Posted on 06/25/2002 3:42:21 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
The following email is being circulated to our members by various disgruntled former FReepers:
Subject: The Future of Our Free RepublicDear Fellow Free Republic Member,
Many of us at Free Republic are distressed by the extraordinary level of censorship that has been so obviously going on. It is very obvious that individual posts, entire threads, and the entire work of members who have been highly regarded are disappearing into a Memory Hole.
Scores of us have organized an e-mail network that is independent of the communication controls presently, and sadly, being used at our Free Republic. We have carefully documented the unmistakeable evidence that most of the posts, threads, and posters that are vaporized completely are overwhelmingly targeted for their political stance on the Right. These are not Leftwingers. These are not even Middle-of-the-Roaders. These are not disruptors. These are not foul-mouthed delinquents. These are fellow patriots on the Right who disagree with the controllers of FR on specific issues that are now hotly debated by the Right. We have documented that FR will parade before you, as if to hide all of the great posters whose work has been destroyed, a straw-man delinquent that has been banned. This is deceptive.
Treating these fellow patriots on the Right so shabbily is not right. As shabbily as those banned into the Memory Hole are being treated, the most shabbily treated of all are all of the good folks on Free Republic themselves. We came here for honest debate. Free Republic advertised itself as a Forum for honest debate. Without that honest debate...everything at Free Republic becomes shabby.
We can do much better. As a measure of how intense the simmering feelings have gotten among members on this unjustifiable use of deleting, censoring, and banning please link to the following thread. You will notice that one simple and sincere plea from one of our finest members has spontaneously touched off a prairie fire of approximately 500 posts in a mere 18 hours. If it isn't Memory Holed this thread may shoot into the thousands.
If you would like to receive anonymous updates of information concerning the hundreds of Freepers who have networked via e-mail to restore the wonderful honest debate to Free Republic, just drop an e-mail of just one or two words if you like for extreme brevity to:
StopCensoringUs@hotmail.com
And, here's that link back to the snowballing thread at FR:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/704701/posts
Thank you so much for giving your thought to this vital matter for our Internet home.
Sincerely, StopCensoringUs@hotmail.com
Yep.....go ahead, come out and say it...I will....it's FREEDOM. Only FREEDOM encourages and empowers us to use our native ingenuity.... which can only thrive in a FREE people. There is nothing like FREE THOUGHT, is there? LOL!
More like their equipment can't handle anything not out of Mein Kampf, the Protocols or the Quoran. The site is a fever swamp, and believe me I've seen a few of them. Currently, they're giving Polinco a good run for their money and day by day getting more like a cross between the most unsavoury Islamic Jihad sites and Stormfront.
As for claiming that LF doesn't "stifle" anything, here's a couple of facts to chew on:
LF has (or used to, anyway) a "grading" system. Mob rule, which would allow the mob to render your posts invisible on normal read settings. Of course, that seemed to happen a lot to posts not seemingly hatched by some blood-drunk madrassa headmaster.
A while ago I was approached by some denizen of that forum who told me I shouldn't mention LibertyForum. Seemed it was semi-secret and they didn't like being talked about. You know, like roaches and light :). So not only do they carefully select their clientel (and I've seen what hysterical recriminations that were directed at someone who had invited a poster that didn't toe the party "kill the jooos" line), but they try to keep in the shadows too.
Peer review. The default read settings can be changed in an instant by anyone capable of eating with utensils. Jeez, don't any of you hang out at Slashdot?
As for the attitudes toward the Middle East——well, website attitudes often shift with time. Why, I remember when Free Republic was virulently anti George Bush.
Doesn't anyone else?
Now I realize a few of the more militant Israeli firsters don't like Raimondo, but doesn't Free Republic link to Antiwar.com. I haven't checked the link page in awhile.
This is the only category I don't think should be in the bannable (?) list.
Many "tin foil hat" allegations have been documented to be true later. Discouraging discussion on what some people think is too far out there, would inhibit knowledge being shared. Let the members decide what is, or is not, a "tin foil hat" posting. FReepers are usually quick enough to demand "Cite your source".
Once upon a time, government mind control and Cointelpro were "tin foil hat" territory; then Congressional hearings exposed them to be real.
Saying Lee Harvey Oswald was not the (lone) killer of JFK would earn you a hat; where now even the History Channel runs a program "The Men Who Killed Kennedy".
And black helicopters, the be all and end all of "conspiracy nuts", were confirmed by named government sources in The New American magazine.
The Oklahoma City bombing, I think, will be the next to fall. And I'd like to think OKCSubmariner's (a top notch "tin foil hatter") efforts and research contributed to the outcome.
After my ramblings, tin foil hat postings should be the first place where "..., you decide" is the rule.
Go back.
Rotfl. Yep, so they can. Are you actually saying that this is the important thing about a mechanism such as that, and that the peer pressure part of it plays no role? Are you actually tellimg me that you don't understand the very first basics of group behavious?
Or are you just trying to pull my leg with your utensils?
Thanks,
Leni
And your brother would be exactly who and what??
Oh, no. Peer pressure is intended to play a role. That's the purpose of the ratings, in fact. I don't think it's all that effective, personally, but it's an interesting experiment. In a way, it's just codifying formally what FR does informally.
Or are you actually telling me you don't think peer pressure——backed up by the particular prejudices of the moderators——doesn't affect the dialogue here?
You're confusing dissenting with dissembling.
I think I see the problem here. Change your screen name
to RepublicanAlways and you should fit in. I have suggested
to several Freepers that RINO should be abandoned in
favor of CINO inasmuch as the Republicans are
deserting conservative principles and not vice versa.
Thanks, AM
Quite. It's an amazing place, as I'm sure you know if you're one of that crowd.
If you are, perhaps you can answer this: do you guys still have Tex-Oma hanging out here under the nick MarleysGhost?
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