Posted on 02/03/2016 6:31:45 PM PST by Kush
My fellow Freepers, I would like to ask a few minutes of your time tonight. I have been a member of Free Republic for almost 18 years now, and in all that time, I have never felt the need to do a vanity post. Truth be told, I don't care much for them, and I never thought that what I had to say was worth all that much bandwidth. But after the last 6 months of coming here and watching the circus that this place has become, I have decided that tonight is the night I step off the perch and get down in the weeds. It's funny sometimes what can set a person off, and this is what did it to me this evening. In the grand scheme of things, a one sentence comment on a previous post doesn't really amount to much, but I feel this comment is endemic of what has been going on here recently. Indulge me if you will.
To bring you up to speed, here is the original post.
Greta lets Trump Smear Cruz Directly without Greta Stating that CNN Announced Carson Exit
And this would be the comment in question
To: mitchell001
Cruz got busted now he is acting all psycho. Very sad.
31 posted on 2/3/2016, 7:24:03 PM by patq [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse]
After reading this comment, something inside me finally snapped, and I decided the time for silence was over. So I penned a reply to this user, and was about to post it, when I thought, if I reply just to him (or her), what I had to say would end up buried in a post that had probably reached it's useful end. IOW, who would really see this? Probably only the one I posted it too, and that would just kick off a flame war with this one user. And you know what they say about arguing with a fool. But I felt that this message should be see by as many freepers as possible, because, all hubris aside, I felt it got to the heart of what has been so wrong about this site as of late. So I present my answer to patq in full, and I hope it resonates beyond my own furtive mind.
To: patq
Cruz got busted now he is acting all psycho. Very sad.
No, actually what is sad is all you johnny-come-latelys that have been infecting this site with these fifth grade antics of late. In case you haven't noticed, this is not twitter, instagram, or the comments section of yahoo. This is Free Republic, the greatest conservative site in the sorry history of the internet. Just ask Dan Rather. And what your ilk is turning it into is a crying shame. You and your fellow travelers are making this place unbearable with all your childish attacks. Acting psycho, really? Is that what you bring to the table? I can get better insight from talking to a 4 year old.
It is not hyperbole to state that this is going to be the most important election in my lifetime, probably top 3 in the history of the Republic, and I and many others on this site have to wade through these oceans of bullshit flame wars to try and find the substantive arguments over who would be the best possible candidate to guide this country out of the Obama wilderness.
Is Trump your guy? Great, tell me why you think that his sudden appearance as a rock solid conservative, despite 30 years of evidence to the contrary, is to be trusted.
Is Cruz your guy (obviously not in your case)? Great, tell me how someone so disliked by the hierarchy of his own party can make his presidency work.
You like Rubio? Fantastic, now make the case for why a guy who stabbed his supporters in the back on amnesty now deserves our trust.
You see where I'm going with this? These are adult issues, deserving of an adult conversation. Leave the playground taunts where they belong, on the playground. And stop wrecking what was, is, and will always be the preeminent site for conservative thought and discussion on the world wide web. Oh yeah, and have a nice day.
Kush
That’s all right.
As long as we get an occasion “damn you all to hell” opus like we had the other night.
The Cruz people have convinced me that Trump is Satan.
The Trump people have convinced me that Cruz is Satan.
Since it is against my religion to vote for Satan, who do I vote FOR?
Kush
Great post. Haven’t been around for awhile, came back and it amazed me. It looks like the nonsense that goes on over at Breitbart.
Civility is not something to be mocked as elitist or evidence of a lack of passion. It is a prerequisite to thoughtful dialogue that has sadly become very unfashionable of late.
And by the way, you nailed the major concern with each of the three top candidates. Thank you.
Hear Hear
...”it is rather disturbing”....
I call it sinister...it’s not the normal political passion we’ve had in the past........under any other circumstances Trump would never be accepted as a potential candidate.....for all the reasons expressed time and again....it’s like mob rules all with no thought nor reason. And the few innocents here who have gotten swept up in the madness gives me such heartache...they’re better judgement got taken from them.
thx i was getting afraid to reply to any posts. right now i a trumpster and i have commented that as a businessman his political views only mattered to his fellow business people and now i hear him speak read his position papers and he sounds like he loves the country and wants to clean house. he calls congress and obama stupid. what is not to like. but any one of the republican candidates is better than clinton/sanders. THe three major things that he might accomplish are stop illegal and muslim immigration (only one saying it - this is conservaties future) Tax reduction. His vet programs is major for vets. (only one with a PPO type vet program — this is healing our past and future) repeal common core — this is our future
Couldn't agree more. I will admit without hesitation that I was caught up a little at first, someone going where none dared to tread. I thought finally a voice to the voiceless, this is great. But as you stated, the incivility that has foamed up in his wake is counter productive to finally addressing what it is that has been causing the pent up rage. Unfocused anger is as much a threat to our republic as unfettered immigration. If he has a brake pedal, I wish that he would occasionally tap it, just to make sure the brakes still work.
