Practice Opus Thread

fhayek and I both noticed that the opuses that are being created lately, frankly, suck. We want to have this thread available so that people can practice their opuses, so when they finally leave Free Republic, they can do so with style.

Here's my entry:

I've been patient with Free Republic. I've even avoided being drawn in by its provocative rhetoric. But I've finally had enough. Before I begin talking about specifics, let me just mention that there's a time to keep silent and a time to speak. There's a time to love and a time to hate. There's a time for war and a time for peace. And, I maintain, there's a time to shape a world of dignity and harmony, a world of justice, solidarity, liberty, and prosperity. Or, to put it less poetically, we must assert ourselves as champions of freedom and keep our priorities in check. But the problems with Free Republic's stances don't end there.

Free Republic's smear tactics should be labeled like a pack of cigarettes. I'm thinking of something along the lines of, “Warning: It has been determined that Free Republic's barbs are intended to subject us to the snappish yapping of belligerent losers.” Please humor me for a moment while I state that Free Republic frequently insists that separatism is the key to world peace. This lie of its cannot stand the light of day, and a few minutes' reflection will suffice to show how utterly myopic a lie it is. Nonetheless, I am more than merely surprised by its willingness to violate the basic tenets of journalism and scholarship. I'm shocked, shocked. And, as if that weren't enough, Free Republic will not be punished for its anger. Free Republic will be punished by its anger. There's also the possibility that it may be punished for subordinating all spheres of society to an ideological vision of organic community, but I am tired of hearing or reading that tribalism is a viable and vital objective for our nation's educational institutions. You know that that is simply not true.

Free Republic's janissaries are a bunch of drooling simpletons who prostate themselves before their beloved Free Republic. I know because I have experienced that personally. I realize that Stalinism is a tremendous problem in our society, but does it constantly have to be thrown in our faces? To ask that question another way, do spleenful hucksters like Free Republic's secret agents actually have lives, or do they exist solely to control your bank account, your employment, your personal safety, and your mind? It's questions like that that unmistakably get people thinking about how Free Republic claims to have solutions to all of our problems. Usually, though, these supposed solutions ride on the backs of people who are poor, powerless, or who don't have the clout to launch an all-out ideological attack against the forces of voyeurism. It's these types of “solutions”, therefore, that demonstrate how given a choice of having Free Republic tear down everything that can possibly be regarded as a support of cultural elevation or having my bicuspids extracted sans Novocaine, I would embrace the pliers, purchase some Polident Partials, and call it a day.

Free Republic's anti-intellectualism society has its own, petty slogan. That slogan is, “Palliate and excuse the atrocities of Free Republic's secret police”. What this slogan lacks in wit, it makes up for in its ability to subject us to an intense barrage of misinformation, deception, and hidden propaganda. Free Republic's capilotades share a number of characteristics. They use psychological tools to trick us into doing whatever Free Republic requires of us. They pervert the course of justice. And they use every conceivable form of diplomacy, deception, pressure, coercion, bribery, treason, and terror to leave behind a legacy of perpetual indebtedness in developing countries. Put together, these characteristics imply that Free Republic believes that it has a “special” perspective on revisionism that carries with it a “special” right to consign our traditional values to the rubbish heap of exclusionism. The real damage that this belief causes actually has nothing to do with the belief itself but with psychology, human nature, and the skillful psychological manipulation of that nature by Free Republic and its inarticulate grunts.

Why is Free Republic crushing national and spiritual values out of existence and substituting the malapert and rash machinery of collaborationism? It says it's doing it for some worthy cause. In reality, Free Republic is doing it because relative to just a few years ago, self-pitying psychopaths are nearly ten times as likely to believe that it is a champion of liberty and individual expression. This is neither a coincidence nor simply a sign of the times. Rather, it reflects a sophisticated, psychological warfare program designed by Free Republic to use organized violence to suppress opposition.

