Posted on 04/01/2005 2:39:59 PM PST by hchutch
Six months ago, Free Republic was riding high, and I was proud to be a part of it. It was coming off having blown the cover off of Dan Rather’s use of forged memos against the President. The President was well on his way to winning re-election. It was a great time to be a Freeper.
However, things have changed. It started with the justifiable removal of ALIPAC. I supported that move by Jim Robinson, but the ugliness directed towards Alberto Gonzales. He was accused of everything under the sun, and Senator Mel Martinez was viciously attacked for speaking Spanish on the Senate floor. The tone and outright viciousness (terms like FROBL and traitor were fired off at anyone who did not toe the line established by Michelle Malkin and Tom Tancredo) on immigration threads had concerned me, but I had concluded it was an isolated incident. After ALIPAC was removed from FR, I had hoped the tone there would improve. But it only got worse. I was point-blank called a traitor because my views on immigration differ from those of Michelle Malkin’s groupies. On immigration threads, questioning the questionable is not allowed. One must accept the unacceptable and allow folks to defend the indefensible. Never mind that VDARE, American Renaissance, and other sites are racist or have no problem hanging out with those that are racists (I’m just going to call a spade a spade here).
There were folks who had the long knives out for Senator Rick Santorum, one of the strongest pro-life members of the United States Senate. Why? Because he endorsed Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey. It was stunning to see these long knives out for a conservative. And all it would accomplish would be his replacement by a Democrat. How in the world replacing Rick Santorum with a Democrat would aid conservatism is beyond me, but it was demanded because Santorum endorsed Specter. The long knives were out, and I suppose it was a sign of what was to come.
The whole Terri Schiavo case has changed everything for me. A mob mentality took over the first few days after the order to pull the tube was given. Anyone who did not toe the line was attacked. I saw a dedicated active-duty member of our armed forces called a “Maine liberal” for simply asking why troops in harm’s way did not get the same sort of “all-nighter” attention that Terri Schiavo got. It was a reasonable question – we have 40-year-old P-3s still out there. We have a war on terrorism still going on, in case folks have not noticed. We have to get Social Security fixed. I say this as a person who believes that at best, Michael Schiavo’s relationship with a woman (and having two kids with her) meant he had a conflict of interest – and that he had decided that Terri was inconvenient. I cannot take his word alone that Terri would have wanted this. I also believe that George Felos is a supporter of euthanasia, and that he is using this case for his own ends. Those folks give me the creeps, and I think that Jim Robinson was on the right side of this issue. However, I also got a very bad feeling when the Schindlers embraced the likes of Randall Terry and Bo Gritz. I had to wonder what has happened to the conservative movement when the threads were allowed to spiral so out of control. The concept of euthanasia is repulsive and disgusting, but it does not excuse allowing the threads to spin out of control.
I have seen the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and the Governor of Florida, John Ellis Bush, take huge political risks in an effort to save Terri’s life. I believe they were doing their best to do the right thing, and that the original law passed in 2003 was a reasonable one that was wrongly stuck down by Judge Greer and the Florida Supreme Court. I think that the Republican Party has taken a huge risk to give Terri a chance at life, and I am disgusted with those who seek a pretext that will justify leaving the GOP in the lurch. I’m sick of the way the Terri threads spun out of control, and the vicious attacks launched at reasonable people who came to a different conclusions about the situation or who pointed out facts that certain people found inconvenient. This is not what I signed on here for.
I believe in a strong national defense, cutting taxes, and in general trying to keep government involvement as minimal as possible (there are times when the best one can do is to limit government involvement in a situation). I am pro-life (with exceptions for rape, incest, and to protect the life of the mother) and pro-Second Amendment. However, I do NOT want the federal government to be involved in any culture war. “Culture” was never mentioned in the constitution, thus I believe it is left to the States or TO THE PEOPLE (see the Tenth Amendment). I do NOT think immigration is a problem, but I believe some mistakes were made along the way (like eliminating the bracero program). I also think that the President of the United States has proposed a sensible plan that will go a long way towards solving the problems on our border with Mexico and do much to alleviate the problems surrounding illegal immigration. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me and Free Republic to part company, because Free Republic has left this limited-government neoconservative. In the process of Free Republic leaving me, I now find that I fear the social conservatives as much as I fear the loony left. As a result of coming to this conclusion, I ask that my account be deleted and all posts I have made, save for this opus and the ping to my friends be removed.
