Posted on 11/26/2002 7:18:46 AM PST by jasonalvarez
Chronicles magazine’s December 2002 issue features a piece by Sean Scallon in its Cultural Revolutions section discussing the evolution of Free Republic, billed as "the largest conservative-oriented website in the world." Scallon heralds the closure of cyberspace as a frontier of freedom, citing as his evidence the degeneration of Free Republic into a discussion forum beset by heavy-handed moderators who compulsively censor out any posted material deemed detrimental to the GOP Establishment’s reign in conservative circles. Scallon notes that as Free Republic grew in popularity, size, and cost, "it was only natural for...site administrators to want to look good for prospective donors." The question naturally arises: why would conservatives regularly donate to a website with a Stalinesque reputation for sanitizing their members’ commentary?
Many readers of Scallon’s piece will be surprised to learn that the operation of the Free Republic website requires an estimated $240,000 in donations annually from readers. The Freepers donate that kind of money because they really are convinced and excited (read: deluded) that they are "piece of the action." They really believe that their online (and off-line) advocacy and organizing efforts are effecting political change. They like the idea that they are "part of the system" and on the side of a winning majority now that the GOP has re-taken the Senate and Bush sits in the Oval Office. To swipe a phrase from Jesse Jackson, it "keeps hope alive." And hope is the archetypal political opiate, rendering populations docile and leaving them unwilling to decisively act to change their circumstances. The Freepers feel as though they’re connected and influential, but they don’t seem to realize that this is largely an illusion. The GOP’s hierarchy already has its marching orders, independent of the input of the GOP grassroots. The GOP’s top brass merely pretends that it cares about the "regular folk" at Free Republic. The GOP is always glad to take their money and their votes, though, and is equally happy to use Free Republic as a distribution node for official party "talking points."
Some alert Freepers, however, sense that the GOP they work so hard to support is not very responsive to the conservative agenda. Many Freepers are concerned about the immigration problem in this country, for example, yet the consensus of the average posters is that they have to "wait" and not push the GOP so hard on this issue because they feel constrained by what they call "practical politics." They worry that they will be cast as "too extreme" on certain issues, so they are content to water down their positions so that they can maintain a veneer of relevance and influence—influence that they never had to begin with in the places that matter.
Free Republic’s existence is a symbol of the continuing captivity and betrayal of the conservative base of the GOP. The widespread appeasement and accommodation of the GOP’s hierarchy by these "conservatives" guarantees there never will be any decisive pro-conservative change within the party, since the party is permanently assured that its conservative base, ever fearful of the bogeyman of a Gore-style presidency, will never abandon it. In a sense, the "mainstream" conservatives are as captive an electorate as the Blacks in the Democratic Party. Just as the Blacks are under-served and taken for granted by the Democrats, so too are the conservatives jilted by the Republicans. True conservatives are kept in the basement, and are not allowed to speak at GOP national conventions anymore. Yet, these sycophantic conservatives shuffle around the plantation of "Massa GOP" hoping a bone will occasionally be thrown their way, looking as broken and pathetic as Pavlov’s famed dogs. Cries of "tax cuts" take the place of the ringing of bells for these piddling dogs. The Freepers believe they live in an era of conservative victory, but fail to grasp that the price of that victory was the gradual transmutation of conservatism itself into a variant of the same liberalism that movement had long been fighting. The day enough Freeper types realize this terrible situation, and stage a revolt against their masters, is the day conservatism has a chance again in America.
This tactic of "mainstream conservatism" supposedly "overcoming" its liberal enemy by adopting the ideological attributes of liberalism is not confined merely to internal matters of political strategy. The same attitude, essentially defeatist, emerges in the context of more important issues, including the future demographic composition of the nation itself. For example, one Freeper exclaimed that he had no problem with fifty percent of the population of the United States becoming Latino, if only the Latinos immigrated legally to the United States. In essence, that particular Freeper believes America should handle the current "immivasion" from Mexico by turning the United States into Mexico.
Sadly, that poster is not alone in his willingness to allow the GOP to import a new electorate for itself and new cheap laborers for its corporate constituency—hitting two Mexicans with one taco, so to speak. On the other hand, Free Republic’s rabidly pro-Zionist administrators would not take kindly to a poster suggesting that they had no problem with Palestinians becoming fifty percent of the Israeli population (with citizen-status). Indeed, judging from one member’s post, Freepers who plan to counter-demonstrate at future anti-war protests intend to wave Israeli flags rather than American. And I’d thought the Freepers were arguing that war against Iraq was in the name of America’s interests. Such are the quirks of Free Republic, and the priorities of the "mainstream" conservatism it represents are radically askew.
