Hello to a few friends I haven’t seen in a while.
What a meltdown! I miss the old days. There is no simple human respect here anymore and opinions are homogenized, everybody is in lock step. A few shrieking, tattletale banshees, operating with the approval of the owner and moderators, spend their days and nights on patrol enforcing the one site/one mind rule. They have managed to run off just about anybody with a brain (or a dollar.) They are at it on this very thread. They remind me of high school mean girls and have turned internet bullying into a blood sport. New posters are welcomed with scorn and ridicule and accused of being trolls just because they haven’t been here since day one. That’s a great way to attract new people.
I left FR a while back because I got tired of the attacks against me and like minded people because we were from Texas and we supported Governor Perry. Many of the Texas contingent left FR and took their dollars with them during that time. We were honestly blind sided and shell shocked by our treatment. Governor Perry may not be the most articulate man in the world, he is not perfect, but he is conservative, a patriot, a Christian, knows how to attract business and a heck of an improvement over Mitt. You only have to look at Texas to know he can’t be the complete dunce his FR detractors claim he is. What was wrong with supporting a conservative?
I thought long and hard before I withdrew my financial support. When I wrote JimRob to object to the tone on the Perry threads I reminded him Texas had been good to FR and it was a mistake to allow such loyal supporters to be mistreated. He could have made room on FR to civilly discuss the pros and cons of all the candidates. Or he could have insisted posters disagree respectfully. But he didn’t. I got the cold shoulder as did many of us during that time. You reap what you sow.
I’m sad to see what FR has become and truly miss what it used to be. If I get zotted for speaking my mind that is fine, I don’t post anymore and rarely read the comments because who wants to read the same thought over and over again. There isn’t any free speech on FR these days and I am not into having free opinion stifled. Reading the same “approved” opinions over and over again is boring. I feel vindicated seeing how many people are posting similar feelings on this thread.
Amen.
Bravo!
Amen to every word!
The Perry hate was extreme.
This is a part of what gave us Mittens.
You left out that Perry, out on a jog killed a coyote with his concealed handgun when the coyote threatened his dog.
Mit lost his dog, has never held a gun but likes to ban them and was raped by a coyote smuggling illegal aliens; a practice Mit supports.
Couldn’t agree more.
Mega Dittos
Well said
and
God Bless Texas!
I cannot understand how leaving the Presidential ballot "blank" or writing in Sarah Palin, or Newt, or voting for someone in the Constitutional Party - I cannot understand how that helps to kick the imposter known as Barack Hussein Obama out of the Whitehouse!
This isn't a game - it's the future of this beloved nation that's on the line - and you people want to take your precious vote, that countless heroes shed blood for you to have....you want to throw that vote away on somebody that cannot defeat Obama!
Oh, and before the cluster-bullies pop up to say that Romney can't possibly defeat Obama - well, he sure as hell cannot - if enough obstinate people withhold their votes for him. My GOD people - if this isn't the time - WHEN is it, for us to swallow our pride and do whatever it takes to get this Marxist-enemy-of-my-country out before he completely destroys it? My eyeballs are bleeding right now, I am so mad!
Is this really the hill you want to die on?
SO WELL WRITTEN AND I AGREE TOTALLY !!
This is a major problem here and after a thousand posts today it still isn't being addressed by the one person that can stop it.
Ditto!!!
I have not read the entire thread. I cannot. TOO painful. I found this post which expresses my felling very well and will tag a few thoughts on.
I LOVED this place for a very long time and once said that I had never met a Freeper I didn't like. You, your wife, and son are among those folks Jim and nothing has changed in that regard as far as you are concerned but, sad as it is, those days are gone and it saddens me more than you can imagine. I very much preferred the FR of 1998 (flame wars and all) to the FR of today. Back then this was a crucible where ideas of every stripe were melted down and refined. Today it is nothing more than a boring echo chamber and I have rarely posted on the main forum for quite some time now.
This place belongs to you Jim and you have every right to do with it as you wish. I have never said anything other than that from day one but I must confess to you that I no longer find FR WORTH contributing to sad as that is. And one more thing before I go. I don't like Mitt Romney any better than you do but I WILL vote for him in November! The alternative is just too horrible to contemplate.
If you are in a bannin mood it would appear that you have lot of work to do.
On this particular issue I wanted to make a few long winded points that might (?) provide context. I see this mentioned a lot, but I don't really understand what people expected this sites administrators to do about it. Quite a lot of this thread is about people wanting to be more free to express their opinion, so should the moderators have massively intervened to silence or shut down the wave of attacks on Perry? I never got the impression that this sites owner, Jim Robinson, had any particular hostility to Perry. Perhaps he may have disagreed with some of Perry's positions, but I seem to remember him saying that Perry was a reasonable conservative option. I don't recall any of this sites moderators/administrators/assistants targeting pro-Perry people for abuse or zots. Sure, maybe many preferred other candidates, but I never got the impression that Free Republic in any way sanctioned any attacks on Perry supporters.
It's not like other candidates were spared, and many of us (including myself at times) were probably more over the top than necessary when arguing for their own candidate and against others. I thought Cain, for example, was a total fake and was bluffing his way through - and I am pretty glad we are allowed to express that sort of blunt opinion that no doubt rubbed many people the wrong way. I mean, was I "attacking" Cain for arguing he was not a candidate we should take seriously? I think history has now proven I was right, but saying such things certainly infuriated a lot of people at the time.
When Perry entered the race he immediately led the polls and looked very likely to be THE non-Romney. He has a great resume and had an ability to raise enough money to compete with Mitt. On paper he appeared to be the strongest candidate to square off against Romney unless......someone else entered the race. And who were many, many, many conservatives on this forum (and others) waiting for to enter the race? Sarah Palin. Like it or not, for a very large number of people, Perry became an instant, albeit temporary, enemy (as the man who appeared to be the single most legitimate conservative threat) to a Sarah Palin candidacy that so many people expected. Many of these folks immediately did what people who support a candidate do, they tear down the competition to clear the way. This, in my opinion, is what really sparked all the attacks on Perry - and I don't see how political forum moderators/admins could have done anything about it. They'd have had to take draconian actions to stop it - and if they'd done that it would have appeared they were actually siding with Perry instead of just trying to moderate debate.
I supported Perry. I moved away from him when I lost faith in his ability to communicate effectively enough during this particular election cycle (I will happily consider him again in 2016/2020). I was attacked for supporting Perry too - but I just don't see how it is fair to blame Free Republic's owner or the forum moderators for it. If you read some of the other conservative forums similar stuff happened (not counting the ones that outright supported Perry). We had a situation this election cycle where THE big name conservative/Tea Party candidate, Sarah Palin, that so many people absolutely believed was going to run (and were prepared to support) simply waited and waited and waited and ultimately declined to get in the race. For months lots of people here and activists all over the place were readying themselves for her candidacy, not even considering backing anyone else, and effectively working to clear the field for her. By the time she made it official that she wasn't running (and many people STILL don't believe it and think she can STILL somehow be the nominee), the attacks on Perry had already done their damage and the primary was more of a mess than it should have been.
Those are just my observations. On another note. I know much of the site was fairly pro Palin, but I was fairly blunt all summer that I believed she had no real intention to run. That was quite a contrarian view that infuriated a lot of people, yet I was able to speak my peace no matter who it outraged, attack right back at anyone who came after me, and otherwise make all my points without being censored, threatened or banned. My experience with moderators/admins has been quite good (even though perhaps many of them disagree with me on many policies).