“There are people who take liberal views here, but they are expected to defend their positions articulately, preferably with Constitutional, federal, or state law citations. Respectful disagreement is welcomed.
He does not ban people simply to suppress a point of view.”
Come now, you have to know that isn’t exactly true for every “point of view”.
How long do you think posters who are pro-abortion, for example, last on FR, if they are vocal about it? Or pro-gay marriage?
I’ve seen plenty of posters banned simply because their views were too far outside of what the mods judge to be the positions that this site is designed to promote, and that is perfectly legitimate for the owners of the site to do.
From the Free Republic home page:
Established in 1996, Free Republic is one of the earliest and largest online gathering places for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America...Please enjoy our forum, but also please remember to use common courtesy when posting and refrain from posting personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threats, racial or religious bigotry, or any other materials offensive or otherwise inappropriate for a conservative family audience...
Free Republic is a site dedicated to the concerns of traditional grassroots conservative activists. We're here to discuss and advance our conservative causes in a more or less liberal-free environment. We're not here to debate liberals. We do not want our pages filled with their arrogant, obnoxious, repugnant bile. Liberals, usurpers, and other assorted malcontents are considered unwelcome trolls on FR and their accounts and or posts will be summarily dismissed at the convenience of the site administrators...
Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government. Free Republic advocates a return to constitutionally limited government, reserving all government powers not expressly delegated by the constitution to the United States to the States respectively, or the people, emphasizing sovereign state governments, local government, self-government and self-rule, while restricting government powers to only those enumerated in the constitution and maximizing individual rights and liberty as originally envisioned and established by our Founding Fathers and secured and defended by the blood of patriots and statesmen for over two hundred years...
Note the two points I highlighted.
1) While we do not set out to debate liberals directly, we post and debate liberal arguments as laid out by liberals in MSM articles. Some of these issues include abortion and gay marriage, as well as legalizing certain drug use.
2) While we do not condone rebellion or secession, there are plenty of articles posted which discuss this, as well as some FReepers who openly advocate for it in discussion threads.
So sure, there are exceptions, and those exceptions go both ways, unlike FaceBook which only bans one way and excepts the other way.
-PJ
I agree.
I had a blog taken down entitled “Impeach Trump” ( to attract interest ) in which I argued for Trump to fire Mueller and as many other deep-staters as he could and directly take on the impeachment threat. And to do so especially before the 2018 midterm election to rally his supporters to get out the vote to counter the deranged leftist loonies.
I argued that the republican party would become the Whigs if they did not support Trump.
But the post or thread was removed without it even being read.
Mods are too jumpy around here.
Or was that a Freeper algorithm ?