Posted on 04/28/2011 7:11:50 AM PDT by Bean Counter
The Fall of Jim Robinson’s Free Republic Website
I want to report and expose a devious and vicious campaign that is currently underway on the so-called “premier” site on the Internet for conservatives, Free Republic. Ironically, the target of this campaign is fellow…conservatives, especially conservative bloggers, completely removing any justification from Free Republic for promoting this kind of action.
I moonlight as a conservative blogger, though I write for Examiner, which is a news website run by the Clarity Media Group. I have been familiar with Free Republic for several years, and I had been lurking there since about 2003 or 2004. In 2008, after being horrified and shocked by the media-assisted victory of Barack Obama, I decided to register on Free Republic in order to do my fair share as a conservative activist, working to expose his disreputable actions as POTUS. This consisted of me posting columns from my blog along with posting an equal amount of news articles from a wide variety of news sites around the Internet on Free Republic.
I only started regularly posting columns from my blog on the Free Republic website in October of 2010, and this process went fine and uninterrupted until very early March of 2011. At that point, without warning and completely abruptly, a cowardly and anonymous user by the name of “humblegunner” began stalking me by harassing me and spam-posting slanderous accusations without fail in the thread of each column from my blog that I’d post on Free Republic. Apparently, “humblegunner” is extremely slow on the uptake because it took him five months to figure out that I was posting my blog columns on Free Republic.
The harassment from “humblegunner” was characterized by an ultra-basic modus operandi. The anonymous coward “humblegunner” would work himself into a frenzy by showing his obsession with the term “blog pimp.” Apparently his favorite word in the whole universe (which shows his immaturity and lack of any taste), “blog pimp” is the all-purpose false accusation that Free Republic operatives use when they want to condemn fellow conservatives in order to establish the basis for permanent banishment from the site. In this way, Free Republic also uses a strategy that is sinisterly similar to the Saul Alinksy strategy of demonizing and ridiculing one’s enemies in order to take away their credibility.
For several days in a row, this anonymous coward called “humblegunner” was always one of the first to post on the thread to my blog columns on Free Republic. Besides harassing me and other Free Republic members who were interested in reading news and analysis, he would also resort to making up demonstrable lies as part of Free Repulic’s policy of attacking and destroying conservative bloggers. For instance, he would relentlessly spread the libel that the site I write for, Examiner.com, is full of viruses. He would also issue blatantly illegitimate challenges, such as childishly demanding that I post my whole blog column on Free Republic instead of just an excerpt. He did this despite knowing 100% for certain that Free Republic was already threatened in 2009 with legal action by a lawyer from Examiner.com. In September 2009, Examiner.com General Counsel Deborah Shinbein wrote a threatening communication to Jim Robinson. The lawyer was upset that Free Republic members were posting entire Examiner articles on the website, with the clear instruction being to only post Examiner excerpts in order to avoid lawsuits.
So, in effect, “humblegunner”—who I suppose is actually on owner Jim Robinson’s side, even though his actions are self-defeating and make no sense whatsoever—was actually insisting that I help get Free Republic into legal trouble by posting my whole columns from Examiner.com instead of just excerpts from them. “humblegunner” was actually insisting that I post copyright violations of Examiner.com on FreeRepublic, showing the absolute stupidity of that website. This clearly verifies how he would just post any type of fraud in the threads of all my blog posts in order to destroy the ability of interested readers to absorb the information in peace.
As if this permitted conservative-blogger sabotage that’s endorsed by Robinson isn’t enough, the sheer viciousness from several other anonymous cowards just like “humblegunner” should convince you just how extreme the self-defeating, intra-conservative hostility on Free Republic really is. Based on the mistreatment I experienced from “humblegunner,” I can say that he’s the sort of unofficial ringleader (more like an anonymous coward who thinks he’s a legend in his own mind, actually) of a band of equally anonymous cowards on Free Republic. This band of anonymous cowards works in the same manner that “humblegunner” does: They all excitedly throw the libelous phrase “blog pimp” around and start viciously assaulting whomever conservative blogger they target, like a pack of wild dogs (hiding cowardly behind Free Republic anonymity, of course) suffering from herd mentality syndrome. It’s just that they are such sheeple who can’t think for themselves that they actually need “humblegunner” to stir them up into a frenzy before they jump into action and join him in his destruction of conservative bloggers.
