(Tonight? I am 0 for 4 on all of the debates and being able to post. I hope whoever said election night will be lighter traffic is correct. But I don’t recall it ever being this bad.)
I was a big poster here back in 1999 and again in 2004. Went on protests with all FR members in LA from that day, wife was SAS member, and I have many memorable pictures from FR protests and desert shooting events.
These days it is impossibly slow to navigate whenever ANY news hits, much less during a debate. Now the site seems to be filled with a bunch of intolerant posters on top of it?
FR has gone downhill. I am sorry to say that, never thought in a million years that I would. Some of you make me very sad tonight. This is not the FR that I signed up with in 1999.
Good luck with your lives....
My apologies, joined May 2000, hung out with FR’s since 1999......Just to head off more corrective posts.
No ! Don’t leave “FR” Vanman!
I have been a member? Freeper since 1996-7? It was so great back then. Everybody got their point across. No body viciously attacked another for a differing opinion. And no one was so far out that they would wish any fellow human being any kind of physical or emotional harm (good people)
I don’t know how long ago it was, maybe as soon after as 9/11?, That FR started having different types of “Freepers” coming onto the scene. First colorful...then came the disrupters, and soon after, the contentious (spreading misinformation)...obvious haters of other people/s. The down right evil in my opinion.
I wrote to FR and complained of the way Free Republic had changed over the years for the worst, and that it just wasn’t worth it any more to be a contributor because of wasted time through endless rebukes and exchanges between **sholes, or the vicious personal attacks I saw happening to myself and others, instead of the constructive sharing or the uplifting dialog and discussions we used to have.
No doubt George Soros and his ilk infiltrated FR long ago to sow dissent. FR front office MUST have done something, because seemed to quiet down for a while. But only two? years later, it’s back to the same poison misinformation and one upmanship than before. Vehement, un loving.... unholy.
I still check in every once in a while to see if they’ve gotten back on the right track. Don’t write them off. The Free Republic I remember was like the birth of the revolution. Wonderful people, whom some of them may even be reading this now, that know that Free Republic will always be here. The dark forces will come and go, but the heart of Free Republic is good, and was born in good. So it will survive in the end.
I used to take things so personally, what people wrote. I just let all the negative back and forth go. The vehement quarrels, the mean dissensions...those who are rabid in the head, just let them go....out of my life. I found I can still be a constructive part of it all. You can tell who has a good heart or not, and those of good intentions. Stick and write to THOSE people.
I know there will once again be a time on FR that there will be fun, informative, respectful discussions and debates on the issues of the day, like we had in the good old days of “Really free” Free Republic. Don’t go away Vanman, there are many still here from old, of good intentions, who watch....and weigh in, form time to time, come what may. Take care, R
P.S. by the way... Romney made Mr. O. look like he a deer who got hit by a car and was walking sideways.