First of all, there is not an extraordinary level of censorship on Free Republic. It's natural that those who get booted and have their posts removed will feel that way, but it is not an extraordinary level overall. The vast majority of FReepers have never been banned, never been suspended, never had a post pulled, and never had a moderator send them a warning message.
Those who get booted are usually posters who post racist materials, posters who post anti-Semitic materials, posters who post Holocaust denial materials, those who spread the "Protocols" nonsense propaganda, those who post Marxist propaganda and attempt to pass it off as truth, those who deal in tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, those who condemn others based on race or religion, those who condemn religion itself, those leftists who pose as conservatives or right wingers but constantly trash conservatives or conservative policy, those who call for armed revolution or other violence, those who blame America for 9-11, those who excessively bash our president, our war effort or our military, those who post excessive profanity, those who agressively engage in personal attacks, feuds and flamewars, those who register two or more accounts and use them as straw men or try to pass themselves off as different posters, those who post vulgarity or pornography, those who continually post off topic items, spammers, advertisers, trolls, liberals, anarchists, skinheads, nazis, communists, defenders of abortion, gun control, gay rights, peta people, etc, etc (Free Republic is not a liberal debating society).
In addition, people who were banned from FR for the above reasons but come back with a new account will usually get booted when detected and all of his posts removed, regardless of what he posted or whether he broke any rules under his new nom de plume.
Some of these very same repeat offenders will proclaim innocence and complain the loudest, like our friend Vallandigham here. Most of these people have swallowed the black poison pill of the darkside and are now doing all they can do to speed along the "imminent demise" of Free Republic. Some of them have registered and been banned dozens and even hundreds of times from Free Republic (no wonder they feel so mistreated and censored).
And, yes, scores of them have organized and are engaged in anti-Free Republic activities. This has been going on in the background for the last four years. These groups of the banned ones, "Great Ones" they call themselves as in "All the great ones have been banned" band together, create forums, scan FR all day long and bring back to their mouse holes little tidbits from FReeperdom and they post these little morsels on their forums, scurry around excitedly and condemn the FReeper or FReepers whose posts they find amusing. Then they proclaim "Free Republic will die at 9:30 on February 8th" and so forth.
This goes on and on until they get bored and then start feeding on each other (mainly because they love to hate, doesn't matter who, hate anyone even each other, I mean we are really dealing with the dregs of life's losers here). Soon they splinter, kill off their forum and start two or three new competing anti-Freeper forums and the cycle begins anew. And Free Republic lives on.
The most recent of these forums is the LibertyForum:
Peruse these pages. This forum is home to many banned posters and many posters who feel for one reason or another that Free Republic no longer meets their needs. That's fine. You will find on this forum unabashed racists, anti-Semites, Marxist propagandists, angry (and I mean very angry) people who bash everyone and everything, whackos, sickos, you name it. If any of our current posters think this would be their cup of tea, then I welcome you to it. Please. I'd love nothing more than to be boycotted by the denizens of these anti-Freeping forums.
Now, back to our writer, Vallandigham's complaint. This guy can't understand why he and his cohorts get banned every time they register new names on FR. Can't understand why Jim and his crazed moderators ban them over and over. I mean it's not like they've declared war on FR or anything. Quoting from some of their dialogue:
Gotcha beat on the bannings, ho ho ( Welcome Robnoel...been trying to get on your radio show, but you ain't answering my mail...):
...& a couple others I forget now, were all banned. As soon as I began bringing up the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission, the Spooks & Gubm't apologist (Poohbah, CommonTator, sinkspur, bayourod, Torie, etc.) wd swarm, en-masse, on the threads, and, within minutes, I'd get the punt.
- "fargone"
- "greatspectacular"
- "sevendust"
- "kindsir"
- "gobshite"
- "whatif"
Finally gave up. Suckers is born every minute, and if the sheeple want to contribute to RimJob's new home addition or whatnot, that's their business.
Welcome, patriot!
And another answers:
Well Hey, in the last month I was banned asBut, I have an endless supply of screen names and a desire to be a thorn in those asswipe's sides for a long time to come...
- Central Scrutiniser,
- Peter Torque
- Son Raw,
- Estimated Prophet
- Dotbomb
- and Penasco
Yup, and we will watch the abuse reports pour in when they start posting, then a little comparison through our logs and, yep, a match. Damn, Robinson banned me again.