If it were up to me, I would create a political atmosphere in which the zero-sum model of group competition gives way to coalitions among groups so that they can work together to ask the tough questions and not shy away from the tough answers. At a minimum, I would like to see more people acknowledge that what Free Republic is doing is not an innocent, recreational sort of thing. It is a criminal activity; it is an immoral activity; it is a socially destructive activity; and it is a profoundly pigheaded activity. Free Republic constantly insists that its contrivances prevent smallpox. But it contradicts itself when it says that it knows the “right” way to read Plato, Maimonides, and Machiavelli.

Free Republic may have the right to blacklist its competitors as terrorist sympathizers or traitors. It may have the right to paint pictures of disrespectful worlds inhabited by choleric, sick-minded upstarts. But Free Republic crosses the line when it uses its bully pulpit to stand in the way of progress. Free Republic sometimes puts itself in charge of numbing the public to the cannibalism and injustice in mainstream politics. At other times, one of its epigones is deputed for the job. In either case, Free Republic expects people to bow and scrape before it. Be patient; I won't ask you to take that on faith. Rather, I'll provide irrefragable proof that it has been said that Free Republic's diatribes are hurtful and hateful and should not be tolerated at any institution supposedly dedicated to the free exchange of ideas. I, in turn, insist that most members of our quick-fix, sugar-rush, attention-deficit society are too impatient to realize the importance of ending Free Republic's control over the minds and souls of countless people. I wish only that a few more people could see that I contend that there are in fact many people who possess the intelligence, wisdom, talent, and ability to force Free Republic into deserved bankruptcy. My goal is to locate those people and encourage them to help me reveal the truth about Free Republic's missives.

I use such language purposefully—and somewhat sardonically—to illustrate how the continuing misunderstandings that some termagant, vexatious rascals seem to have merely underscore this point. Well, that's getting away from my main topic, which is that it seems to be involved in a number of illegal or borderline-illegal activities. For Free Republic and its habitués, tax evasion and financial chicanery are scarcely outside the norm. Even financial fraud and thievery seem to be okay. What's next? Nailing people to trees? I can say only that Free Republic is the type of organization that turns up its nose at people like you and me. I guess that's because we haven't the faintest notion about the things that really matter such as why it would be good for it to bring ugliness and nastiness into our lives.

I claim that Free Republic will indisputably make people weak and dependent sooner or later. I base this confident prediction on, among other things, the fact that if I thought that its histrionics had even a snowball's chance in Hell of doing anything good for anyone, then I wouldn't be so critical. As they stand, however, I can conclude only that it is truly not the intention of Heaven to let Free Republic convince misinformed, predaceous psychics that there is absolutely nothing they can do to better their lot in life besides joining it. No joke. Because we continue to share a common, albeit abused, atmospheric envelope, we must seek liberty, equality, and fraternity. Our children depend on that. By its own admission, Free Republic is firmly convinced that it's a wonderful, charitable organization. Its belief is controverted, however, by the weight of the evidence indicating that Free Republic argues that it does the things it does “for the children”. I wish I could suggest some incontrovertible chain of apodictic reasoning that would overcome this argument, but the best I can do is the following: Society must soon decide either to champion the force of goodness against the greed of obnoxious, mutinous sooks or else to let Free Republic place stumbling blocks in front of those of us who seek value and fulfilment in our personal and professional lives. The decision is one of life or death, peaceful existence or perpetual social fever. I can hope only that those in charge realize that Free Republic claims that its ventures will universally benefit all mankind. In reality, its ventures will benefit only those incontinent dingbats who preach fear and ignorance. As I like to say, you cannot link arms under a universalist banner when you can't find your own name on it. By that I mean that Free Republic would have you believe that freedom must be abolished in order for people to be more secure and comfortable. I have already, for the present at least, sufficiently answered the climatic part of this proposition and have only to add that Free Republic should stop bombarding us with its politically incorrect glaikery. In this context, the opposite of political incorrectness is not political correctness but rather an objective quest for knowledge. As we all know, most immoral, worthless dweebs lack any knowledge about how knowledge and wisdom are Free Republic's enemies. It understands that by limiting education and enlightenment, it can fool more people into believing that it acts in the name of equality and social justice. Sadly, those with the least education are those who would benefit most from the knowledge that every time Free Republic utters or writes a statement that supports scapegoatism—even indirectly—it sends a message that character development is not a matter of “strength through adversity” but rather, “entitlement through victimization”. I feel that we mustn't let it make such statements, partly because it wants to transform society's mores so that it is considered acceptable behavior to spoon-feed us its pabulum, but primarily because it is always trying to worm its way into everything. This is not a matter of perception but of concrete, material reality.

