And what if the farmer asked me to chip in for the paint? Would I have "whining" rights then?
What IS the point? Jim Rob isn't going to give them what they want, nor is there a reason for him to do so. So what are they trying to accomplish? Are they just secretly trying to increase the donations for him? If so, they're doing a good job so far... at the expense of losing all their credibility. (Assuming they ever had any.) Maybe they are helping him that way on purpose. If not, then they're shooting themselves in the foot.
They're too bitter to be secret assistants, though. So far, they haven't managed to convince anyone of anything, nor have those who claimed the site was a fraud or that the donations are 'misused' managed to prove or support their points. They haven't presented anything of note in thousands of posts but some lame come-backs... and more whining. Instead, they just make unsupported allegations, or complain of their hurt feelings, make weepy-eyed appeals for sympathy, feign 'persecution,' pretend to be martyrs, pretend to be 'for the children (other freepers)' all with exaggerated claims of their 'rights' being usurped when they have no 'rights' on this site to begin with.
They came, they complained, they accomplished nothing.
No one has 'rights' on this site but the owner. None of them have managed to justify why the owner should not run the site as he pleases.
We've heard one try to make a 'one of the guys' appeal by feigning concern for the owner's well-being... demanding a right to know the site's funding information so as to prevent the owner from being 'abused.' What a joke! Does anyone think Hillary Clinton was collecting FBI files for the benefit of the people whose were the subjects of those files?
One went on to try to justify his demands by claiming he was doing it for the sake of people who might be spending their limited little incomes on donations... and could somehow be bilked. An amusing claim, to say the least. Definitely not a claim a conservative would make. Very illogical as well, because the person would be out of the money whether the donation was public information or not. The site isn't selling products, and then not delivering. Perhaps the 'genius' who thought up that argument should spend his time investigating people who try to sell meat to people in neighborhoods out of the back of their trucks.
They claim to want 'what's best' for the site. But who asked them to run the site OR be the determinants of what is 'best' for it? What business is it of theirs? What right do they have to be heard here? They only have a right to be heard here so long as the owner wants them to be heard here. Period.
What is right for the site is whatever the owner wants to do with it, whether he wants to make it grow or even if he wants to utterly run it into the ground. It's his right, because it is his site, entirely his site. He can put whoever he wants in charge of the sideboards, and they are accountable only to him. He can do it all himself if he wished to do so. He doesn't have to answer to you, or to me, or to anyone else when he does do what he wants here. He doesn't HAVE to tell us why he bans us, or a post was deleted. He doesn't have to justify his actions to us in any way. We can only ask. And once we ask, we can vote only with our feet- if we don't like it, we can leave.
Until these jokers prove that it isn't his site, or that they are managers and shareholders, they have no case.
Now, some folks who have been banned didn't go and whine about it, and didn't set up sites devoted to ruining the reputations of the owner of this site. Those people still have respect, and Jim Rob generally lets them come back after a time. That doesn't mean they are immune from getting the boot again.
Most of the people whining here have in fact been banned, which is why they whine. They HAVE been asked to leave by the owner of the property. Even when asked, some of them simply changed screen names and came back aboard. That was unethical and shows that they have no respect for the owner's right to run his own site.
Others attempted to set up their own sites and that was wonderful- that was the respectable way to behave and still excercies their rights. The owner of FreeRepublic didn't go on their sites and whine like they do here, because he respects their rights more than they respect his. I sure don't go to their sites and complain about them. their sites have nothing to offer or interest people- if they did they'd be getting lots of hits and their owners wouldn't have time to come and bash the owner here for doing what is clearly within his rights to do.
People of high character go hang out where they're wanted and respected. They don't whine. You can whine all you want on the whiner's thread, but If you get banned, respect the property owner's rights and stay that way.
I suppose. And so would all 70,000 others who "chipped in for the paint." And if Mr. A wanted a red barn and Ms. B wanted it blue, how do we reconcile THOSE differences? Do we paint the barn purple, thus enraging the anti-purples? Do we paint it white or beige -- some nice neutral that bores everyone to tears? Or do we contribute the money secure in the knowledge that the farmer is smart enough to paint the barn the color HE wants because it's HIS barn and he'll never please everyone anyway.
That seems to boil the option down to either contribute, knowing that that doesn't buy you a seat on the Board of Directors, or don't contribute and continue to use the service for free. At least until it reaches the point where either the farmer throws the deadbeats out of the barn, or the IRS forecloses on the farm and you have to hold your shindigs in the church basement.