Posted on 05/11/2012 5:04:25 AM PDT by Lazamataz
How do you take over Free Republic? You can't. You shouldn't even try,
Recently, a friend came to me with what he perceived to be the failings of Free Republic. I wrote back: "....JR is really not interested in people advising him on how to run the forum. He's had success with his own direction.......Seriously man. Don't stress this so hard. It is what it is, and you have no power over other people/places/things. Hell, you don't even have power over YOURSELF. That's GOD'S power. Just suit up, show up, color in within the lines, and enjoy what you can in the forum. You know what's off limits. So do I. I live within the boundaries, without complaint and grateful for my blessings."
It is a good life lesson, using Free Republic as the catalyst. How many of us struggle mightily against the circumstances in our life, only to find that we have made utterly no difference? Maybe we have even made things worse, for our interference. We human beings have tiny little three-pound brains. What makes us believe we know best, how our reality should be? Often, what we believe is best for us, turns out to nearly kill us. Similarly, that which we believe is horrible for us, turns out to change us, positively, for the best. It is clear we do not know what it is that will make us prosper.
Many of us live in a perpetual state of anxiety or fear, or regret or remorse. These are wasted emotions. These emotions sap your energy and have no positive effect. Regret and remorse are utterly incapable of changing the past, and since we truly cannot know what is good or bad for us, how can we profit from fear or anxiety? It is best if we leave the particulars of our lives to the will of our God, however we understand Him.
This suggestion works well for atheists, too, since all of us have a God of our understanding. Perhaps, for the atheist, their God is an impersonal and uncaring universe. It still works. Let the results be decided by someone or something other than yourself. When we stop trying to control events around us, much better things come to pass than we had ever envisioned.
This is not to say we don't participate. We do. We show up every day, and we do the next right thing. This is not to say we don't make plans. We do. We are simply willing to get out of the way should the God of our understanding have something better in store for us. In my experience, when I get out of the way of God, the most amazing things happen to me. When I try to control some things, my fat sausage-fingers manage to make it much worse.
Back to the topic of this forum: We all have directions we believe the forum should go. Yet, if we did succeed in altering the forum's direction, we might end up destroying it outright.
So, how do you take over Free Republic? You can't. You shouldn't even try.
Posting on FR back then sharpened your skills. It honed your sense of message. It forced you to think your argument through very, very carefully before hitting “Post”, for you knew all too well what would happen if you posted something stupid or not well thought out.
I guess the term I would use for those days would be “scholarly”. It was a more scholarly approach.....but hey; what the hell. It’s a fun site to share thoughts, ideas, and grievances with like-minded people from all over the world now, so we no longer need to mount the high horse.
I, for one, am fine with the change.....although I do miss some of those original posters.
BTW, I do not believe Andy Kaufman is really dead.
He's right, and Jim Robinson deserves compliments. This is a serious defect in lots of other websites and I don't know why all websites don't make it easy to tell if somebody has replied to your post. It is not rocket science and should be standard operating practice.
Laz, I am really impressed. Yes, you did practice what you wrote. Good on ya’!
Well aren't you special.
Pretending everyone who doesn't agree 100% with Jim is a RINO or troll is just childish and silly, not to mention boring
Banning and censoring many more is not a conservative trait.
Rules unevenly applied is not a conservative trait
Hate, which is rampant here, is not a conservative trait.
Flip flopping (Romney postings) is not a conservative trait
Begging, is not a conservative trait. Just to name a few.
I started FR as a hobby in my spare time while working on another business venture during the day. In the beginning, we were more about fighting government abuse, corruption, Clinton, et al, and creeping socialism. As more and more members signed up and started posting, it evolved into a site that set its goals on restoring the constitution. Seemed at the time that if we could only get the government to abide by the constitution, then it would be much smaller and have less room for corruption and abuse.
Then we noticed that many of our members signing up were either veterans or had family members serving and so we also evolved into a site that was very supportive of our troops and appreciative of all who fight or fought to keep us free. And we kept growing.
Along the way we became a great big family that played together, fought together, prayed together. We realized that this on-going fight was much bigger and had a lot more meaning than just the constitution and fighting corruption. The real fight turns out to be a fight to restore our traditional American way of life and to restore faith in God to a nation and a people who had lost their way and was completely demoralized. America cannot long survive if it turns its back on God!!
“Conservatism” to me means conserving our great American heritage and appreciating our founding and especially our great gift from God, our Liberty. America was founded on the belief that all men are created equal and are granted unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness by our creator, God. We have a classless society. No man need bow to another. We all share equality (equal treatment) under the law. We all have a right to our lives, our privacy, to live and raise our families where and how we choose and to educate our children as we choose. A right to our endeavors and to enjoy the fruits of our labor. To worship freely. To speak out. To own property. To bear arms. To defend ourselves against criminals, evil doers, tyranny and wannabe kings or dictators.
