Posted on 10/08/2001 10:25:47 PM PDT by ouroboros
Anyone who has visited this once great conservative forum will by now have noticed a crackdown on certain opinions regarding this quagmire into which America’s military has so enthusiastically launched itself. Quite aside from the warmongering comments that now saturate the forum, opinion pieces that are strongly critical of our president, foreign policy, or sacred cows such as Ann Coulter tend to get yanked from their server pretty quickly. Admittedly, not all antiwar pieces that are posted get pulled, but they are predictably panned and trolled by these self-righteous armchair generals. Oh, there are still a few voices of reason and noninterventionism on the forum, but they number maybe a couple of dozen, at most, while the warmongering majority rank in the several thousand. Disheartening, to say the least.
Nor has the forum always been this uncritical of American foreign policy. During the Kosovo war and after, voices critical of NATO and U.S. involvement seemed to be in the majority. It was enough to begin to give one hope that real change for the better might be possible. And it illustrated excellently how the antiwar movement had shifted to the right. Of course, since Bush Jr. became president, none of the damage done to the Balkans has been undone, and the US is still involved militarily there even today. In this matter, Freepers now prefer to look the other way, or to think that it has no relevance to current events. And besides, it’s all Bill Clinton’s fault anyway.
Posting images of nuclear explosions are a particularly popular form of patriotic expression these days, often accompanied by comments such as "Lets Roll!" or "If only we had the will to use it!" Absolutely charming. They must be proud to be able to express such genocidal feelings so openly. If it took an attack on America's home soil to spark this kind of patriotism, one can only imagine the amount of "patriotism" abroad that decades of US military interventionism have succeeded in cultivating around the globe. I strongly suspect that in the case of FR’s nuke-‘em-all crowd, they have at least secretly harbored the desire to drop the big-one on the "ragheads" years before September 11th, and now feeling vindicated, they are able to come out of the closet.
In addition to the absolutely rabid warmongering, there is the new American-syle Hitler Youth/Gestapo mindset. For example, an article written by Justin Raimondo will often bring out the junior G-men on the forum with remarks like: "Who is this Justin Raimondo/Antiwar.com (or Lew Rockwell for that matter)? Has the FBI/CIA/IRS looked into them?" Geez Louise! No doubt these folks on the forum were never good friends of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to begin with, and were staunch supporters of the war-on-drugs. But now, with a new war (and the old one isn’t even over yet) to sink their fangs into and a potential police state just around the corner, they too, are able to come out of the closet.
To the credit of many Freepers, a good number of them (not necessarily a majority) are still questioning some proposals such as national id cards. However, I suspect that this too will get worse, as more and more decide that trading their liberties for security is worth it.
But now a brand new facet in the quest for self-censorship has appeared. One that would be laughable if it weren’t so sad: Under their new "Loose Lips Sink Ships" philosophy FR is now yanking breaking news stories regarding attacks launched on the Taliban, even though anyone can turn on the TV or go to one of the major news sites and get the information for themselves.
Oh, eventually FreeRepublic gets around to keeping the story up on their server. But darn, FR used to be such a great source for breaking news!
October 9, 2001
Malcolm Garris (send him mail) is in charge of web graphics for Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com.
Copyright © 2001 LewRockwell.com
LOL. FR is only four years old, and already this guy has been reduced to bleating about some mythical "good old days."
And where exactly have you condemned this piece of garbage from Lewser's site, which posts lies, distortions, and insults about FreeRepublic? Your selective outrage speaks volumes. "I strongly suspect" that Garris was reacting to Jim Robinson's recent words wishing that the me-first/America-last libertarians stay as a fringe outfit they have always been, so here they are lashing back at him, and your condemnation is where?
LRC is so far from being "liberal" or "commie" that accusing it of being so is laughable. Its goal (one that I thought FR shared) is the restoration of republican (small "r", please note) government based on the principles laid down by our founders.
As far as foreign affairs goes, in a nutshell what the founders wanted was "friends of liberty everywhere, defenders of liberty, nowhere but on our shores."
LRC never wavers. Rockwell and his stable of writers will be writing pro-freedom articles until the "Office of Homeland Security" shuts them down, and the rest of us are making sure our "national ID cards" are in order for that trip to grandma's.
The rant above is typical of those whose policies are disintegrating before their very eyes. These dogmatics have never been able to distinguish between theory and practice. Pragmatism is a dirty word to them. Theory above Justice seems to be their cry. The real problem is of course their own faulty Moral code.
I know what you mean. I am a big Second Amendment supporter myself and know the controversy over the interpretations concerning who, individuals or militia can own guns. BUT...There is no ambiguity if you look at what powers were originally given to what parts of Government and to the people. If conservatives today can support big government, repressive taxes, an all powerful executive branch, state powers now in the hands of the Feds with the states as administrators, federal control of private property, and now the biggest push yet to take individual freedoms away from the people (fed domestic security, national ID cards, face recognition use, carnivore), then there really isn't a serious conservative movement.
In 1994 it looked like conservative reformers had been elected to congress and things were looking good. Then they started to reform and as soon as all the pseudo conservative republicans saw that they might look all the demo perks, they stopped that sh*t fast.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt
"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad." -- James Madison
You betcha!!
Screen names can have meaning. And CJ's is entirely appropriate. He's on a holy war and won't let facts or logic get in his way.
That's a shame. I don't understand these people who think that you have to agree about everything to be a libertarian. Some seem to want to impose a libertarian purity test.
There was a Lew Rockwell article posted a few weeks ago and the author came to defend his piece on FR and suggested that I wasn't a libertarian because I support the war. All of this, on both sides, is an attempt at thought control.
I admit, I have refrained from posting opinions on certain things because I know I would receive flack for it and be associated, in whole, with one person's despised group or another.
Now I find myself in the middle because on the one hand, with the majority, I see it as being beyond question that we must fight to defend ourselves, but, with the minority, I also agree with many of the critisizims of our foreign policy as well.
You have to wonder if they realize that they are using the same slogans ("imperialist foreign policy," military-industrial complex," "shadow cabal, "East Coast Establishment") as their spiritual comrades on the Left. You have to wonder whether some of them are philosophical comrades. Oh wait, I forgot, you don't.
Four years on the internet is a looooong time. Internet years are even longer than dog years.
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