Is Free Republic a Fraud? Is it time for Free Republic to go away?

Free Republic has had one helluva run over the last five years or so. We helped impeach one president and helped get another into office. We've been active in demonstrations and protests in nearly every city across the nation. We've participated in conventions, petition drives, activism campaigns and projects for dozens of conservative causes.

We've grown from a tiny web site with a few hundred posters and readers from the time of inception in 1996, to one with tens of thousands of participants today. Along the way we've made lots of great friends and, unfortunately, also made lots of bitter enemies.

We've grown from a small web site that I could manage myself on a part-time basis to a huge monster that has totally consumed all of my time and resources plus nearly all of John's time, plus the time and resources of many dedicated FReepers who volunteer or contribute large amounts of their own time and money.

The site is now consuming all of a 10 mbps dedicated line with two servers and we're still growing, and it consumes large amounts of money to keep all this running. In the early years, it only took a few thousand dollars per month to keep Free Republic on the air, but it is now costing over $20,000 per month to cover all expenses.

The major costs include approximately $8,000 per month for bandwidth, 3,000 for systems management and programming services, 7,000 for management, operating and administrative services, plus two or three thousand per month for miscellaneous office expenses, telephone, communications, repairs & maintenance, travel & lodging, postage, rentals, insurance, legal fees, accounting fees, etc., etc.

We anticipate a reduction in bandwidth costs next year as we renegotiate our contract (the market price for bandwidth has fallen recently), however, that will be more than offset by an expected increase in costs of our legal expenses. As most of you know, our pro bono attorney has left us and we've hired a new attorney to continue with our case, plus we have the suit against eschoir to pay for. My projections are that our regular monthly expenses for next year will be running in the neighborhood of $22,000 per month, or approximately $264,000 total for the year. This means we will need to raise approximately $66,000 per quarter.

Talking about making enemies, we've got several ex-FReepers and other detractors who are claiming on their anti-freeper web sites that I am ripping off the donors and that Free Republic is a fraud. Now, Free Republic is what it is, and it is definitely not a fraud. It is a conservative news discussion forum that encourages participation in politics and activism projects. It is not being billed as anything else. We are not selling or promising anything. And I am being up front about our operating costs. The costs of running Free Republic are what I've stated above and they are necessary to keep FR on the air. I do not have the financial wherewithal to operate this site without your help. If the majority of the FReepers feel that these costs are out of line or too much to bear or that Free Republic is no longer wanted or needed, then we will either cut it back or shut it down or do something altogether different.

I've also been criticized about not making our financials public. Well, the reason I do not want to do this is that I have been sued, both personally and as Free Republic, LLC. The people suing us want to bankrupt us and shut us down. They subpoenaed our financial records, but we refused to turn them over. The judge agreed that the plaintiffs have no right to the information, thus I have no intention of making any more of it public than I absolutely have to, until this lawsuit is resolved. You all know the amounts of money we raise if you follow the fundraising threads. It is all above board and out in the open. The totals posted by BadJoe are usually pretty close to the actual cash received and the amounts expended are pretty close to the amounts projected. No one is getting rich here and no one is being ripped off. The funds raised are being used for the purposes stated, and that is keeping this website on the air and that's it. Nothing fraudulent about it. Those who want to help fund us freely do so with nothing expected in return. Those who do not want to contribute do not have to.

There was a thread running this morning where people were making all kinds of accusations about Free Republic "hiding the truth" or whatever. These accusations are being made by Chuck Allan and others and fall along the same line with the accusations being made by some of the earlier banees or AFers including Mojo, Inspector Harry Callahan, Arator, keep U.S. Sovereign, TKEman and others. Some of these people are existing FReepers and some are banned. I am going to reinstate Mojo, Inspector Harry Callahan and Arator's accounts so they can join Chuck Allan, TKEman, K.U.S.S. and whomever else wants to get involved, and I invite them to come onto this thread and make their accusations public. As long as they do not go onto other threads and make a nuisance of themselves, I will let them have their say.

Like I said above, if it is time for Free Republic to go away so be it. Those who want to keep it going speak up. Those who want it to go away, tell us why. But if those who want it to be gone lose out in the debate, then I'd say they should just go away themselves, or, in the very least, shut up and quit whining about it.

This is a message to all Freepers. There are over 70,000 of us registered since Free Republic's inception. Probably half of us are gone by now or visit so irregularly, it hardly matters. That leaves 35,000. Out of that number, maybe only half visit this site on a semi-regular basis. That leaves 17,500. I'm being conservative here by the way.

Out of that, maybe only 10% of that number are "hard-core" Freepers. That is, Freepers who visit here practically every day and post quite often. That number would be 1,750. Now you know and I know that far more than 1,750 people visit this site every single day and benefit from what Free Republic has to offer on a constant basis. But I want to be really conservative in order to make my point.

Now let's imagine if we asked those 1,750 "hard-core" Freepers if Free Republic was worth $20 a month to them. They would all say absolutely. In a heartbeat. To us hard-cores, and I am certainly one of them, we would certainly rather pay $20 a month to Free Republic than to see it go away. Not all of us are wealthy, certainly not I, anyway. But $20 a month is very affordable to me. It's the cost of a couple of pizzas. An HBO subscription. Or a movie with the kids. Certainly Free Republic is worth that much a month to me.