Their screen names on Free Republic are “TheOldLady,” “JoeProBono,” “Daffynition,” “Allegra,” “DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis,” “paulycy,” “Bean Counter,” “50mm,” and Salamander.” This list is by no means complete, but these anonymous cowards—most of whose profiles are empty and don’t feature their real names—are the most vicious offenders, all sanctioned by Robinson, of course.
There also needs to be something said about the idiosyncratic manner this band of anonymous cowards goes about their mission to destroy and libel conservative bloggers on Free Republic. Their modus operandi, as a group, can only be described as equally insane, immature, and absolutely hateful to the extreme. Without fail, the intra-conservative hostility and sabotage begins with “humblegunner” making the first libelous and hateful comment; then he puts out a ping to alert his fellow anonymous cowards to join in the attack by posting countless, libelous comments that subtract from the topic of the blog post. These conservative traitors even have a childish name (which gives them endless pleasure) for this sabotage: They arrogantly call it a “thread hijack.” This involves them spamming the thread of any conservative blogger’s blog post with dozens and dozens of hateful comments that have nothing to do with the topic of the post. The perverse and devious intention is obvious: to discourage any interested conservative from leaving a thoughtful comment…hence, a “thread hijack.”
In my case, I was victimized by this vicious mistreatment from this pack of Free Republic anonymous cowards over a course of a few days in the first week of March, 2011. When I didn’t back down and defended myself against their hate and libel—as I had every right to do because I was faithfully following the blog-posting rules on the site, which demand that Examiner.com columns are excerpted—that just bitterly angered them more and caused them to beg the moderators to ban me, which they did. Clearly, the expectation on Free Republic is that all conservative bloggers, who are viciously libeled and mistreated by the band of anonymous cowards (the “blog police,” as Warner Todd Huston so appropriately calls them), surrender and let themselves be personally attacked in the most vicious way imaginable…by so-called fellow conservatives. Apparently, conservative bloggers have to endure this dehumanizing mistreatment just to have the “privilege” of posting on Free Republic. I was not going to lay down for a bunch of conservative traitors who wanted to treat me worse than garbage, which is why I defended myself against their hateful and libelous attacks—which is what ended up getting me banned, of course.
Some of the posts by this “blog police” against me included “You seem obsessed with the sex and men. Strange, unless you’re a queer”; “ROTFLMAF at your dumb ass! Is your face turning blue or red ‘lil feller?”; “He seems very angry. That’s quite understandable for a postpubescent boy under 5′ 4″. From his keyword spam, he seems to be suffering from delusions of grandeur as well”; “Lol. You are one crazy blog pimp”; “Cut back on the retard pills. You’re starting to drool again.” Thus, anyone can see why I chose to defend myself in the face of that vicious assault by those cowards.
It also has to be pointed out that these traitor-conservatives are pitiful in what they do. Their modus operandi is to gang up on a conservative blogger and then, like a pack of wild animals, take turns verbally insulting and provoking him, again, all sanctioned by Robinson. That produces the kinds of extremely hostile comments such as the ones above. However, in my case, after I started defending myself, they began to back off, just like with all bullies when you start fighting back against them. And then, like the cowards they are, they actually petitioned and begged one of the Free Republic moderators (another nameless coward) to ban me because I had gotten too “uppity.” After I was banned, their lowlife attitude came to the forefront again, as they only felt confident enough to start attacking me again at that point—when I was already banned and couldn’t even defend myself!!! Truly, that is the mark of absolute lowlife cowards.
After this expose against Free Republic, which is already backed up by the experiences of Mr. Huston and Anthony Martin, a fellow Examiner writer, I’m calling on all conservatives to boycott that screwball website. Robinson’s website is a poor operation that has no funding and desperately relies on the contributions of members (suckers?) to keep financing more intra-conservative hatred and personal attacks. In fact, it is downright hilarious that, currently, Free Republic is trying to raise money in their Freepathon (read: asking for a handout), but they are struggling to get anywhere!! Their existence can’t be justified in any way, shape, or form since there are other conservative websites who do activism a whole lot better than Free Republic and don’t feature the same kind of hateful and low-minded savagery from the aforementioned cowards on that website. So I’m urging all conservatives who thought about wasting their hard-earned money to finance Robinson and Free Republic to think twice. Before my experience on that good-for-nothing website, I thought only the liberals at websites like DailyKos and Democratic Underground were the epitome of raw, unadulterated viciousness and off-the-chart hatred. Now, I know better. I have the proof that Robinson’s Free Republic is every bit as hateful and savage as those leftist fanatics. Except in Robinson’s case, he’s actually condoning traitorous, intra-conservative destruction in what I can only opine is a mentally ill policy. ______
ROFLOLing at the pic!