I do this with regret, since I will miss some of those who I have met here, but I feel no other choice. So long.
Show-off. :-)
Hey, I was gonna say that! Blah blah blah...it's amazing to me that we FREEPERS just can't realize we are so different but SHOULD be united in just one central goal--BEATING DEMONRATS!!!
WE are supposed to be the GOP of the big tent etc...but as soon as we hit some bump in the road, all I see are peeps over-reacting and jumping ship...
Come on people! IT's not just one battle...it's going to be a long, long war!! We may not get everything we want, we will NOT get anything from the RATS without a fight. THEY took everything they stole over a 50 year or so period of time...the INCREMENTALLY have created this JUDICIAL Tyranny, such that WE THE PEOPLE can't change it in just 4 years...it will take ANOTHER Republican President and then ANOTHER and ANOTHER...and more REAL GOP Senators and Reps...not these stinking RINO's like the 5 or 6 well known ones like Snow and Specter...
Chill out, let's get what we can get this year, then the next and so on..
Leaving FR because we all don't have the exact same opine..sheesh, nose-meet the knife!
G
I'll admit, I've not been super active here over the last few years, but I'm a little confused about the second paragraph. I've always thought FR had something of a Neo-Con majority in terms of immigration. I don't know how many times I've looked at archived, older pro-Buchanan, pro-Paleo, anti-illegal immigration threads only to see that the poster had since been "banned or suspended." Are you saying that FR is too conservative on immigration issues? If so, I'm not sure how you're getting that. Maybe I'm a little confused.
I do agree that things got a little nasty here over Terri Schiavo, on both sides. It was the same around the beginning of the Iraq war. Things tend to mellow back out. I just hope this is not because all the dissenters are banned. :)
And you would be wrong.
Opusfest 2005 has begun.
Hate to see you go, but it's quite understandable why.
Its almost as if a concentrated effort is going on here lately to shut up those who dissent.
If you think this site is a bunch of extremists, go to Democratic Underground (bring a barf bag, you'll need it). Sure, there are ideas I disagree with here, but so what? It's called free speech. People are allowed to say things you disagree with, even stupid things. We're just lucky enough to have Jim Robinson and this website to be able to do so in a public forum, the electronic equivalent of the town square.
Darned fine opus, hutch. I agree with you on just about every point made. I'm sorry to see you go and hope you come back once the out-of-control whackos depart. And they surely will, because their unreasonable form of 'debate' is not productive and eventually fizzles and melts just like the Wicked Witch of The West. :o)
Didn't figure you for a quitter. Don't know why you didn't just avoid the threads you knew would offend you. Can't imagine why you felt you had to start a thread to say you were leaving. But I'm not going to leave this place just because I don't understand (or like) what other people may say and do around here. Just doesn't make sense. But, good luck to you.
I don't believe you.
Naw, just bored.
Excuse me, I have to go polish my jackboots since we will all be marching in lockstep now. Oh wait. Sorry. I forgot to ask first. "May I please go polish my jackboots, hchutch sir?"
Congratulations! Here's a cookie.
You ain't seen 'nothin' yet...
And still irrelevant. 1. I've lurked here since '98. 2. Your purported seniority means nothing to me. 3. If you don't like it, too bad. 4. Want to make an issue of it, I hope the mods do to you what happened to many of the Brigadiers back in '00.
True, but it will calm down.
Really? I knew there was a reason I've never gone there. Then again, I was never invited.
Don't be a drama queen.
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