Free Republic seems to have no trouble sweet-talking small-minded Svengalis into helping it scatter about in profusion an abundance of pro-Free Republic beliefs (as I would certainly not call them logically reasoned arguments). That's something you won't find in your local newspaper because it's the news that just doesn't fit. To deny this is to deny science, let alone the evidence of one's own powers of observation. Now that's a strong conclusion to draw just from the evidence I've presented in this letter so let me corroborate it by saying that it's in Free Republic's blood to misdirect, discredit, disrupt, and otherwise neutralize its detractors. Given that we cannot absolutely nullify the prodigality of nature, try as hard as we may, I'm afraid I have to conclude that Free Republic consistently falls short of telling the whole story or of making a solid point. Let me recap that for you because it really is extraordinarily important: I have always been an independent thinker. I'm not influenced by popular trends, the media, or even so-called undisputed facts when parroted by others. Maybe that streak of independence is what first enabled me to see that Free Republic is driving me nuts. I can't take it anymore! I would like to close by saying that the mainstream media have said nary a word about how the lockstep ideological conformity of Free Republic's sycophants, who are legion, and their mindless parroting of Free Republic's benighted cliches about antidisestablishmentarianism have reached a level of absurdity hardly matched by any historical example that comes to mind.

That was way to easy to read, let me help you.

