Posted on 05/03/2011 4:46:53 AM PDT by Huck
Yesterday should have been a glorious day around here. There should have been fireworks and celebration. There should have been somber remembrances. There should have been patriotic tributes. There should have been shared joy at the news that our guys had finally gotten Bin Laden.
Instead, when I visited the site, what I found was a lot of carping. I found people focused more on the political spin than on the great news. I found people transferring their birther mentality onto this event, talking about Obama faking this news, photoshopping information, etc. It wasn't everybody, but it was a LOT of people. It made me sick.
Yesterday Free Republic seemed like DU. It makes me wonder what the hell is going on. Are Freepers getting younger? I always assume that DU is so pathetically immature because they must be younger. Free Republic has always been a place dominated by great class, and wit, and decency. Not this time. What I saw yesterday was a pathetic embarrassment and totally unworthy of this great forum.
As some of you may know, I was in lower Manhattan on 9-11. I was just across the street from the WTC when the first plane hit. I still remember the beautiful clear blue sky that day. I remember walking in between the towers just a minute or so before 8:46am, on my normal route to work. I remember my co-workers screaming in panic when they watched from an office window as the second plane hit the south tower. I remember women crying and screaming hysterically. I remember not being able to contact my wife to tell her I was OK. I remember people jumping to their deaths. I remember seeing the north tower go down with my own eyes, hearing it with my own ears. I remember fleeing Manhattan. I remember it was a Tuesday.
I remember returning to work the following Monday, riding the ferry passed the site, noxious smoke still billowing from the wreckage. I remember armed troops on the sidewalks. I remember wearing a breathing mask inside my building because the foul odor was seeping in through the ventilation system. I remember thinking we'd really gotten kicked in the teeth. They had killed innocent people, they had traumatized our women and children, and I really wanted revenge. I hung a picture on my wall of the American eagle sharpening his talons.
It has been a long time since that day. It's hard to believe how fast time flies. Then again, if you lost your loved one, I imagine time hasn't gone so fast. I love my wife so much, I can empathize with anyone who has lost the one they love. I can't imagine how that would be, and don't want to know, but I can cry for those people because I know what it is like to find your one true love.
I'm not an Obama fan. I hate socialism. But I am so happy that Bin Laden is killed, and that we have exacted some real revenge. It's about time. The politics don't even play into it for me. I still have the little flag, now tattered, that I flew on my car antenna after 9-11. I want to take it out of storage and put it on my car. I want to see American flags on cars like we saw back then. But it's not going to happen, and partially because the normally patriotic conservatives such as the ones here on Free Republic are instead focused on the politics and the fact that a socialist Democrat was president and will get some of the credit.
I guess you all would have been pissed on D-Day too. FDR was as big a socialist as anyone. I guess VE day and VJ day would have chapped your hides, since Truman was a DEM. I don't mean to paint with a broad brush. I know it wasn't every Freeper acting this way. But when I went on the board, that was the general impression, and it was really disappointing. It should have been a great day here. Instead, I saw a lack of patriotism and a lack of class. Free Republic should be better than this. If conservatives lose their patriotism and class, then what will happen to those virtues? I hope we can get them back soon. In the meantime, thanks for reading.
Respectfully,
Huck
Be of good cheer, and leave those to themselves, who are not.
Not for me. It was easy. Politics didn't enter into it at all.
Huck,
Arguing with conspiracy theory folks will only raise your bloodpressure.
It has been said that: “History is written by the winners”. It has also been said that: “Conspircy theories are history written by the losers.”
When one’s side loses an argument or election (or just doesn’t like the situation) despire the ‘obvious’ superiority of your side’s arguments, some folks ‘explain’ the loss by spinning all sorts of conspiracy theories. You don’t need any evidence. In fact, you can claim the absence of evidence only proves the hidden power of the conspirators. Doing the work of developing better arguments or putting for better candidates is just too hard too do. It’s just so much easier to develop some elaborate theory.
As you point out, conspiracy theories to explain the success of the opposition are not limited to either side. The left has their theories and the right has theirs.
If you think yesterday was bad here on freerepublic, you should have been here just after 9/11 when freerepublic was inundated with Truthers. JimR finally purged most of them.
