LittleLinda, why did you wait so long to join in?
Thank you for asking CP. It’s a bit of a story. I turned away from the traditional media in 2000 after watching the US election returns from here in Canada and the melee that followed over hanging chads and voter intent. It was the first time that I’d seen the media openly choose a side and I was disgusted. I discarded newspapers and TV news and wandered around the internet until I stumbled upon Free Republic, and found a place where there were lots of like-minded people.
But, not being an American, I didn’t think I had any standing to comment on what I thought were primarily American news events. I was also acutely aware of how little I knew about a Republic-style government. A Freeper posted one day that Hillsdale College was offering a free online course called Constitution 101, so I enrolled.
As I worked through the material and began receiving the monthly Imprimus, I became so impressed with the brilliance of your Founding Fathers and the elegance of the Founding Documents. I continued to read the posts on FR and the comments by all the intelligent and patriotic posters who often provided a lot more clarity about what I was reading. I developed a lot more knowledge, but still felt like it was not my place to comment - until Q.
Q made it clear that patriots are not confined to one country, they exist all over the world, and are united everywhere by their belief and passion for the concepts in your founding documents. The hostility about Q beyond the trees, and the general negativity there pushed me to spend more time on the Q threads for my daily news and information fix (as I think EMI_Guy or Keflavik76 aptly called it).
I got to “know” the posters here over time and found everyone to be so very pleasant, mostly optimistic, and respectful, even in disagreement. I’ve come to enjoy the affection you all have for each other and I like the warm and inviting atmosphere. It made me want to move from peeking in the window all the time to at least being in the room.
Lol! That’s a really long-winded way of saying it was all of you who persuaded me to join with your consistent kindness and generosity of spirit toward each other. It really served as a magnet for me.