The FREEPER strategy on responding to Dixie Chicks manager's comments

Cincinatti Enquirer ^ | 3/19/2003 | jagrmiester

[TPartyType]

wizzler, Don't waste your breath. Too many FReepers are convinced that conservatives have to make their voice heard by using the same tactics street activists and radical leftists have employed since the 60s. I think it's because they (a) have no life, and (b) can't differentiate between a true conservative and a radical idealogue.

---

I say "have no life" because I have watched how they wet themselves with excitement any time they get a headline or a mention on C-SPAN. They go out, week after week, standing on street corners, waving clever posters and dressing up like satan (Sorry, Dr. Raoul). They believe they're fighting the good fight and making a difference, but they're just an embarrassment, if you ask me. They organize boycotts, never stopping to consider that radicals are the ones who determine what they eat, what they consume, what they buy and what they listen to on the basis of politics. Conservatives are not idealogues. Conservatives are not street activists. WE are the salt of the earth, hard-working family people who don't have time to battle the crowd nobody takes seriously anyway. (Notice how swayed President Bush and Prime Minister Blair were by the millions of anti-war protestors worldwide?)

Conservatives are not idealogues.

Conservatives are not radicals.

Conservatives do not organize boycotts.

Conservatives do not thrive on street theatre of the absurd (to grab headlines/gain attention).

Conservatives do not worship politics.

---

Hey, look at me. Now I'm wasting my breath! HA!

[jagrmeister]

Nice opposition research!! This is not the first time that Renshaw has cried conspiracy. What happens when you cry wolf like Simon has, you lose your credibility.

[chainsaw]

I'm all for telling Lipton to go back home and take their statue with them.

[GSWarrior]

Your posts have been filed under 'I Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself.'

[way-right-of-center]

Red Adair Bump!

[Revolting cat!]

(if you disagree, please private message me; i'd like to keep the thread for those who support this observation and taking action)

This sentence appears at the top of the original post. If you can't understand and follow such a simple and reasonable request, why should we pay attention to any ogf your vomit you post?

[wizzler]

You don't have to pay attention to anything I post here, vomit or otherwise.

And sorry -- let's just say I decided to boycott the "private message" request that was at the top of the original post.

[Revolting cat!]

There was a post on one of the Dipsy Chix threads by a FReeper who knew what he was talking about, explaining in much detail that concert tickets that had been purchased by credit card, and delivered by mail, can be in fact cancelled. The credit card charges can be reversed, if you haven't received the tickets, or if you state you haven't received them. If someone could find a link to the original post or provide knowledgeable information of the same kind, it would certainly be appreciated.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

Gee, I haven't noticed any racist violent homophobic radical unevolved ignorant bigoted irrational simplistic idiots around here, have you?

[longtermmemmory]

A frenchman gave us the statute. The French government thought he was a kook. There were even charity drives by children saving pennies to help assemble it. She's american.

[Revolting cat!]

OK, fair enough, let me just explain a point that is perhaps too subtle to grasp. The Chickens are indeed a disposable pop group. This is indeed a tempest in a teapot. But the Chickens find themselves at the receiving end of a lot of frustrations people in the flyover country feel about the celebrities seeking out television cameras to express their putrid opinions and, knowingly or not, acting as agents of influence, demoralizers in the employ of the enemies of this country! And doing it with no consequences of any kind, because how does the flyover country retaliate against Sean Penn? By not seeing his once a year movie, that hardly anyone sees anyway and those who see it are typically mindless teenagers who for the most part couldn't care less?

Well, here comes a popular group led by a singer with a Julia Roberts mouth, a group that sells CD's every day, sells concert tickets every day, gets song requests phoned in to a thousand radiostations. And sells tjhose things to people who are overwhelmingly patriotic, who overwhelmingly voted for this President. We are sending a warning message to the Seans, Jacks, Julias of Ho-wood and the Chickens will, like it or not, carry it. Clear?

[an amused spectator]

Simon sez... ;-)

[JoJo Gunn]

This is essentially a duplicate thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/868480/posts

[wizzler]

I understand your point, and thank you for responding.

But at the risk of making this personal, let me say that your post exemplifies the sort of tone that bothers me. (Not specifically in your post, but in general.) It's the whole "Dipsy Chicks"/"Chickens"/"Tom Dashole"/"Bill Klintoon" type of rhetoric.

I don't want to make too much of the puns themselves, but I can say that as soon as I spot one in a post, I tend to dismiss the rest of that post. It's not even a conscious decision, really. It's just that those puns they tend to accompany a weak argument, and so my brain processes them as a prompt of sorts -- a signal that I don't need to bother with the rest of the presented "argument."

My point? Phrases like "Dipsy Chicks" are cute and clever and what have you, but they symbolize the kind of shrill rhetoric I've lamented throughout this thread. I'm not saying we all have to be academic and somber all the time. But the sort of bombastic name-calling inherent in those nicknames usually tells me that the rest of the argument is to be viewed with suspicion. Because logic and truth don't need cutting nicknames to do their persuasion for them; to paraphrase an articulate poster above, they're tools that are necessary only for ideologues.

[oyez]

They want to destroy wealth and the wealthy so everyone will be equally miserable. In the socialsts world there is no redemption. Everyone are like animals. The only guarantee they have is they become worm food, except a very, very select few that would be preserved in a glass box in a national monument.

[Revolting cat!]

I think I understand your objections, but I think your impression of puns affecting the level of discussion is mistaken. This is not an Oxford debating society, we're having fun, and puns are essential part of it, helping to break up tension and hostility between the debating parties. It's a written discussion not verbal. Editorial writers use them all the time, sometimes nearly as viciously as we do. I wish you'd reconsider! I've seen some well reasoned posts using the "Hitlery" monicker, and I can never bring myself to use the proper _linton family name in my own posts.

[wizzler]

I don't think those nicknames are completely useless. They can be occasionally fun (if less occasionally actually funny).

But in general, that kind of writing is one of the reasons I (and many others) don't take Maureen Dowd seriously, for instance. When it comes down to it, they do nothing to convince an opponent that you're right -- and in fact, can keep an opponent on the defensive and unwilling to listen further. And while this ISN'T an Oxford debating society, it is a place where people debate. (As evidenced by this very thread.)

[Revolting cat!]

Well, all I can say is that you've managed to pick the absolutely the worst debating candidate for this particular discussion. I luv puns, good and bad and have come up with many bad ones myself, as well as my regular "Tomorrow's headline today" series, like this one (previously posted) which is very much a propos here:

Stix Hix Nix Dix Chix

[OperationFreedom]

bump

[wizzler]

You shouldn't be reading so much Mickey Kaus.