Posted on 12/01/2002 1:23:55 PM PST by BraveMan
What a long way Free Republic has come! From its birth in 1996 as what began as just a place where hardcore conservatives to post the latest news and analyze it, Free Republic two years later had a significant role in the neutralization of the Clintons - as it became the organizing point for enormous protests ridiculing Bill Clinton over Monicagate everywhere he went in the U.S. early in Monicagate throughout 1998. Some top liberals even blame Freepers for Al Gore's defeat.
Very early in Monicagate, Freepers brought Free Republic out of just being a sort of giant cybercafe for dissidents to talk things over - and made it into a very-effective organizing point for giant protests against liberals and liberalism, like the one in Houston at a Clinton fundraiser that not only like most greeted Clinton with hundreds of dissidents ridiculing him for his adultery and perjury, but even found a fire engine to hang a giant sign on that read "Bill Clinton Is A Four-Alarm Fraud." Freepers in Florida hung a giant sign on a cabin cruiser to float in a strategic position just offshore a fundraiser of his there. And here in North Carolina, about 30 Freepers picketed an Al Gore fundraiser in Raleigh's Volvo district in May 1999 - some dressed as Buddhist monks. The Clintons/Gore Regime just couldn't escape the conservatives from hell.
Other liberals were no luckier. The "Rosiecott" that ended Corporate America's willingness to indulge leftist politics was in large part organized on Free Republic. Freeper-organized boycotts were to Rosie O'Donnell's career what a later gay boycott was to advice-talk radio host Dr. Laura's.
But - just six years after its founding, just four years after the height of its power - Free Republic today is largely a total waste of time. As a reader commented, it isn't accomplishing anything anymore - with the giant protests against liberals formerly organized on it by Freepers over; as he agreed last week, the sole positive things it now does are to provide rapid dissemination of news, even from small-town dailies, to dissidents everywhere - and to guide dissidents to the various dissident newspapers that really are hardcore.
Some social issues are almost unmentionable on Free Republic today. More than one Freeper has griped that posted articles on immigration often just disappear. Other Freepers have been just blacklisted from Free Republic - for offending the sensibilities of founder Jim Robinson or the small clique under him that largely actually runs Free Republic now.
Today, Free Republic is every bit as handicapped as founder Jim Robinson - but by another problem. To all too many Freepers now, anyone calling themselves a Republican is God's brother - and cannot be criticized, no matter how Clintonesque their views on many social issues may be. And to all too many Freepers now, Pres. Bush really is God - uncriticizable, no matter what.
To make Free Republic great again, a number of things have to happen. First, all involved - from ordinary Freepers to "JimBob" himself - have to accept that having an (R) next to one's name doesn't make a politician beyond criticism. Second, all involved must also accept that Pres. Bush isn't God. And then, all Freepers must commit to doing again what made Free Republic great - hounding any politician at odds with Red Nation's masses on social issues; if that means picketing Pres. Bush everywhere he goes if he hints at amnesty for illegal aliens or tacit support of racial quotas, that's what it takes.
Free Republic didn't become great by being a Chinese-style "Democracy Wall" for dissidents to post articles from "mainstream" newspapers to and then discuss them. It can only became great again the same way it originally got great.
first you know why t-shirt
Don't know, but, it had better not be Pink Floyd.
There shall be no mercy.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
Sore-Loserman. Get out of Cheney's House. Protests, spoofs and whatnot. FR made the difference in the last presidential election and the most recent election.
Remember the old hair shampoo commercial that ends with the womans head being copied over and over? The anouncer says "and so on, and so on, and so on"....
FR has been like that commercial. Conservatives like me started talking to people, using information I have learned here. And they started talking to people that started talking to other people.
Today, this is one of the premier sites that various media come to. You can tell Rush Limbaugh gets a lot of his stuff here. So do countless others. This place has made the big time. And the left will want to silence it. If they can.
Go away, kid.
I can tell you two things: his 'paper' is an embarassment to Alamance County, and Alamance County is a good place to live with wonderful people.
Two words actually.
Your transmission is breaking up. Repeat, your transmission is breaking up.
You are probably falling into the sun :(.
There shall be no mercy.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
And here in North Carolina, about 30 Freepers picketed an Al Gore fundraiser in Raleigh's Volvo district in May 1999
Now, he's insulted my NEW neighborhood.......LOL.
This guy is eaten up with LIFE ENVY, isn't he? I just may drive over there one day and tell him that.
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