Underground freepmail campaign by unknown disgruntled FReeper

Hello. You don’t know me under this name. For reasons that are going to be obvious soon, I didn’t wish to send you this message with my usual Free Republic account. This message is an invitation, a welcome to a new forum called TrueBlueFreedom.com

While I love the people who make up Free Republic, I have many complaints about Jim Robinson and his cronies who run the actual website. Over and over again, whenever somebody has complained or offered suggestions, they have been told by JimRob and others to go and start their own website if they know so much. Well, I’ve decided to take them up on that offer.

I’ve started TrueBlueFreedom.com for three simple reasons, and once you’ve read those reasons, I’m sure you’ll agree that we need to make a few adjustments if we want this powerful bastion of conservatism to remain. The first reason is simple: Free Republic is too important to left in the hands of JimRob. Jim and his son John have repeated stated that if just one Freepathon goal isn’t met, that’s it - “Free Republic will be dead.” I can’t stand the idea of America without Free Republic. Imagine if we hadn’t been there when Dan Rather was passing around his forgeries, how different things would be today. Now realize that, as things are going, we won’t be around when the next Rathergate happens. We can’t allow that to happen, and since JimRob has publicly refused to deal with this issue, we have to take matters into our own hands. My solution is TrueBlueFreedom.com

The second reason is that I believe that free market capitalism has made America great, and that attempting any other system will lead us to ruin. A belief JimRob apparently doesn’t share, since he continues to refuse to place ads on Free Republic and instead depend on a PBS-esque donation system. We are not NPR, and we are not a charity – why do we raise money like one? For this reason, I’ve developed TrueBlueFreedom.com to depend on advertisements. TrueBlueFreedom.com will not depend on donations, instead, we will depend on the opportunities provided by the free market to create a self-sustaining version of Free Republic – without the constant Freepathons.

The third reason is that JimRob is, in my opinion, a petty tyrant. How many of you know somebody who was purged? How many wonder if you may be next on the list? If you’re neither of these people, consider this: Giuliani was America’s Mayor in 2008. That didn’t stop JimRob from purging all his supporters without warning. How do you know that whoever you support in the Republican primaries won’t raise JimRob’s wrath? How do you know the next purge group won’t be Mormons, Jews, Birthers, Pro-Palin, Anti-Palin, and so on? I believe that purging the non-believers and demanding total mental agreement with the “Dear Leader” is the exact opposite of conservative values, regardless of where JimRob stands on abortion and homosexuality. And for that reason, I’ve set up TrueBlueFreedom.com as a place where conservatives who follow the rules will not be banned, no matter how much I disagree with them. Regardless of your politics, religion, or favorite sport team, you will only be banned for breaking the rules. TrueBlueFreedom.com is a purge-free zone.

So, I hope you’ve read all this, and will accept my invitation. If this seems like something you can believe in, come to TrueBlueFreedom.com, sign up, and start talking. And if you like it, spread the word. Because Free Republic is too important to just let die.

Boss:
Thank you for a great site that has become influential in the public and political discourse. The single best example of how important Free Republic has become is the Tea Party. It simply wouldn’t have grown to the size it is without Freepers. Period.

The anonymous poster:
TrueBlueFreedom.com costs money to run and you will be faced with that reality as it grows, if it ever does.

First off, it is a for crap site that requires registration just to see the articles or opinions Hmmm…not very enticing for membership and doubtful that strategy could ever work.

Second, your not so well thought out site has advertisers all over it. It seems you are trying to make money with click throughs to those advertisers. Good luck. It takes on the order of thousands of click throughs to accumulate any meaningful remuneration and there is a floor before they will even cut their first check, electronically. Heck, even so it takes as long as 3 months after you reach that floor and you are back at zero, waiting for the floor to be met again and then wait, wait, wait, for some pittance of money.

Third, you will absolutely be held hostage to those advertisers. If they or their customers decide they don’t like your website for its postings well guess what? You will be boycotted and looking for new sources of advertisers as well revenue.

All the best sites are subscriber based and that is what keeps them going.

Free Republic is an exemplary example of subscriber based in that contributions are totally voluntary. In other words, the Free Republic community absolutely supports the site and because of its voluntary nature can have tremendous input regarding the content as well as poster.
Jim Robinson has a personal core of beliefs and the site will not change to suit the whims and dictates of anyone or any group. His life is so ordered and that is why he started this business.

Freepathons are fundraisers for a site that actually can be indicators of society’s beliefs. Yes it may be true that if a single Freepathon is not met then Free Republic is gone or changed to some other format.

