Posted on 05/27/2011 10:36:25 AM PDT by Dr. Zzyzx
Freeper Friends,
I was saddened by JimRob's imperious pronouncement yesterday, and the ensuing comments & zots. Here's why. One of this site's primary pillars is the Bill of Rights which calls for Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Right to a trial by jury. We believe in those things. We believe in them to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them. And yet on this site, when a JimRob cuts people off for what they say or believe Freepers cheer him like Baghdad Bob would cheer Saddam Hussein! That's not America folks!
"He owns the site!" you say. Tell that to Steven Jobs who got dumped a few years ago from the company he started because he created an IPO to get financial support from others. Once JimRob started taking YOUR money, it became YOUR site. YOU provide the content, YOU provide the financing. Without YOU, Jim would be a lonely guy staring at a monitor in his den.
How can we say we want freedoms out one side of our mouths, and stand by and cheer as Jim zots dissenters in a way that would make medieval Europe's most dictatorial tyrants proud?
John Stuart Mill had the right approach--let all the ideas fight it out in the arena. If they're foolish ideas, they will eventually be seen as such. We don't have anything to fear from hearing someone else's point of view.
Now. In case you're wondering:
My membership date is actually one and a half years earlier than the November 1999 date shown. (Had to re-enlist because of computer and email trouble)
I was raised in Arizona but live in Utah. I fly the Arizona flag on my profile because I'm proud of their stance on immigration.
I’ve told anyone that will listen that I think Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are shifty weasels.
I served on the city council and as the mayor of my community.
I played a part in the grassroots effort to throw Bob Bennett out of office, and hope soon to do the same to Orrin Hatch.
I waged a pitched battle in the newspapers and amongst my fellow teachers against the president, officers, and organization of the Utah Education Association, an arm of the NEA.
I became disenchanted with the Republican party after some of the things George Bush (though I admire his courage and determination) did that I felt were harmful to the financial well-being of America.
In other words, I'm not a newbie troll. I just have a genuine concern with how members are treated here, and you should too.
To save you the electrons of posting replies, I'll post them for you:
Jim owns the site, he can do what he wants.
ZOT!
Put on your asbestos suit.
Put on your tin foil hat.
Viking Kitties!
Don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!
A cheese-eating moose bit my sister.
Ahem. It was Humblegunner’s job to deliver the pizza.
Laz got hit?
Of course, what you say is true. This is Jim Robinson’s site and he is free to moderate it as he pleases. But, I pine for the halcyon days when this was the premier site for conservative discussion of the days events. We had some great discussions in those days, but no more. What has remained are sentence fragment responses that do little to advance the cause of conservatism and reflects a general ignorance of the philosophical ties that bind us.
Instead, we have taken to infighting and arguing amongst ourselves over who has claim to raise the true conservative banner. All good stuff, but it ignores the unfortunate fact that our country is today ruled by a godless communist marxist moron who stands to extend his rule by another four years because his conservative opposition cannot get its act together. Nothing is more important than defeating Obama and his commie goons, but we seem to be engaged in an insane inquisition of each other in order to decide who among us is more purely conservative.
I think that the present Administration is the greatest calamity ever visited upon these United States. I would vote for Howdy Doody if I thought that he could beat Obama. I am quite amazed that some on this site would seem to support the moron in the White House because whomever the Republicans support this week do not pass true conservative muster. I could care less. I would vote for Joe Biden before I would vote for Barack Obama and I fully recognize that any vote for a third party candidate is a vote for Obama.
I am no Republican, I am a Conservative. But, I will never, never, never support a Democrat as long as I shall live. That includes voting for some phony who claims to be a real conservative, a tea party stalwart, or any other such nonsense. NY 26 is a great example of where this leads.
Jim is leading an Inquisition. I wish him and his site well. I will continue my monthly contributions, but I’m logging off as I think that this purge is doing nothing but helping Obama which I know is the last thing in the world that Jim would like to see. Its been fun.
Oh, he’s been demised before. To paraphrase his own words....
“I cannot behave, so I must be punished. “
Yup. Ain’t clear why.
So Laz is a contemporary Marquis de Sade
Free riding for three years? Donate, you cheap prick.
I'm late to the party here, someone please explain the sich.
I agree with that. More than once I've seen 2005ish joiners called noobs by 2001ish joiners!
As you said, one is either an anus, or one is not an anus. Just because someone is a noob doesn't mean they are hopelessly ignorant of all thing political.
Of course, being a ''semi-noob'' myself, I may be biased ;)
“...why are people so afraid of dissenting ideas?”
Not afraid, just fed up with the gratuitous leftist BS and bandwidth-wasting trolls!
JC
“...why are people so afraid of dissenting ideas?”
Not afraid, just fed up with the gratuitous leftist BS and bandwidth-wasting trolls!
JC
And they say crime don’t pay!
(I stole the gist of it from someone else a long time ago...)
“Then again, FR does stand for certain things in addition to freedom of expression, so its sort of muddy.”
Thank you for tryin’ to muddy the waters, but you LOSE! JimRob’s site and JimRob’s rules - can’t abide by that, then don’t let the door knob catch you in the arse on the way out!
JC
Well, I don’t know..I dissent at times on threads and at times it is taken a bit hard but I am allowed to, within reason...
Beats me!
PROPERTIES are —> http://i.imgur.com/XCGCl.jpg
Yet when you go here, it is some Twitter page!
“I have a problem with all the purges because I see in them an intellectual laziness and unwillingness to defend one’s point of view in the arena of ideas.”
Yo Dude! This isn’t an “arena of ideas”, whatever the heck that is, it is JimRob’s conservative site. If you can’t understand that, YOU have the problem, not JimRob!!
JC
Pine if you must; but we have become educated BECAUSE of the "good ol' days!" and have no need for much more than fragments to re-jog our memories.
We need some fresh meat to educate if we are to replay the past.
Also, Twitter, Facebook and all the rest have siphoned off a lot of folks.
And, the texting phenom has shrunken the interchange between humans as well.
We can either pine away or adapt.
“You don’t come here for the hunting; do you?”
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