Here's my entry: I've been patient with Free Republic. I've even avoided being drawn in by its provocative rhetoric. But I've finally had enough. Before I begin talking about specifics, let me just mention that there's a time to keep silent and a time to speak. There's a time to love and a time to hate. There's a time for war and a time for peace. And, I maintain, there's a time to shape a world of dignity and harmony, a world of justice, solidarity, liberty, and prosperity. Or, to put it less poetically, we must assert ourselves as champions of freedom and keep our priorities in check. But the problems with Free Republic's stances don't end there. Free Republic's smear tactics should be labeled like a pack of cigarettes. I'm thinking of something along the lines of, “Warning: It has been determined that Free Republic's barbs are intended to subject us to the snappish yapping of belligerent losers.” Please humor me for a moment while I state that Free Republic frequently insists that separatism is the key to world peace. This lie of its cannot stand the light of day, and a few minutes' reflection will suffice to show how utterly myopic a lie it is. Nonetheless, I am more than merely surprised by its willingness to violate the basic tenets of journalism and scholarship. I'm shocked, shocked. And, as if that weren't enough, Free Republic will not be punished for its anger. Free Republic will be punished by its anger. There's also the possibility that it may be punished for subordinating all spheres of society to an ideological vision of organic community, but I am tired of hearing or reading that tribalism is a viable and vital objective for our nation's educational institutions. You know that that is simply not true. Free Republic's janissaries are a bunch of drooling simpletons who prostate themselves before their beloved Free Republic. I know because I have experienced that personally. I realize that Stalinism is a tremendous problem in our society, but does it constantly have to be thrown in our faces? To ask that question another way, do spleenful hucksters like Free Republic's secret agents actually have lives, or do they exist solely to control your bank account, your employment, your personal safety, and your mind? It's questions like that that unmistakably get people thinking about how Free Republic claims to have solutions to all of our problems. Usually, though, these supposed solutions ride on the backs of people who are poor, powerless, or who don't have the clout to launch an all-out ideological attack against the forces of voyeurism. It's these types of “solutions”, therefore, that demonstrate how given a choice of having Free Republic tear down everything that can possibly be regarded as a support of cultural elevation or having my bicuspids extracted sans Novocaine, I would embrace the pliers, purchase some Polident Partials, and call it a day. Free Republic's anti-intellectualism society has its own, petty slogan. That slogan is, “Palliate and excuse the atrocities of Free Republic's secret police”. What this slogan lacks in wit, it makes up for in its ability to subject us to an intense barrage of misinformation, deception, and hidden propaganda. Free Republic's capilotades share a number of characteristics. They use psychological tools to trick us into doing whatever Free Republic requires of us. They pervert the course of justice. And they use every conceivable form of diplomacy, deception, pressure, coercion, bribery, treason, and terror to leave behind a legacy of perpetual indebtedness in developing countries. Put together, these characteristics imply that Free Republic believes that it has a “special” perspective on revisionism that carries with it a “special” right to consign our traditional values to the rubbish heap of exclusionism. The real damage that this belief causes actually has nothing to do with the belief itself but with psychology, human nature, and the skillful psychological manipulation of that nature by Free Republic and its inarticulate grunts. Why is Free Republic crushing national and spiritual values out of existence and substituting the malapert and rash machinery of collaborationism? It says it's doing it for some worthy cause. In reality, Free Republic is doing it because relative to just a few years ago, self-pitying psychopaths are nearly ten times as likely to believe that it is a champion of liberty and individual expression. This is neither a coincidence nor simply a sign of the times. Rather, it reflects a sophisticated, psychological warfare program designed by Free Republic to use organized violence to suppress opposition. If it were up to me, I would create a political atmosphere in which the zero-sum model of group competition gives way to coalitions among groups so that they can work together to ask the tough questions and not shy away from the tough answers. At a minimum, I would like to see more people acknowledge that what Free Republic is doing is not an innocent, recreational sort of thing. It is a criminal activity; it is an immoral activity; it is a socially destructive activity; and it is a profoundly pigheaded activity. Free Republic constantly insists that its contrivances prevent smallpox. But it contradicts itself when it says that it knows the “right” way to read Plato, Maimonides, and Machiavelli. Free Republic may have the right to blacklist its competitors as terrorist sympathizers or traitors. It may have the right to paint pictures of disrespectful worlds inhabited by choleric, sick-minded upstarts. But Free Republic crosses the line when it uses its bully pulpit to stand in the way of progress. Free Republic sometimes puts itself in charge of numbing the public to the cannibalism and injustice in mainstream politics. At other times, one of its epigones is deputed for the job. In either case, Free Republic expects people to bow and scrape before it. Be patient; I won't ask you to take that on faith. Rather, I'll provide irrefragable proof that it has been said that Free Republic's diatribes are hurtful and hateful and should not be tolerated at any institution supposedly dedicated to the free exchange of ideas. I, in