Now imagine if myself and the rest of the 1,750 "hard-core" Freepers were to donate $20 a month through Free Republic by having it automatically deducted once a month from my debit card? That would provide Free Republic with $35,000 per month of revenue. That would more than cover the expenses that Jim Robinson just laid out for us. Not only would we keep Free Republic running, but we would have extra left over as well to fight the lawsuits and maybe do some fun things every once in a while.

You know what? I've BEEN giving $20 a month for the past year now through my debit card. I set it up in five minutes using this link. Since then, my $20 has painlessly been going to Free Republic automatically. I can ignore the fundraiser threads guilt-free. Furthermore, I feel good about my monthly contributions. Makes me not feel like a freeloader.

Now I've never said this before but if you are a regular Freeper like me and you do not give to Free Republic to help it stay running, then I am ashamed of you. How dare you come here each day to reap the benefits of this most excellent forum and expect Jim Robinson to pay all the bills! Now my $20 a month doesn't exactly make me a heavy hitter around here. There are others who give far more, not to mention their time as well. But if every regular Freeper gave $20 a month, or even $10 a month, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Instead, this website would be growing by leaps and bounds and we would soon be rivaling the major media in influence.

My estimate of 1,750 "hard-core" Freepers is damn conservative and you all know it. It's probably closer to 5,000. And if we have 5,000 people giving an average of $20 a month, that would be over $100,000 in contributions every single month.

Think about what I just said. If you have been giving regularly, good for you. If you haven't, please consider how valuable this website is to you and give at least something to help keep it running!

Thank you.

In an important sense, Free Republic already has gone away. Too many people here, especially the newbies but also some of the ones from way back, use Free Republic for shouting their love and support of what every violation of freedom anyone can think up. Secret military tribunals, not just for bin Laden but also for people in the United States? You're a traitor if you disagree. The Patriot Act? You're paranoid if you don't think it's just fine. If Bill Clinton had proposed this stuff, we'd have people on here talking about armed revolution. The fact that we're at war doesn't mean we should hand ourselves over, blindfold, to those with an interest in betraying us. The federal government is still what it was before September 11, and (I know this will be more unwelcome, but it's still the truth) it's still what it was when Clinton was in office. Human nature is what it is and politicians, even republican ones, are politicians. Any question of any real improvement having been made by changing the president has been settled by the ignoble exploitation of the attack to get more power for themselves.

It isn't so much that so many here are outright enemies of freedom, it's the unreasoning quality of it. Anything from certain sites, or by certain people (including, bizarrely, Ron Paul) is immediately set upon by people who seem incapable of using anything but ad hominem arguments. These people seem to see no distinction between believing in freedom and being a communist or a liberal or a member of the taliban or whatever pops into their heads. Not only is this bad in itself, it poisons the whole forum. The more of it goes on, the less rational discussion goes on. This sort of thing happened before, but it's choking off good discussion. Another thing polluting the forum is that the newbies are often carrying in bad habits from other forums or chat rooms. For example, I've seen people write "R" for "are". Some of them just aren't that good at writing English. Too many people use all-caps instead of arguments.

Sure, this stuff happened before, but it's a lot worse now.

I don't think it's so much the attack, although that made it worse (the nuke 'em all crowd and suchlike), as it is the fact that people let their guards down when Bush got elected. How many of the people exulting over every new government power would have the attitude with Clinton in office? Few or none, I would venture. Why did we hate Clinton, anyway? Because he was the kind of person to exploit tragedies to expand his power? So, it turns out, is Bush. He had a fascist Attorney General? Well, congratulations, now we have a mere authoritarian. Does anyone doubt that Ashcroft would've treated Elian the same way Reno did? But I suppose that would be fine, so long as the kid's taken by our jack-booted thugs. Did we go through the whole election thing just to get the privilege of having the same policies Clinton or Gore would've enacted pushed through by someone with an R after his name? The bill's the same, but the person signing it hasn't slept with the interns, so we're happy? Was it all about the sex after all?

Do we have anything that we really stand for, or are we here to be cheerleaders for Bush?

Freepers have largely given up the fight for freedom, or were never involved in fighting for freedom in the first place and just joined recently so they could cheer each new chain. I'm afraid we won't get the old Free Republic back until there's a democrat in office. But why don't we like the democrats? Is it really nothing more than the reason people in Chicago don't like the Packers? That kind of political activism is more than a little hollow. There has to be some set of principles that we hold even our own to, or there really is no reason for us to exist. If we're that destitute of principles, not even principles but just plain thoughts of our own, we really don't have a reason to exist. Not just Free Republic, but the whole Right. If we give up on the idea of freedom this easily, we might as well hand over the country to the Left. Why not? They're winning anyway, and Bush is helping them do it. Look at all the new democrats coming in over the border. Unless things change pretty radically, there won't be anything worthwhile left in 20 years. Maybe we should just give up, then. If there was somewhere else, we might go there when things break down too much here, but there isn't. Why not, then? As it stands now, they won, not just America, but humanity. Just have a good time, don't care, munch your grass like a good little sheep, and hope things get better a few hundred years from now.

Maybe things will look better in the morning.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.