Scallon is right. Free Republic is a large institution, and as with most organs of the Establishment, it is also ideologically bankrupt. In a sense, there is an element of fraud at work as well, since Free Republic’s methodology and approach cannot possibly deliver what it promises: conservative political change. The frontier of freedom in cyberspace isn’t yet totally closed, though—Scallon could have listed additional alternative forum websites where paleoconservatives and Constitutionalists can gather and discuss the issues, such as Ether Zone (obviously) and Original Dissent. The Freepers are oblivious to the fact that they are the tail, not the dog. Their Reaganite mantra of sunny optimism they always point toward, and always out of context, functions as an effective tool of political control.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
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Paul Fallavollita holds an M.A. in political science from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Paul is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
Paul Fallavollita can be reached at pfallavollita@aol.com
Published in the December 3, 2002 issue of Ether Zone. Copyright © 1997 - 2002 Ether Zone.
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I know I've seen you around here before, and I noted with interest your posts on this thread. I remember the early days when the bold on the FR posted with their real names.
There is a reason that such posters went away, and it doesn't have anything to do with the popular perception promoted by revisionists like gcruse that FR is "just a right-wing Internet chat site". :-)
The problem is that many (not all, but many) of the views they decry as being neo-con are views that either or both of those two men held. Specifically, I am referring to Taft's embrace of international law and working through international organizations, and Goldwater's embrace of free trade, particularly within the Americas. And someone who would hold the modern day equivalent on positions to those of William McKinley would also get their scorn as being a neo-con, even though McKinley-style conservative Republicanism predates the "old right" by several decades.
So you are right, there are some with a lack of knowledge of history. And many of those throwing neo-con labels around either suffer from this lack of knowledge or are trying to disingenuously take advantage of those who do.
We have a big problem in the SW. Ever hear of La Raza and MECHa?La Raza is an extremist group. There are a few characteristics of extremeist groups which are relevant here. One, is that extremist groups tend to cause the formation of extremist groups opposing them, with the groups developing an antagonistic but symbiotic relationship. Two, is that said extremist groups will issue massive propaganda. And three is that such groups, and their corresponding "anti" group both have a vested interest in overstating the membership strength of the groups. La Raza will claim more members than they have, and the groups that oppose them will also claim La Raza has more than they have.
And then there are the sane people not in either of these camps. People like you and me. We have to be dilligent to ensure that the propaganda from either or both sides doesn't get us to lose a clear picture of what is going on.
Is immigration a problem? Absolutely. Is illegal immigration an even bigger problem? Again, yes. Is there a serious movement to reclaim the SW for Mexico that has more than a hundred or two adherents? No, there is not. Any more than there is a Stalinist revolution about to occur in America, the way the SDS has been promising for decades now.
But America, and conservatism, have to have goals in the future and the energy and committment to pursue them. To go on we do have to believe that tomorrow will be better than today, and however much one may dislike current conditions, one has to recognize in them the seeds of a better future.
With the emergence of Bush, the departure of Clinton, and the destruction of the World Trade Center, the focus and scope of acceptable opinion have changed at Free Republic. Some opinions that might have been taken in stride four years ago now are increasingly regarded as outside the pale.
But still, there is more diversity of opinion here than at Lew Rockwell or Liberty Forum or Ether Zone. There's quite a narrow orthodoxy of acceptable opinion on such sites. At first the opinions they express are stimulating, but in time they come to sound quite monotonous in their unanimity.
It would be different if paleoconservative or paleolibertarian opinions were directly relevant to political life today or if they were blindingly true. In that case, one wouldn't mind the reinforcement of repetition. But what one finds in Lew Rockwell or Chronicles is impractical, politically irrelevant, and so joyfully and blindly wrongheaded or so morosely dispairing that it gets increasingly hard to take.
I certainly hope will still be able to argue about current administration policies, but hearing day after day that one needs to get back to how things were before FDR or Lincoln or Washington doesn't add much to the debate.
He's a kid who thinks cynicism means intelligence. Ain't worth your time.
the DC Holiday Party is 14 dec 02. COMING????
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/798782/posts
This time it's Maggio from Alamance Independent.
These articles both come from the Right. Is FR taking more criticism from the Right or the Left these days?
free dixie,sw
Liar.
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