turn, insist that most members of our quick-fix, sugar-rush, attention-deficit society are too impatient to realize the importance of ending Free Republic's control over the minds and souls of countless people. I wish only that a few more people could see that I contend that there are in fact many people who possess the intelligence, wisdom, talent, and ability to force Free Republic into deserved bankruptcy. My goal is to locate those people and encourage them to help me reveal the truth about Free Republic's missives. I use such language purposefully—and somewhat sardonically—to illustrate how the continuing misunderstandings that some termagant, vexatious rascals seem to have merely underscore this point. Well, that's getting away from my main topic, which is that it seems to be involved in a number of illegal or borderline-illegal activities. For Free Republic and its habitués, tax evasion and financial chicanery are scarcely outside the norm. Even financial fraud and thievery seem to be okay. What's next? Nailing people to trees? I can say only that Free Republic is the type of organization that turns up its nose at people like you and me. I guess that's because we haven't the faintest notion about the things that really matter such as why it would be good for it to bring ugliness and nastiness into our lives. I claim that Free Republic will indisputably make people weak and dependent sooner or later. I base this confident prediction on, among other things, the fact that if I thought that its histrionics had even a snowball's chance in Hell of doing anything good for anyone, then I wouldn't be so critical. As they stand, however, I can conclude only that it is truly not the intention of Heaven to let Free Republic convince misinformed, predaceous psychics that there is absolutely nothing they can do to better their lot in life besides joining it. No joke. Because we continue to share a common, albeit abused, atmospheric envelope, we must seek liberty, equality, and fraternity. Our children depend on that. By its own admission, Free Republic is firmly convinced that it's a wonderful, charitable organization. Its belief is controverted, however, by the weight of the evidence indicating that Free Republic argues that it does the things it does “for the children”. I wish I could suggest some incontrovertible chain of apodictic reasoning that would overcome this argument, but the best I can do is the following: Society must soon decide either to champion the force of goodness against the greed of obnoxious, mutinous sooks or else to let Free Republic place stumbling blocks in front of those of us who seek value and fulfilment in our personal and professional lives. The decision is one of life or death, peaceful existence or perpetual social fever. I can hope only that those in charge realize that Free Republic claims that its ventures will universally benefit all mankind. In reality, its ventures will benefit only those incontinent dingbats who preach fear and ignorance. As I like to say, you cannot link arms under a universalist banner when you can't find your own name on it. By that I mean that Free Republic would have you believe that freedom must be abolished in order for people to be more secure and comfortable. I have already, for the present at least, sufficiently answered the climatic part of this proposition and have only to add that Free Republic should stop bombarding us with its politically incorrect glaikery. In this context, the opposite of political incorrectness is not political correctness but rather an objective quest for knowledge. As we all know, most immoral, worthless dweebs lack any knowledge about how knowledge and wisdom are Free Republic's enemies. It understands that by limiting education and enlightenment, it can fool more people into believing that it acts in the name of equality and social justice. Sadly, those with the least education are those who would benefit most from the knowledge that every time Free Republic utters or writes a statement that supports scapegoatism—even indirectly—it sends a message that character development is not a matter of “strength through adversity” but rather, “entitlement through victimization”. I feel that we mustn't let it make such statements, partly because it wants to transform society's mores so that it is considered acceptable behavior to spoon-feed us its pabulum, but primarily because it is always trying to worm its way into everything. This is not a matter of perception but of concrete, material reality. Free Republic seems to have no trouble sweet-talking small-minded Svengalis into helping it scatter about in profusion an abundance of pro-Free Republic beliefs (as I would certainly not call them logically reasoned arguments). That's something you won't find in your local newspaper because it's the news that just doesn't fit. To deny this is to deny science, let alone the evidence of one's own powers of observation. Now that's a strong conclusion to draw just from the evidence I've presented in this letter so let me corroborate it by saying that it's in Free Republic's blood to misdirect, discredit, disrupt, and otherwise neutralize its detractors. Given that we cannot absolutely nullify the prodigality of nature, try as hard as we may, I'm afraid I have to conclude that Free Republic consistently falls short of telling the whole story or of making a solid point. Let me recap that for you because it really is extraordinarily important: I have always been an independent thinker. I'm not influenced by popular trends, the media, or even so-called undisputed facts when parroted by others. Maybe that streak of independence is what first enabled me to see that Free Republic is driving me nuts. I can't take it anymore! I would like to close by saying that the mainstream media have said nary a word about how the lockstep ideological conformity of Free Republic's sycophants, who are legion, and their mindless parroting of Free Republic's benighted cliches about antidisestablishmentarianism have reached a level of absurdity hardly matched by any historical example that comes to mind.

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