We are the only nation on earth (as far as I know) that was created and run by the people and for the people based on the belief that we’re all equal in God’s eyes and that our rights come directly from Him. Our rights are not granted by government. And government does not derive its powers from God. And our rights cannot be taken away by government!!
Our government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed!
We the people created this government and WE granted or delegated to it certain limited powers and they are defined and enumerated in our constitution. All other powers are reserved to the states and the people! That’s you and me, brother and sister. We are the sovereigns. And it is our right and duty to secure or restore the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Free Republic has extended a welcome to all like-minded conservatives who believe the much or all of above and wish to join our fight. All others are welcome to do as they wish, but the should NOT TREAD ON US or our beliefs on our private property!! We aggressively defend our God-given right to freedom of speech and freedom of association!!
For God, Life, Family, Country, Liberty!!
On the begging accusation, long ago the FReepers who love FR decided to donate money to keep it going. Amy, John and I were partners in a separate software venture when I started FR as a hobby in my spare time. It was just a hobby on the side. But it wouldn’t stop growing. It soon consumed ALL of my time and then all of John’s. And eventually all of Amy’s that she had available to her. Our commercial software venture soon fell by the wayside. Now we are not wealthy people and we have to make a living. We have bills and have to eat. We couldn’t take FR commercial due to the fact that we were always getting threats of lawsuits. We felt we had a fair use right to use copyrighted news material as long as it was for discussion, education and critiquing purposes and not for commercial use. And we did eventually get sued, in fact sued several times, But we held our ground for as long as we possibly could and eventually had to compromise. Otherwise, we’d be spending all of our time fighting suits.
Long story short, even though it was continuing to grow, we didn’t have the money to keep it on the net. So the FReepers who love and use FR decided to fund it themselves via donations. In the beginning, I wasn’t even involved in the fundraisers. FReepers freely volunteered their time to step in and raise the funds necessary to keep FR alive.
Now I find that we excerpt most material anyway, so we might be able to go commercial if we choose, but then I’d be afraid that FR would lose its way. FReepers love it because of or dedication to our causes. If its goal becomes concentrated on just making money, then its a whole ‘nother ball game.
Nothing wrong with capitalism. I love it. There’s no better way for a free society. But FR was never intended to be a commercial business venture, and still isn’t. And I’m not looking to get rich. I’m hoping we can just continue the way we are.
If you don’t wish to donate, don’t bother. If you don’t like our goals on FR, or don’t like the way we manage it, but wish to continue posting here anyway, be my guest. But I really don’t see any need for you to complain and snipe while here. There are plenty of antifreeper sites out there for that kind of activity and I’m sure you can find a better managed site if you have a mind to.
Thanks!
And we thank and are eternally grateful to all loyal FReepers who do appreciate and love this site and our causes and wish to keep it going and keep up the fight for Liberty!!
Thank you all very much!!
Thank you for this wonderful site, this Free Republic.
A little insight into The Real Laz.... as opposed to the one I play here (lol)....
Thank you very much, Trisham!!
Sheesh. I read and tweaked that rant two or three times before I posted it, but still didn’t catch all the typos until after it posted.
I didn’t notice a single thing awry. In fact, it was wonderful. :)
Well heck, now I'll have to reread it and look for mistakes!
Not a rant Boss, but a good, clear statement of facts.
As usual...!!!...very well stated!
Happy Mother’s Day to your beautiful wife..
Excuse me. Why am I not on your ping list young man??
And you?
Stop being so grumpy. Good grief.
Thanks very much, dearest Jim.
God bless and keep you. Long live Free Republic and YOU, John and Amy!
FYI, fml = Marcella is very special!
You’re not happy here. Take a hike.
Trust me, you won’t be missed.
Patriot FReeper donors, like me and countless others, are HAPPY to support our forum with our FREELY given donations.
I only wish and I hope to soon be able to give MORE!
True, but the thing is FR had become something less than a feeling of "I'm home" in the last few months, RE: discussion of GOP Candidates, and a lot of good people were banned and/or disparaged - posters who seemed way too flexible to those who had a different view of flexibility as a disgusting trait that had no place on these boards.
Mr. Robinson has re-established the tone of the dialogue which appears to allow different opinions to be stated without banning as the result, within reason of course.
Sometimes I'm thinkin' that FR has been taken over by Obamabots who rant against Romney to generate a vote for Obama or no vote for POTUS in the next election. There is probably no way of telling if that is happening, but that certainly is the result of lots of threads and posts here. If is it happening - FR has been taken over, big time.
I'm one of the posters that will compromise - vote for Romney, primarily because I feel that he will offer up conservative leaning Supreme's with 2-3 positions possibly opening up in the next 4 years - for sure the next 8 years. Yes, I also agree that he could do some damage to the cause, but some or a lot less than Obama is planning to do if given the opportunity. Romney is simply the best bet!
Just sayin' so don't get all uppity on me for no good reason and as you tend to do lately.
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