Kush
Since "that guy" doesn't exist we have to get behind one of them.
Rubio may *surprise* us, but I don't think he has a chance in the general.
One thing I'll agree on, is the stopping of endless savaging of other fellow republicans, and fellow FReepers.
Do you REALLY want Hillary or Bernie anywhere NEAR the WH?
Hell, I'd take Christie (or Yeb!, yes I said it) if it came down to that choice.
That poster is right......
I had to take a hiatus from Free Republic for the reasons you outlined.
I don’t know why I came back today but I do think a little sanity may be creeping back onto the site.
Kush, I think the observation that caw wrote, “Trump isn’t the problem ... it’s what he’s unleashed...” is the key to your point about discussions and rants on FR.
Trump has rewritten the rule book of presidential elections, but he is a political amateur and plays by his rules. Okay with that if he knows how to handle issues and people. He has to be reminded that this is a deadly serious presidential primary race, and not an episode of “The Apprentice”.
I like Trump’s guts. What he needs are some pragmatic, realistic guiding hands, but the regular GOP has smashed those voices so many times I’m not sure who is left out there to help Trump or Cruz or Carson, etc.
Cruz. I like the way he fights in Congress. He doesn’t take any crap from the Dems or his own RINOS. And he is very articulate on many items that I’m concerned with.
Hope he gets good advisors and better PR.
Rubio. Too young and not politically stabilized yet. Immigration is one of his problems and he hasn’t gotten a handle on it that we can rally around.
Carson: A real gentleman but not ready for primetime politics. However, he will make a great cabinet member, esp. in Health and Human Services, which needs a thorough disinfecting after Kathleen/Katherine? Sebelius’ rule and ruin.
The rest are either has-beens, never-beens, or ego-trippers. Some are really nice people but they are not ready for the presidency.
PS: If none of the above suit you, I’m available for a national mail-in campaign. If you liked what I did in the “MadMax Road Warrior” movies, you’ll love what I want to do to ISIS, AL Qaeda, enlarging GITMO for the Dems I’m going to arrest, prosecute and jail for treason, and my general house-cleaning of some government agencies with Semtex-laden ExLax.
I’ll also be changing Executive Orders to mean “Exit, Out” bad rules along with the people who knowingly wrote them.
And that is just in the first 5 minutes in office. After that, the fun really begins.
I totally agree with you, Irenic.
The Iowa race should have showed us something about Cruz.
He badly wanted to win. Of course he did. He also knew that sticking to his principles on ethanol subsidies would hurt him.
Trump and Rubio rushed to support the subsidies. Cruz stood firm. He won anyway.
He will make a great president.
This is where if the GOP has some real leadership at the helm instead of that useless piece of cow dung, Reince Priebus, he could sit down with Trump and advise him and keep him in line.
Agreed and same here. Purged for just defending canadates that IMHO had more conervative history than Trump or Rubio. Not supporting just defending. Now it’s just so different.
I haven’t posted very much over the last few years but when Cruz got into the race and we finally had a true conservative choice, an American hero who had stood up to the DC Cartel for us I wanted to show support for him. It’s to the point that I don’t want to interact with the Trump supporters anymore, they bring out the worst in me. Just don’t want to give them the power to do that anymore. Maybe the answer is not to have any discourse with them.
.....”Civility is not something to be mocked as elitist or evidence of a lack of passion. It is a prerequisite to thoughtful dialogue that has sadly become very unfashionable of late.”.......
That needs repeating.....I have to share that FR posters, over these years has taught me so very much...I found coming here I didn’t know half of what I thought I knew and certainly discovered what I knew wasn’t exactly as it is. I miss terribly those debates and discussions.....as passionate as they can be we all learned I think.
Now that I’m standing up and fighting it’s like I’m in a wrestling match rather than a discussion or even a passionate debate...it’s all just air and insults and all the rest.
I learned to take a healthy stand here.....I don’t like it feeling like I’m in a wrestling match. But I’m not going to sit still and hear this nonsense about Cruz.
Frankly, being disliked by the Uniparty is a badge of honor where I sit. We've "hired" well-liked people with good "electability" ratings and they all turned into go-along to get-along squishes without any core principles. It only took a couple years for most of them to forget why they were sent to Washington and who they work for. Frankly, I think the Cruz "dislike" factor is blown all out of proportion. I also think that nobody, absolutely nobody, could be more unlikable than Obama. The childish and immature way he has treated Republicans is disgraceful. I think Cruz is much more of a mature statesman and will definitely have what it takes to work with his own party. The powers-that-be are less put off by his "likability" than the threat he poses to their cozy gravy train. "Likability" is a red herring.
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