I am old enough to remember a time when there were only 3 networks, radio was for music, 3 hard news magazines, and several light news magazines. All of which leaned to the left.
Even if I wanted to keep current with the world and local news it was filtered through a leftest lens. More importantly, at the time I was not aware of what was NOT being reported.
My views, and the views of the general public were being shaped by these gatekeepers of the news. We only knew what we were told, and unless we were close to the source, assumed it was true.
I doubt anyone on this site today will assume anything that is posted is the absolute truth. This, and this alone, would justify the existence of FreeRepublic.
If you were to draw a line across a page, and label one side EXTREME LEFT and the other side EXTREME RIGHT, and exactly in the middle label CENTER, and then ask every poster on this site to mark on the line where they think they are, you would get marks all across that line with the most somewhere around the center.
One bit of wisdom I have gained in my old age is that elections are won in the center, not on either extreme.
The policticians on both extremes take care to hide their true beliefs (the Democrats have an easier job, since the major media refer to all but the far left as moderate, while most Republicans are always extreme right, but you all know that).
Our goal should not be to sway policticians to move to the right, but to move the general population to the right, and the polictians will follow.
And that to me is what sites like this are doing, one reader at a time...keep up the good work Jim R.