There is a base cost for running this place and as an ISP I can guess what it is. What’s left over from a Freepathon has to support new equipment, software and even the plain living expenses of at least two families.

As a result, the incomes for these two families are really quite modest, especially when one considers the cost of living in California.

Free Republic is so very different than PBS. Did you know the top 10 executives in just about any major market make in excess of $300,000? For what? That doesn’t include the benies that are part of the business such as travel, dinners and a whole slew of other fun stuff that have nothing to do with their compensation.

Go ahead and order the 501c annual report from any PBS outlet, in any major city. Eye opening to say the least.
Moreover, Free Republic differs from NPR in that there is no George Soros type stuffing the bank account and having such influence as to develop content that is well, un-American.

Free Republic articles are culled from around the world by Freepers and posted here for consumption by other Freepers. Vanities are also posted and the Free Republic community is free to join in the discussion, argue about the points contained in it, have a little fun between each other about it and here is the best part: Only Free Republic allows subscribers to excoriate a poster to the point of demanding their account be closed for over the top offense. A ZOT as it were, as it is and as the community would like it to remain.

Come here and spout racist rants, buh bye.
Come here and spout anti-American view, buy bye.
Come here and spout pro-abortion, see ya.

Even a rant that calls for physical aggression of any type will be tossed into virtual space or if its content is so lame the community will be allowed to excoriate the poster and make fun of him for being so stupid.

Free Republic is simply the best example of community rules, much like neighborhood rules, having a direct influence on what is acceptable for this community.

Jim Robinson is a tyrant? LOL. Well, I agree, he is. This is his site. He owns the field, the bases, the gloves, ball and bats. Like all website operators Jim sets the rules for what is called AUP or Acceptable Use Policy. Such AUP can change or evolve just as it does on any other site.

You just don’t get some form letter from a heartless corporation telling you they have decided your privacy is not important to them and they have decided to sell their subscriber base to gain new revenue.

No, Jim will instead inform the community what has changed, why and it is usually heartfelt. His AUP is more from how he believes in the ideal of an America he has in his heart and I like to think his principles are just unchangeable.
All the top posters and many insignificant ones have at one time or another been purged. Even me.

Jim wants this site to remain as close to his vision for America and wants to Free Republic to be as emblematic of that as possible.

I’ve been ZOT’d plenty of time and on reflection deserved it. Cool thing about Jim is he doesn’t hold a grudge and allows one to work your way back into the community and remain a part of it honorably.

If you are a Romneybot then too bad. He represents absolutely no one but himself.

Jim, like the community, wants politicians who represent our ideals and shouldn’t we all?

Your site will never amount to anything and as a website operator I don’t just host sites but help my clients improve their viability. Sadly, the way you have ordered yours ain’t gonna make it and I have no advice for you anyway.

Free Republic and the community is the only site I have found where the content and users represent my viewpoint. So I ante up every Freepathon to keep the lights on.
You have no core belief and will not be successful in your endeavor.

I do wish you the best of luck. Maybe you can eek out enough money to justify spending so much time monitoring it in your off hours and hopefully it won’t become some animal that just plain ruins your daytime job and wrecks your life.

Your post stopped me. I’ve gotta mention something which bothers me every quarter.

I’ve been a FReeper for a lot of years and I love this place. Our family does okay, but we watch every penny. I wish I could donate to the dollar/day campaign, but we just don’t have the money.

Yes, there are people who don’t think about how much their lattes amount to, however we do, and have done so since our kids began preschool. Dh and I both promised the other that we would do whatever it took to put our kiddos through Christian schooling, even if it meant sacrificing - big time.

For the past decade, our family has taken one week-long vacation to WDW. We still have paper on a few windows. Our dining room is bare. We take drinks and snacks with us to the mall. We clip coupons. We drive Hyundais. We volunteer instead of donate money to our school’s capital campaign. We don’t subscribe to movie channels. We don’t have tivo, there’s no weekly housecleaner, we make lunches for the kids, we make coffee at home, we go out to dinner on our birthdays and that’s about it per year.

I always feel horrible that I can only donate 5-20 dollars per quarter, but that’s all I can squeeze. And after just learning that our tuition has added another 3k to our total annual tuition, we are now facing one quarter of dh’s salary going to Christian school tuition.

Add to this we live in the north Dallas suburbs where Uggs, Neiman Marcus, and Hummers give people topics of discussion while they sit and wait for their nails to dry. We’re staying the course, but FR is extremely important to who we choose to be. I wish I could donate more. But until the last one graduates, please know I’m doing everything I can.

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