A "blog pimp" is someone who posts their own blogs on FR as articles, but excerpts them in order to drive traffic ("hits") to their site, many of which contain ads, trackers, malware, etc. Many of the worst offenders (not the particular case being discussed here, though) are those who actually don't provide any real content but merely link to other people's content, which you only realize after you "click through" to their page which has a quick blurb and an embedded YouTube video or something.
Hey!!!!! I deserve to be dissed too!!
I always wondered why Frank Beard is the only guy in ZZ Top who doesn’t have one.
Jim, I didn’t know you had such a low opinion of conservative bloggers. I don’t know about other bloggers, but I’ve had a link to FR proudly posted in the sidebar of my blog.
Conservative bloggers, most of the better ones at least, put a lot of time and effort into what they do. They get precious little in return. Blog ads clutter up a site and don’t provide much of a revenue stream. So conservative bloggers have to raise money the same way you do — by asking their readers to contribute to the site.
Conservative bloggers are also outnumbered by their counterparts on the left, although they provide a valuable service by refuting the lies that leftist bloggers and other Democrat/Media Complex outlets publish. But if you believe that begrudging them a few page hits is more important than everyone in the conservative publishing community cooperating to challenge the leftists on the web, then so be it.
I think you’re one of the good guys, but if you’re going to allow the anti-blog nazis to continue to drag FR down into the sewer where DU and Kos are, I think its a mistake. But this is your site, and again, so be it.
Thanks for letting me be part of this community over the years. I’m deeply saddened about where FR is headed, and I don’t want to go there with you. Still, I wish you well and will keep you in my prayers.
Outta here,
- JP
Woooohoooo! I got a mention! Yeeeehaaaa! {Dancing}
Forcing it on people?
Who is holding the gun to your head and “forcing” you to click on a link to a blog?
You need a gimmick to catch the blog pimp's attention and tick him/her off.
This is the one I used. It seems to have worked.
12 TIMES! Good thing we're not doing a drinking game.
Oh, dart...{hic!}...I mean drat...{giggle}...we're not? {hic!}
People can post their opinions on FR. They don’t have to pimp their blog to find out what they think.
I thought I smelled something.
He also manages the Bloggers for Sarah Palin blogroll and is a contributor to Polical Lore, Publius’ Forum, and Palin Twibe.
Would this have anything to do with your apparent opus?
"I have no complaint if a good conservative blogger posts his own material to FR, not as an excerpt to drive hits and discussion back to his blog, but rather to impart useful information to OUR readers and to promote and join in on the discussion and conservative activism HERE on FR.
If a blogger can’t or refuses do that, and if he constantly complains or fights with our participants over it, then I’d just as soon he doesn’t post here. It’s not my job to make his content or his presentation or cooperation acceptable to our readers. That’s his job. And if he cannot do it or refuses to do it and continues posting brief excerpts only and obviously attempting to draw away our participants while loudly complaining about it, then I have no sympathy for his complaints and the more apt I am to ban his account and blog.
Furthermore, I’m not big on “rules.” You won’t see me posting rules for bloggers. The rules for bloggers on FR are the same as the rules for everyone else. If you are a good conservative activist and are willing to work with US on OUR goals and causes and not against US, then you’re welcome to post to FR. But unless we say otherwise your blog material should be posted to our bloggers forum and it would be best if you do not excerpt your own material and if you would actually join in on the discussion here on FR. We’re not really that interested in driving OUR traffic to YOUR blog. But if our readers see that you post useful information then they might start reading your site and that’s fine by me."
552 posted on Tuesday, December 07, 2010 5:06:19 PM by Jim Robinson (Rebellion is brewing!! Nuke the corrupt commie bastards to HELL!!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2636843/posts?q=1&;page=501
It’s not my responsibility to make a blogger’s material acceptable and presentable to our readers. That’s his job. And if he can’t do it, or refuses to do it... oh, well. See ya.
I agree with Humblegunner. I detest blog pimps.
Get over it.
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