FREEREPUBLIC.com'S PRAGMATISM: A Recipe for Disappointment [The outsider view of FR?]

etherzone ^ | November 26, 2002 | Paul Fallavollita

[Savage Beast]

As neither a conservative nor a Republican but as someone who respects Free Republic and those who post here, I find Fallavollita's appraisal inaccurate and boring.

Propaganda is always boring.

[Amelia]

We send emails to legislators. Guess what. They (99%) do not read them! Ask one.

You're right about that. I asked when I called my Senators' & Representative's offices. The answer: "A telephone call or regular letter has a better chance of getting action. We get so many emails...."

[Woodman]

Another rallying point will occur and FR will shine brightly at that time. However it isn't RINO'ism as many want it to be. Good to see you Duke.

[KneelBeforeZod]

hmm did th moderators stop changing thread titles back to the article's title?

[Woodman]

That they have any sway at all is important. This country had gotten to point where the only influence seen was from Trade Unions and PAC's. It is a watershed event that any Party has begun to listen to the people again and if even in only a small part conservatives are heard from FR we have began to win.

[syriacus]

5)Education. (I love the outstanding news analysis here at FR.) Thanks to Freepers, I can read a political news article, and immediately find out about the author, his agenda, facts that the author left out or got wrong, the various propaganda techniques used by the author, his source of funding etc. etc. You can't buy this kind of analysis, and certainly can find it in the major media.

Even non-conservatives can benefit from this joint effort of Freepers (and probably do).

[syriacus]

Where's the footnotes, Paul Fallavollita?

Coulter provides them in her criticism of leftist reportage. So do many other non-leftists.

General smears don't cut it anymore. We want hard facts.

[InvisibleChurch]

you don't get bashed until you're important

[peter the great]

Just a little note about education that we gain here at Free Republic, I firmly believe that I am well on my way to becoming a truly "scary conservative" in the eyes of liberals. During my time here at Free Republic I have gone from constantly being frustrated to frustrating others. In addition to what you have said one thing that Free Republic does is it brings to light situations in other locales and other newspapers that we ordinarily would not read or wouldnot see because who has time to read every single newspaper or watch every newscast or listen to every newscast it is impossible. Maybe what this writer should have touched on is Rush Limbaugh's assertion that we are winning.

[William McKinley]

We all know very well that John McCain would have trounced Gore handily

We don't all know this very well. As a matter of fact, I disagree with that assertion quite stridently. McCain would have lost fairly handily.

[advocate10]

2)Email campaigns (let politicians know we are paying attention)

See post #36.

[MissAmericanPie]

Envy is an ugly thing, isn't it? When was the last time this author had one of his comments nicked by the President's speech writer to end up in a speech that, most likely, will end up in the history books?

When was the last time this author had news media focus on problems of interest to him, or when has he heard a phrase he has coined become common usage in political dialogue?

I'm pretty sure among non-voters we are not known at all, why would we be? We are that rare breed, average Americans who vote. Big business may control politicians, but we control votes, our own and those we influence around us, and that influence helped insure a Republican controlled Senate, Congress, and Office of President. Some can question how big a percentage our influence extends to, we can assure them it extends far beyond the 500 votes President Bush won by, and that's enough now isn't it.

Razor thin election results have insured the importance of the average voter more now than at any time in history. It is a weapon to be weilded wisely and with stunning results as was just evidenced on Nov 5th. Many, like this author, know this and don't like it one little bit. Tuff. Naturally they will attack a site that can influence even a fraction of a percent of voters.

Yes, I would like to see FR's activism extend to more than visits to Presidential libraries but right now at this point and time to be on the streets waving signs at Republican politicans as they are just assuming power doesn't seem right or smart.

Immigration is a hot button issue, for many of us on FR the balance of any future influence lays in curing this problem.
For many of us 2004 will be our last vote for the show pony pranced out for our vote. D.C. would be wise to pay attention, their big corporate donors are not the only ones to get up early on election day to cast a vote, and they cannot buy, nor insure a candidates election by common people.

Have I been banned for calling for the write in vote of Tom Tancredo? Don't think so. Have I been banned for posting to immigration threads and chastising the Republicans in D.C. for their cowardess and inaction? Nope. When I am flamed by someone do I flame back? Nope. Politics inflames emotions, people get emotional and lose focus, that is no reason for anyone to follow suit and make the situtation worse. My ego is just not that fragile that it can't take a hit and bounce back.

Jim Rob has an image in mind for FR, he has a right to that. We lose influence if we look like right wing loose cannons, which we are not, ideas, not profanity is the forte here. Flame wars are destructive not instructive. I would not want the job of site building, I tend to migraines enough already.

Do my contributions to FR mean I am on the Republican plantation? I'm a conservative independent who votes Republican, if I thought that FR was a Republican only site I would be outta here. It's not, and I'm not and that's just the way I like it.

[Illbay]

YaddaYadda.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

I thought so.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Again, an article of this type proves how effective we really are.

[advocate10]

That they have any sway at all is important.

I agree, but it's a very small drop in a very large ocean. One might liken it to the sound a tiny baby mouse makes when it takes a teeny tinkle into a bail of cotton.

[alrea]

All I can figure out from this article is that somebody is shitting bricks over the election.

That they are. Friends, the elements that have dominated the Democratic Party are sensing that their formula of anger for redistribution is loosing steam.

Corruption, higher taxes and bigger government has run into a road block that all the socialist Dan Rather's, Barbara Sreisand's and Daschle Gore's finally can't get around.

It sure is cool to see FreeRepublic on their hit list.

It's even cooler to see the strategy they are employing, since they seem to be throwing more gas on the big government fire.

[AppyPappy]

And if you don't think there is a sizeable contingent of those who'd send the U.S. to h*ll if it would benefit Israel, you haven't been reading.

Not but I believe there are people who would rather pull for the terrorists than the Jews. And those people would believe anything as long as it hurts the Jews.

[CIB-173RDABN]

I agree with you. The internet in general, and this site in particular has removed the "gatekeeper" to information.

I am old enough to remember a time when there were only 3 networks, radio was for music, 3 hard news magazines, and several light news magazines. All of which leaned to the left.

Even if I wanted to keep current with the world and local news it was filtered through a leftest lens. More importantly, at the time I was not aware of what was NOT being reported.

My views, and the views of the general public were being shaped by these gatekeepers of the news. We only knew what we were told, and unless we were close to the source, assumed it was true.

I doubt anyone on this site today will assume anything that is posted is the absolute truth. This, and this alone, would justify the existence of FreeRepublic.

If you were to draw a line across a page, and label one side EXTREME LEFT and the other side EXTREME RIGHT, and exactly in the middle label CENTER, and then ask every poster on this site to mark on the line where they think they are, you would get marks all across that line with the most somewhere around the center.

One bit of wisdom I have gained in my old age is that elections are won in the center, not on either extreme.

The policticians on both extremes take care to hide their true beliefs (the Democrats have an easier job, since the major media refer to all but the far left as moderate, while most Republicans are always extreme right, but you all know that).

Our goal should not be to sway policticians to move to the right, but to move the general population to the right, and the polictians will follow.

And that to me is what sites like this are doing, one reader at a time...keep up the good work Jim R.