Amen.
I’ve gotten along pretty well with just about everyone on FR for the past 26, almost 27 years. And thank you for making that possible.
I don’t think you understand the forces that you are up against. Not grass roots. Organized. They really don’t care about being nice. Disruption is the game.
Glad to see you post. God bless.
BFL.
.
We should all listen to this man, and heed the call.
God Bless Jim Robinson
Thank you. I will try to give myself at least a minute pause when tempted to fire off an uncharitable reply.
God bless you, too, Boss. We love you and thank you for this incomparable Forum.
God bless you Jim, hang in there, we are all praying for you and the Republic!
Thank you for establishing the best community on the internet, Jim!
Jesus said "turn the other cheek", He did not say we are to be doormats to repeated offenses.
Forgive does not mean forget. It also does not mean that we must allow those who offend us to continue doing so. We are to rebuke them with the intent to correct them and help them get back on the right path.
If they keep refusing to do what's right, we are instructed to stop casting pearls before swine.
I stopped engaging the enemy long ago. I can forgive them, it doesn't mean I forget, nor does it mean I allow them to continue offending/harming me and those I love.
As my brother from another mother Laz will attest, I've said many times we are in spiritual warfare. Evil no longer hides itself. It's right out in the open, for all to see.
Do not normalize it, do not go along with it, do not pretend it'll go away and do not ignore it.
Rebuke it. As strongly and loudly as we can. All of us. Do not let evil go unnamed, unnoticed, unrebuked.
We are to be spiritual warriors for our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of our LIVING GOD, our Father in Heaven.
I no longer care who I "offend" because they're either willfully ignorant or flat-out evil.
I am a happy warrior. A happy SPIRITUAL WARRIOR who calls out evil for what it is.
We who believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior should ALL do so!
Best to you!
USConservative (Member since 1998)
Let me also take the opportunity to say that with this forum and other things you have sponsored that you, along with the USMC do not have to worry about whether you have made a difference in the world.
Jesus might say something like
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Or
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Or something else.
Jesus didn’t hold back from what would be considered insults.
When it fit.
It was obviously not his main mode of discourse.
Thanks, Mr Jim....
We’ll have our disagreements in this forum, sometimes very strong and heated ones, but I do believe many of us here are common-sense thinking people unlike our adversaries on the other side of the political aisle.
We have been. I am fine with it. In fact, there have been far worse wars on this site in the past. Seems people forget about some of that.
People need to learn to not take things so seriously and if the arguments get too heated to just walk away. A person doesn’t need to answer every post and keep it all going.
That is how we get along. Make your point and shy away from prolonged arguing.
I've pushed the abuse button a few times, but only on posts that used extremely offensive profanity or were over-the-top personal attacks on another poster that were not germane to the topic being discussed. In rare cases, I've pushed it when people who lost an argument descended into nasty ad hominem tirades against the other person.From the Free Republic Home Page:
Please enjoy our forum, but also please remember to use common courtesy when posting and refrain from posting personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threats, racial or religious bigotry, or any other materials offensive or otherwise inappropriate for a conservative family audience...Free Republic is a site dedicated to the concerns of traditional grassroots conservative activists. We're here to discuss and advance our conservative causes in a more or less liberal-free environment. We're not here to debate liberals. We do not want our pages filled with their arrogant, obnoxious, repugnant bile. Liberals, usurpers, and other assorted malcontents are considered unwelcome trolls on FR and their accounts and or posts will be summarily dismissed at the convenience of the site administrators.
Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government. Free Republic advocates a return to constitutionally limited government, reserving all government powers not expressly delegated by the constitution to the United States to the States respectively, or the people, emphasizing sovereign state governments, local government, self-government and self-rule, while restricting government powers to only those enumerated in the constitution...
This is why I personally try to find a constitutional aspect to whatever issue or thread that I choose to participate in.
I try to write in the third person indefinite style and avoid direct personal statements (like how Congress has rules that debate must be directed at the Chair and not other members).
I try to state my case concisely (but completely) so that others have the opportunity to understand my complete thought process before engaging me. I find that short, terse fragments of thoughts only leads the reader to fill in blanks that were not intended but that provoke unwanted responses.
I believe that once I speak on a matter and complete a dialogue with another reader to make my thinking clear, I am done with the matter. The reader is free to decide who made the better point; hounding the other person into submission to my opinion is pointless.
And I avoid the ad hominem at all costs. Name-calling, taunts, profane accusations, and closing posts with insinuations or putting words in the other person's mouth goes against everything that a reasoned debate should be about.
-PJ
Help each of us to remember that, for there may be those times when we forget unintentionally.
I just ignore posts that call me names or use profanity.........