FYI: my first comment after hearing the news of Osama’s death was ‘The conspiracy nuts are going to go nuts’.
Don’t forget just a few weeks ago he wasn’t going to pay them.
Verifiable confidence in the integrity of your govt goes a long way. Not only that, it is their duty to us. Remember that whole transparency thing? It's not just a saying.
I completely agree! Thank you for saying it!
One kid said his teacher told them it was nothing to celebrate, and he shot back "Yes it is! He killed 3,000 Americans!" This is a little chubby Indian boy. It warmed my heart.
I just was really disgusted by the discourse that I saw here yesterday, and in the manner of policing our own, I felt it was worth chiming in. People can take it or leave it. Thanks for the buck-up, though.
Your opinion is noted, but I disagree. I see what you see, and when I see what you don’t like, I usually don’t like it either, and look up the profile of the individual(s). If no profile, which is most often, then the recent, or timely date they joined is sufficient to form an opinion. I don’t see this invasion of DU. When they do come, they are usually so “transparent” they are zotted immediately.
Freepers instinctively know a DU type when one gets past the rat guard on the hawser.
Like so many you are deeming those you disagree with their perspectives, their opinions as they must be DU. IOW “they can’t be Conservatives if they don’t agree with me” sort of thing.
What I find most disturbing is the third thought that came to me after hearing that OBL was dead was if this could be another demonrat run of Hitler's "The Big Lie."
After seeing them in action, for me it's not just a matter of not trusting a bunch of politicians. I think the current iteration of GovCo is capable of anything and it's sometimes hard to tell whose side they are on or what restrains them.
Suffering from derangement syndrome or just another member of the spooked herd? I dunno...but it's spreading.
This should have been excellent news. And it would have been if punctuated with bin Laden's head on a pike. Unfortunately, the first part of "Trust, but verify" quit working here.
Before you get to indignant and dismissive about concerns voiced regarding potential lies from the administration I suggest you take a look at this breaking story...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54162.html
Can you clearly define this term as you apply it to fellow FReepers?
ping for later
1) He is a liberal
2) His is a con man making up non-sense that people want to be true, but cant be true
3) He can't beat Obama, I dont even see him winning the primary.
This good news event killing Osama knocked the Trumpsters off their feet, but it doesnt change the real debate or issues that he was pushing into the background : our economic death spiral and no real large scall national desire (yet) to confront it.
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I saw that too.....it's too funny.
Why would you trust pictures from this administration any more than you trust his “long form birth certificate”?
It’s nice for revenge, but it doesn’t change anything. UBL was a non-factor.....in fact, probably a decoy for Al-Zawahiri, who probably has been the real Al-Q leader for several years now.
One thing was the relations between UBL and Iran were strained at best, under Zawahiri, they are much closer, that makes Al-Q even more dangerous than ever, as we see what is happening in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, etc.
We got our pound of flesh, and that’s great, but things just got more complicated.
Huck, you write, well... however, you’re like the cook who put all the right ingredients in the mixing bowl.. and found out later his bowl was cracked and he had a real mess to clean up... We are seeking the truth... as this freeper stated
“I do believe our military went in there and killed a person. It is up to the Obama admin to provide evidence just as Bush did when the Hussein boys were killed...”...
so.. don’t get too carried away and not see this emperor in the White House is as naked as a jay bird... he CANNOT BE TRUSTED...and neither can anyone who chooses to follow him...
Right now, this emperor’s is a cracked bowl..
only the WHOLE truth will satisfy... and I am not satisfied yet... are you?
should I now change my old tag line to read
“Osama Bin Laden is alive,”
there I said it, prove me wrong.
I understand that. Today it's back to work and all that. But it was real fine news. My wife called me from the road as soon as she heard. (We don't have television so sometimes we get news a little delayed. )
So they got the son wrong, they got the wife wrong, but we're to believe that they got the husband right?
So you’re ok with the I, I, I, ME, ME, ME speech Obama gave? He took credit for everything, never even mentioned Bush who put everything into motion. Obama is the one putting the political spin on this, not the PATRIOTS on this forum who called him out on it. Maybe the posters over on DU are more to your liking.
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