Posted on 08/10/2002 1:29:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
The anti-FReepers are on the prowl. As most of you know, there is a group of ex-FReepers who have been dogging us for the last several years. The anti-FReeper community was started several years ago by a group of disgruntled individuals who were banned from FR and then wanted to get back at us by damaging our reputation. This started out as petty name calling and rumor mongering, but they now appear determined to cause us as much harm as possible. Even to the point of attempting to get FR and FRN shut down and the owners and managers of the organizations bankrupted or jailed.
Some of the early members of the group include ex-FReepers Mojo, Aligyrl, Landshark, Z2, Headhunter, LindaM, and others who have come and gone over the years. The most recent additions to active anti-FReeping appear to be ex-FReepers Clarity, Clinton's a Liar and JoeEveryman.
There appears to be a certain love/hate relationship involved here. Some of these people hate FR and its PTB (that's "Powers That Be" in their lingo) with such passion that they cannot stay away. Some of the original members of the AF community have given up and drifted off, some have come back to FR, and some are as determined as ever to kill FR and have me and whomever else they can thrown into prison for whatever crimes they imagine us guilty. Their motivation is pure revenge. Their driving force is hatred.
Their current attack is centered around an attempt to break up the Free Republic Network and, through that angle, to cause as much damage to FR as possible. Unfortunately for all of us, there is a genuine problem with the ex-leader of the South Carolina Chapter. Apparently, there was some money collected for events that was never paid over to the vendors and the chapter leader is accused of taking off with the money. I am not going into all of the gory details here, but I understand that there is an official police investigation ongoing and the SC Chapter and the FRN are cooperating fully with the authorities. The anti-FReepers, led by JoeEveryman, are trying to gain maximum leverage from any fallout from this case and are attempting to use it to bring down FRN.
JoeEveryman ran an FR thread (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/728856/posts) last week on this subject. I eventually deleted it because it was turning into an anti-FReeper haven and I do not want that on FR. The anti-FReepers have plenty of their own websites to conduct their hate campaign. Those who are interested may find JoeEveryman (posting as "Panjandrum") on the LibertyPost.org forum, now appearing to be the latest home of the anti-FReeper community. I have undeleted the JoeEveryman thread for those who are interested in reading it, but have left it locked. I do not want any more anti-FReeping activity on FR.
JoeEveryman is now banned from Free Republic. It is clear on the thead that he ran here on FR and on this (http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readarticle.cgi?114+1485+0+1) thread on LibertyPost.org that his intent is to bring FR down and to cause us as many legal problems as he can. I cannot see allowing him to do this on my own website.
It appears to me that they are either preparing some sort of lawsuit and or are trying to entangle me, Bob J, FR and FRN into the SC case. None of us had anything to do with whatever wrongdoing may have taken place in SC. The South Carolina Chapter is an independent entity, as are all of the FR chapters, and neither FR nor FRN have any ownership or control over their activities. It appears that the anti-FReepers are trying to break that down. We'll see. FRN is cooperating fully with the authorities and I will too if they ask.
In the meantime, I do not want them scheming on FR so they are banned and will remain banned. I will also ban any other FR members who get actively engaged in this attempt to bring down FR.
A request to all. Please do not drag any of the anti-FReeper stuff to FR. I do not want it here.
Free Republic has withstood many attacks over the years, from both the left and the right and I am confident that we will survive this attack from this Free Republic Haters Association as well.
Thanks for your continued support.
Jim
Thanks for FR!
For all you do I owe you several cold ones - if you're ever in FL ... we'll make sure you're well taken care of ... I'm not a native of the south but I've got southern hospitality all worked out!
Could you please give us a short update on the LAT/WP case? Not sure this is the right place but I haven't searched or heard of anything new lately - Thanks in advance! FR Forever, Charlie
And I agree with others on this thread that FR's strength in itself as a place where ideas fight it out, and as things have shown attempts to turn that into activism are dicey and risky. There are certain forms of activism that seem to work -- the DC Chapter, the nation-wide Freeps during the black years of Clinton, but they share little but an ad-hoc nature.
No thanks. I am certain that some here would consider my opinions extreme as i am not a "bushie" and I do not think that some of the stuff i see going on is appropriate.
Sorry. My statement stands. The way FR is going these days, some of us ol'timers may be banned for simply espousing paleo-conservatism, as I do. 'Pod
Wasn't it always partly that and part of it's appeal? I've been here for a while and I remember being kind of fascinated by the black helicopter stuff and I found out all about tinfoil hats. And those Quidam posts.
You are correct about Judge Sauls. I was asked to fax a letter to his office assuring him that it was not a partisan or political fund-raising event just a week or so before it was to take place.
Ye ol'troublemaker. 'Pod
There probably does need to be more caution on that kind of thing. It's one thing to discuss what direction our government should take and I always think people are really just letting off steam when they say that kind of thing ---but in view of the police shootout we found out about yesterday with someone who posted on here a few times, I think people need to keep in mind that certain readers might actually take some things to heart and take actions most of us never would.
I sure hope not.
And I've been called "unprincipled" by some of those same anti-FR that have been named in this thread because of the same...
I don't know why everyone seems so shocked by some of the behavior of some of these anti-FR, I'm certainly not.
......and stop poking your brother.........
But we can't discuss Islam when it does this? I think we only criticized Islam when it was clear that a religious war was declared on us. Before Sept 11 there wasn't much being said about Islamics on FR, I think when we're attacked we do need to look at the philosophy behind our enemies.
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it since y'all are getting so old-timey, ha ha ha. I don't who he pissed off here because I was just lurking at the time he was banned/wrote his opus, but it seems to me he was an early (unauthorized) version of the 'moderators.'
Maybe if he just cooled his jets he would still be around.
Anyway, thanks Mr. Robinson for all you do, I think I'll drink a beer for you. It has been quite fun watching the old rivalries go at it again, ha ha ha.
Free The Fishman! And let him duke it out w/ ferret.
WHAT YOU SAY, McGavin!!
I've been active in politics since the early '60's and I've seen these tactics repeated over and over. IMHO, there are conservatives who mean well and mess up. There are also truly hard cases who'd love to see FR implode.
I've been here a long time. I've seen the FAB discussions and witnessed the pain JimRob, et al, have endured over banning a FReeper. I've stayed quiet for the most part but there's one principle I've learned along the way:
I'LL DANCE WITH THE ONE WHAT BRUNG ME.
I have NEVER seen JimRob lie. Until I see proof of any deception, I will stay faithful to that man who had the vision of FR, and who passionately guides us toward our goal - regardless of obstacles set in his path.
Has he made mistakes? Yes, probably. He's certainly not perfect. But I would remind all of you, it's easy to criticize when you're safely on the sidelines and not in the trenches....
Samuel Langhorn Clemens, who died in 1876, wrote "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress."
And you know, things haven't changed that much since Mark Twain's day. So it may be a while.
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