Independent Conservative

On August 25, 2026 I will have been a registered member of the Free Republic for 25 years. A few thoughts about my experience here follow:

There was a time when being a "Freeper" meant something. Topics of all kinds were researched and debated in grand fashion. I have several DVDs containing gigabytes of old threads that are a joy to reread.

Then the site was hit with the LATimes/WashPost lawsuit which eliminated most full article posts, followed not long after by the ideological purges that gutted lots of interesting discourse through the banishment of certain members and threads.

Innovative decay set in and the site now is a snapshot of the internet of the past. The software states it hasn't been updated since 2008. Completely text based, FR is a present-day Way-Way-Wayback Machine. It has existed as a very successful money maker, starting at $240,000/yr and climbing to as much as $360,000/yr, for its absentee, now deceased owner. The front page still encourages a visitor to send him an email or give him a call on his cell phone. Presumably, long distance charges will apply.

FR is only a shell of what it was and exists now as an online rest home, where aged members dawdle about, engaging in toothless one-sided 'debates', wasting away until they are all finally added to the Memorial wall of death.

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(Note: Jim Robinson passed away in Oct. 2025, after a long illness. I don't know who has or had been in charge during this time. The site seems to run on auto-bot/pilot. The wall hasn't been updated since 2021 and there's quite a backlog of names.)