racist material, Nazi (or other hate group) material, materials promoting violence, threats or illegal acts, etc". It would be interesting to know under which category my replies were considered to fall. For another example, a response to the story "You Might be a Leftist If . . ." read, in part "The only meaningful difference is between those who believe in the original intent interpretation of the Constitution and those who do not. Those who believe in the Constitution believe in individual liberty. Those who ignore or rewrite the Constitution do not believe in individual liberty. This is the only difference which matters. " I responded to this poster with the comment "Individual liberty? Didn't the constitution as written specifically allow for the continuation of slavery as an American institution"? Within minutes, the post was removed by a moderator. In addition, after this third reply, my ability to post comments on the site was revoked. So obviously, the Free Republic is not free, except in the sense that the German Democratic Republic was democratic, or the sense that supporting the PATRIOT Act is patriotic. Web site operators certainly have a right to set whatever rules they choose for their users. And a quick test showed that there are sites with a left-wing bias that are just as cowardly as Free Republic when it comes to allowing an actual debate. The question remains, are there any sites with a conservative bias that allow such debate?

Full discussion: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/27/173837/60

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[arete]

This is a gathering place for conservatives only.

No, that is incorrect. FR is a gathering place for republican party loyalists, bots and assorted pod people. Few true conservatives are supporting the current administrations agenda.

Richard W.

[AgThorn]

Free Republic is privately owned and funded. We exercise our right to control the use and content of our website. We also exersize our right to freedom of association. Liberal trolls and their posts are usually removed. We do not want to waste our time or resources on their nonsense. Free Republic is not a liberal debating society

In that I can agree .. but Jim (and I have to read the rest of this thread to see if this hasn't already been done), can you address the 3-4 comments that he references as being pulled ... i.e. were they as neutral as they sound? If so, it bears some discussion I would think, no?

[Lead Moderator]

He's gone

[Howlin]

Or so you'd like to think, eh?

[Quix]

This ilk of thing gets tiresome.

It's tolerable to a point because I'm well skilled in page down and scroll keys.

Still, it's somewhat of an offensive drag just to see this sort of thing in the list of threads.

It seems to me that DU etc. is plenty of room for the idiots to roam around in.

[Fledermaus]

As usual with most idiots, felixrayman confuses the articles posted versus the opinions and statements of others.

If he has a problem with what SOMEONE ELSE writes that a Free Republic member post and links to, that's shows his inadequate ability to discriminate between what was posted and the comments that follow.

Boy, they are really afraid of this forum out there, aren't they?

[BraveMan]

This "article" is just one more rant in a rather substantial list of leftist hit pieces penned by the author. His biting insights and rapier wit will not be missed . . .

felixrayman's Diary

[Andy from Beaverton]

I've tried to post some crazy articles written on the left, but becasue they were originqlly posted on a left wing site the moderator pulled them. Not very free(Republic)?

[highlander_UW]

2 of his examples of pulled responses are for the same post. Either he's got his links wrong, or he's padding the amount of posts pulled. It's impossible to make any sort of evaluative call on his contentions because it's not possible to determine if he used obscene language or something of the sort.

Ironically, I just finished reading a very long thread at DU where someone stated they had some conservative views and asked if he should bother to post there. A large number responded no, he was not welcome. They did not want to be exposed to views that differed from their own. (not all were as bad, there was a few reasonable ones as well). I would like to think that well reasoned and respectful posts, even if they represent a dissenting view might be allowed here...at least within some reason (don't want the board spammed in any way).

[Behind Liberal Lines]

If "Promoting [a] left wing site" gets threads pulled we should all stop posting from the mainstream media.

[stopem]

Jim Robinson, thanks for all you do for all of us.
I just recently joined Free Republic and couldn't imagine a day without reading all the great articles and posts.

This forum is an asset to Republicans everywhere!

And a great place to vent about some issues that we may find upsetting. ;)

Everyone has treated me (my posts) with the utmost respect even when we disagree ;)

[White Eagle]

If we are going to pick nits on this dollar amount, it is entirely possible that Lake County and Sangamon County have larger budgets than DuPage. And certainly Cook County has the largest budget in the state of Illinois.

Finally, there are various funds paid by the federal government directly to the states that would not show up in an individual county budget. So, if you compare apples to apples, there may ve 10-15 counties in Illinois with larger budgets than Vermont.

And if you've read this far and you're still awake, if Howard Dean was mayor of Milwaukee, that would probably mean he bowls and eats brats, which would make him a better person.

[tutstar]

If facts were misquoted in an article it would be due to the error of the author, not an error by a FR poster or FR itself.
I'm sure there are articles on the other sites which have inaccuracies in them as well. It is the nature of the beast. At least some of us have figured out we can't trust the 'propaganda machine', uh, media to spoon feed us.
Anyone who has followed the threads on Terri Schiavo knows well that news articles can be full of inaccuracies. This is but one example.

[Tench_Coxe]

"Free Republic is not a liberal debating society."

Apologzing for the crudeness beforehand, I think 'debating' should be struck and replaced with 'mental masturbation' to provide accuracy.

[NeoCaveman]

I think 'debating' should be struck and replaced with 'mental masturbation' to provide accuracy.

I call it intellectual onanism.

[Jim Robinson]

If we allowed these people to take over FR, it'd soon be unusable.

Example:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1051438/posts#4

[cyborg]

LOL AIDS monkey???

[cyborg]

FR could easily be taken over by liberals or vile bigoted skinheads, who to me are family separated at birth. I am glad there is some moderation, but would like more ZOT threads to be left open longer for more viking kitty fun.

[Modernman]

What makes you think that Free Republic champions free speech?

If the management didn't support an open exchange of ideas and demanded orthodoxy in the views of all posters, very few of us would be here. If FR isn't about ideas and debate, I don't know what is.