I understand the good intentions.
Playing devil’s advocate here:
1. FR is too diverse, even amongst the inner circle of long time moderators/contributors/donors.
2. Serious questions about religious bias amongst policy decisions.
3. The donor base, and the donations to candidates or other 507s or non profits etc would be token amounts that would only be significant through the amplificatoin and magnification of the cause or donation through the FR forum and long tail blogosphere, and that amplification effect will be good for one election cycle, or until the first serious mistake.
4. The long term viability of freerepublic.com is put into jeopardy. The forum becomes a de facto echo chamber of the inner circle of the PAC committee members’ personal biases.
5. Necessary separation of duties between FR 501(c) and FReeperPAC would create divergent agendas between independent posters on the forum and the views espoused and financially backed by the PAC committee and the PACs largest contributors and rented lobbying firm/agents.
6. FreeRepublic.com already hosts the Republican Liberty Caucus forum, RLC has a PAC, Freepers outside of Texas and New Jersey have never been active in RLC PAC. Why would the creation of a new PAC change the equation regarding participation/donation rates?
7. The FR 501(c) will be under constant scrutiny by Democrat administration IRS agents, combatant liberal media agendas, and every idiot or troll who posts of FR forum would be amplified even more than in the past to discredit the PAC, causing enough public scrutiny that intended recipients of FRPAC monies would be forced to publicly announce their position on various troll threads/comments in the forum before accepted or rejecting PAC donations.
8. A FreeperPAC removes the honesty involved in the “grassroots” descriptor from the FreeRepublic mission statement.
regards
I acknowledge all of those points and they need to be addressed. I think Jim’s intent was that the new PAC would be completely separate from FR. FR would not host the PAC’s web site.
PACs can be formed by “grass roots” people who become grass roots organizations. We are still grass roots.
Even in our diversity, we are able to come to this place to split hairs together. We can compartmentalize with the best and worst of ‘em - it’s called “common ground.”
And what’s wrong with religious bias? I’m sure you don’t mean our pro-life advocacy and objection to mainstreaming homosexuality?
Dear Mr JerseyHighlander:
FYI Free Republic is NOT a 501c. It’s an LLC. FR’s income flows to and the income taxes are paid by the LLC members on our personal tax returns, namely, my wife and I, our sons John and Chris and our long term friend and business partner Amy and her husband.
Our RLC forum is NOT an official forum for any Republican Libertarian Caucus. It is of our own doing. Libertarians are welcome here to the point that they agree with our causes. When and if they become hostile to God, Family, Country, Life and Liberty their accounts here will be summarily dismissed at the convenience of our site administrators. Free Republic is not and has never been part of any RLC PAC or any other PAC whatsoever.
Our membership may be diverse to a degree, but Free Republic’s official viewpoint is pro-God, pro-Family, pro-America, pro-Life and pro-Liberty. I would hope that all members of our PAC, should we form one, are like-minded. If they have any questions whatsoever about our religious or pro-life, pro-family bias, they should avoid us like the plague. We are definitely biased toward God, Family, Country, Life and Liberty! Anyone who can’t handle that fact is on the wrong web site.
And our goal will be to elect like-minded God, Family, Country, Life and Liberty conservatives to office in every state of the union!
If you think that openly forming a FReeperPAC to elect Go and Country conservatives makes us dishonest, then you can kiss my rosy red Irish arse on the way out the door. Thankyouverymuch.
Rebellion is brewing!!
Merry Christmas to all!!