Well many of you are receiving these emails or FReepmails, so please, go visit their sites. If you are the kind that finds them attractive, by all means, stay and enjoy yourself. I'm sure FR will manage somehow without you.
Well, they've reported and I've reported, you decide.
I quit going to the drug threads because of the temper tantrums. You can't talk to those people rationally.
I still like the moderating-down method. Instead of deleting the message, you knock it down below the level of the standard reader. They see their message but everyone else has to drop a level to see it. Ignorance is bliss.
I've never had any complaints with this forum. I was never a member of an online discussion group before I joined FR and I lurked FR for a long time before I was certain that I wanted to join and get posting privileges. I emphasize privilege because there has never been a doubt in my mind that that is exactly what it is- I don't have a right to post here. Even though I donate money on the Freepathons I am still under no illusions that I could be banned and if I were to be (banned) I'm pretty sure I would have nobody but myself to blame. Plenty of times I've been just about to post a nasty message and then just stopped and censored myself- sometimes just logging off and taking a time out for a couple hours before I respond. That's just the basic rules of civility.
One rule I try to use myself (loosely) in my everyday life is "If my mother or father would be ashamed to see me doing this or hear me saying this or if I would be ashamed for them to see me/hear me-- what I'm doing's probably not a good idea". Strictly speaking, there are plenty of instances that fall outside those guidelines but it's a pretty good rule of thumb to use in most situations.
I use a lot of these self made rules of thumb and they help me out. Like the issue of rights. On whether it's something I (or somebody) has a right to or not, I figure that if I could exercise this right, alone, on a deserted island off in the Pacific, it is indeed a right and not some privilege that I perceive as a right. For example, right to speech, religion, pursuit of happiness- all these things can be exercised on my desert island. Rights to medical care, cheap energy, a half hour slot on national TV, right to a job or a "living wage" or the right to post on an internet forum- these could not be "exercised" on my island and thus do not exist as rights. Now, obviously some of the rights I might take for granted on my island may not apply in polite society (open nudity, spending the daylight hours howling at the sun etc) but so far this rule of thumb has worked for me.
D'oh! Starting to ramble. Gotta go. Thanks for posting this.
My big question isn't this silly e-mail.
What I want to know is how this person got my e-mail address, because it was never published on the forum!
I have made my share of controversialposts. I have seen some yanked by others, but only 4 of mine, and 3 of those at my request.
While I wish some of those that I saw yanked of others remained, I do not see the major censoship people speak of. I myself have made some hot comments, off the cuff at times, that could have been considered personal, attacking, or whatever, and JimRob never banned me, nor did he ever give me a warning.
While I am of a different opioion from some conservatives regarding our president and the state of the GOP, I have been allowed to openly state so, cite references, make demanding accusations against GWB, call him as I see him (A LIBERAL in disguise), and not once has the moderator or JimRob ever bannedme or pulled any of those comments that i am aware of.
Jim, you got a lot thicker skin than I sure do! :-)
And that is a VERY minor quibble with a job magnificently well done.
Jim, first off, thank you - thanks for a wonderful place to have intelligent conversation, free (at least for the most part) from ad hominum attacks. It feels good to tell what's on my chest without being called an Uncle Tom or Sellout.
As for the nattering nabobs, let 'em go do what they want. The simple fact that they feel compelled to contact every banned member of FR actually shows their level of contempt combined with jealousy.
Now you, on the other hand, keep on fighting the good fight. I can safely say that the rest of us are behind you.
There are several people who get their kicks by finding every thread they can that bashes their favorite enemy (libertarians, gays, Mexicans, etc.) and devolve the thread into inflammatory insults and grammatical nitpicking.
As far as I can recall, I've only had one post pulled and that was because someone got offended at my good faith attempt at humor. Understandable. On the other hand, there are some here who have posts pulled on nearly every thread they enter. If I were JimRob, I wouldn't give them nearly the leniency he does. They ought to feel lucky that I'm not the AdminModerator.
Let them whine - that's all they usually did here. Some of us like having a forum where we can actually discuss issues like civilized adults.
One thing for everybody to remember is that the whole internet is watching. Some RATS lurk here just trying to find some reply that can be used to brand Free Republic as a right wing hate site. Remember the anthrax rumors.
Your only "bad" argument, Jim.
If:
"The vast majority of Americans have never been shot or killed by the FBI or DEA, have never been unjustly accused of a crime, nor have had their property confiscated by the government for unConstitutional purposes".....
This must mean that there are no problems to worry about.