Why SHOULD there be?
Blind allegiance only sets you up for ridicule later.
Go there anytime, watch them for a second and it's only "Three, two, one blast off" before one of the Kosmanuts goes ballistic.
That's cute but not intellectually stimulating.
Thanks for the post ... intereresting to have a look at FR from outside our ‘box’ ... even though that perspective drifted a little goofy, replete with snide put downs.
On my very first visit during the Whitewater days, I knew FR was the place to be.
I walk through the doors, sit and have a cup of coffee, read the news, listen to interesting conversation and sometimes join in the give and take.
Emphasis on “give” ... Freepers are hunter/gatherers ... roaming the wilds, bagging a critter and posting it on the wall for all to partake, or ignore, as we will.
Emphasis on “take” ... as I always come away from FR with a hat full of new information, sensible ways of looking at things that I might not have arrived at myself, and a feeling of friendship with people I’ll likely never meet except in cyberspace.
There’s more real news here on FR in a single day than all the networks and failing newspapers combined.
JimRob has done a wonderful thing for his friends, neighbors and Country ... may the Good Lord always bless him.
You know what I love best about FR’s format? The lack of emoticons... Too many sites I visit have become emoticon ghettos similar to DU.
One of the most valuable and truly amazing features about FR is the way it covers breaking events. Not sure if KOS, DU etc do that too?
It has never failed- i.e. if there’s an earthquake in some obscure part of the world- either a freeper is there- or their first cousin is and just sent the freeper an email which is passed on to us...
We all come here ASAP the instant there’s big news anywhere- and that includes the globe- not just the US and Canada.
Saying FR is a conservative website is incomplete- it’s that..and a helluva lot more.
.. when something’s happening- my first thought is to log on here - I know I’ll find out what’s REALLY going on in less time than any cable station. Freepers provide links to live coverage of the event within 5-10 posts...followed shortly by other in-depth links to give context to the story. (What does strip mining mean? The map for the campus at Virginia Tech etc)
Absolutely remarkable.
Paging PJ Comix...white courtesy phone.
Since I’m a member of Townhall I left this comment there:
I’m a long-time member of FR.. mostly lurking.
To me, FR is more of a news clearing-house. It’s a place to refer to news published elsewhere and to comment about it.
They actively fire-wall blog postings away from their main forum.
I complained about this on this thread there
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1880584/posts
I said:
“I think the “wall” between Blogs and News is arbitrary and counterproductive. Some of the best journalists run their own blogs (Michael Yon... Roggio of 4th Rail.. Michael Totten... Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, etc)
We all complain about the MSM.. about its bias and omissions and then yet we exalt them as something special to keep the bloggers from polluting.
When I try to share important Iraq news that comes from a blog, some busy body will immediately banish it to the “Blogs” category and then no one sees it.
Tell me.. what is the advantage of this?”
They Said: “The desire is to maintain a good signal to noise ratio. Bloggers can always find FR threads related to their latest rant, and post some of their entry on that thread along with a link. That way, the blog post is put in context of the news story, and blog threads don’t overwhelm the news threads.”
I said: “So in other words something isn’t news unless it appears in the New York Times?”
They said:
“Hardly.
However, there are, what, a few million bloggers now? Do you want any blogger who feels like it to start threads on FR? It’s about signal-to-noise. FR is still working out ways to let in the bloggers who add to the news signal while filtering those who just add their opinion (which can be added in the comments section of threads without creating a gazillion new threads).”
This is why, in my opinion, they fail.
Conservative blogs don’t just whine about rich white Christian men, so therefore it won’t get as big an audience as DUh or Huffpo or Kos.
Do we really want a Daily KOS?
So, who really cares what Ruffini thinks? I sure don’t.
>>Liberaltarian ex-Daily Kos diarist David Weigel and Newsbusters are engaged in a debate over why there is no right-wing Daily Kos.<<
KOS is really a party oriented site - they want to elect Democrats. And thus Freep does not, I think want to be the equivalent as parties are important but less so than principles.
Conservative blogs are more “elite”? Well, most of us are potty trained, walk upright and can argue without spitting all over ourselves with volumes of crudities, vulgarities and threats.
So, I suppose we are “elite” in comparison to our KOS counterparts.
FR is content-centric. Unlike certain blogs — we don’t whine in a very pretty-boy way about Dartmouth stacking the deck against us. We act. Sometimes in unision, united under a banner — but we ALWAYS act. As individuals.
‘Conservatives have paid a price for being inattentive to candidate recruitment and what’s actually going on at the county committee level. In effect, we allowed the unchecked rise of machine operators like Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and John Doolittle who sacrificed conservative principle for back-scratching enrichment.’
Speak for yourself in this regard, kristinn. Many of us here in Ohio for example, rebelled last year against the GOP Country Club Republicans, and were trashed in this and a couple of other conservative forums for doing so.
I was told repeatedly I had to support the Ohio GOP, even though it was corrupt from top to bottom ‘because Nancy Pelosi will become Speaker of the House! Harry Reid will become Senate Majority Leader!’ by straight ticket Republicans.
I’ve often asked in this forum, and others ‘when is it okay to fire a Republican’...and the overwhelming majority of the time the answer was ‘in the primaries’....(eyes rolling).
Some of us did in fact ‘act’...and we’re flamed for doing so here at FR.