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The SituAsian posted:Judging from these posts many believe this has already happened/is happening. My uncle, while by no means a freepster, is a pretty rural-minded guy. He went out and got himself that semi-automatic AR-15 he'd been meaning to buy a week after Obama won the election, citing the election as the impetus for the purchase. The "Obama will take our guns" meme caught pretty hard in '09 and '10. But a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban, while obviously a long-shot at the moment, would be a not-unthinkable Democratic policy goal. I think I sympathize. If all my crazy neighbors were in possession of large-caliber gas-powered rifles, I'd probably want one too. As per talk of freep revolution, I am in agreement with the comments below. Their talk radio nonsense is quite insufficient to sustain anything beyond a half-assed reactionary political movement. Even calling them a full-fledged political movement is a bit unassuming, as the vast majority of actual Tea Party gatherings are reported to be not well-attended. They excel at voting and high-pitched whining, but most of them can be considered, at their root, empty and defeated individuals. There would be no heart in a right-wing uprising. The real danger lies in the rock-solid base of support for malevolent corporatism that they collectively form. They know they're unlikely to get the institutionalized oppression that they so crave by way of government. But they know the opportunity for privatized fascism is there, and they may fight for that. But their generation is approaching its sunset, so they may well suddenly decide to become vocal defenders of Medicare.
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| # ¿ Dec 21, 2011 08:25 |
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| # ¿ May 20, 2013 00:48 |
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Shima Honnou posted:Naw, just backpedaling and many zots for those who don't fall into lockstep supporting Romney. Romney has always been FReep's candidate. How on earth do they conjure up enthusiasm for an alleged center-right moderate? Is it as simple as conjuring up enthusiasm for being told what to do by the Republican establishment? Or do they truly accept pragmatism as a means of destroying a hated enemy. Gingrich must be making their heads spin, right about now. And the blue-balls Palin must be giving them, I cannot imagine.
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| # ¿ Dec 22, 2011 00:47 |
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Low IQ and Conservative Beliefs Linked to PrejudiceStephanie Pappas posted:There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy. Ouch.
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| # ¿ Jan 29, 2012 19:47 |
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I hear constantly about some double-taxation phenomenon that afflicts millionaires exclusively, lots of it in the Freep thread. It's supposed to be some weird argument for why Mitt's actual tax rate is way above 15, seen it on Fox and tossed about by entry-level conservative foot soldiers. Can somebody explain what the hell it's about? It has something to do with dividends, which seems strange because the majority of stocks do not pay out a dividend.
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| # ¿ Jan 29, 2012 20:22 |
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PostNouveau posted:Ahahahah. How delightful. Thank you.
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| # ¿ Jan 29, 2012 20:39 |
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DemeaninDemon posted:Bwahahahahahahahahahaha. It's like, I read it, and all the little boxcars sputtering happily along in my train of thought all suddenly derail in different directions, the tanker-cars ignite, and the engineer shoots himself. Does the FBI just not bother with these guys anymore? If the purpose of Freep is to turn me against Medicare, then you win, you blissfully insane motherfuckers.
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| # ¿ Jan 30, 2012 05:34 |
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It just seems that despite keeping the paranoia ratcheted up to 110% since 2008, the poo poo that gets them the least worked up and that they denounce with the least enthusiasm is the ACTUAL semi-tyrannical poo poo Obama has put his name all over, and in some cases totally instigated. Like that's literally the one and only place where Freep could raise a god-damned ruckus and make a contribution to the world, and they shirk it. It's just so loving sad and it's the sort of waste of brains and mouths and limbs that makes me want to cry. Am I missing something? Are there good examples of Freep calling out legitimately awful policy on the part of the president with anywhere near the intensity they call out his refusal to build a wall of tires on the border?
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| # ¿ Jan 31, 2012 02:11 |
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nsaP posted:They aren't big fans of the TSA if that counts for anything. Yeah, but I'm sure they're of the John Tyner school, where half the hate is for the screeners and the other half is for the TSA union, which has been kept fairly intact and is one of the largest remaining.
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| # ¿ Jan 31, 2012 02:45 |
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Pon de Bundy posted:I bet the 3 black people on Freep have a real hard time being quiet sometimes. Dear God why would anybody be on Freep let alone black people. RIP AfricanChristian Did he accept the offer of a SA forums account?
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| # ¿ Feb 2, 2012 18:18 |
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CitizenKain posted:Just looked it up, and apparently they just hit the 1001st person moving today. So, not so great. The thing is, most of them moved to the same small city, Keene NH, where they cause all sorts of problems for local government. They have a YT channel where they post all the two-hour debates they subject councilmen to before they agree to pay their property taxes or traffic tickets (which they always eventually do, under duress). Here's one of them representing himself in court in a very long hearing over a parking ticket. Tries a variety of libertarian arguments eg. consent of the governed, initiation of force. Not a very good lawyer. Probably pays his parking ticket. Another where "Ian Freeman" and gang put the part-time Keene city manager on trial for his right to authority. He proves to be highly competent, infinitely patient, and far more knowledgeable about the derivation of power than the Free Keeners. (40 min.) A different Free Keener Sam Dodson, on Judge Napolitano's Freedom Watch over getting arrested after recording in a state building.
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| # ¿ Feb 3, 2012 12:08 |
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Tars Tarkas posted:Komen changed nothing today except to use a bunch of PR words that confused newspaper writers, so their PR backtrack just enraged the right as much as they enraged women two days ago. Nothing warms my heart quite like somebody caught between two different forms of cowardice, trying both, succeeding at neither. Subterfrugal posted:Holy christ, this is infuriating. These guys entire m.o. appears to be to catch random city employees in reasoning traps they construct based on explicit misunderstanding of statute. There's a reason that they don't want to talk to the city/state attorney. They don't want to talk to the person paid to completely grasp the legal processes that serve as the foundation of municipal government. They want someone they can bounce their retarded analogies off of in an attempt to flummox them on camera. The whole libertarian insurgency thing puts everyone in a tough spot. The guys in the video are technically anti-government agents and enemies of the state, but at the same time, they're lovably uninitiated jackasses. Being polite and having civil discussion with the city over coffee is lovely, but the fact remains that they have a stated aim of radical change and Freeman makes it clear he is willing to go outside the bounds of the law to pursue it. Some kind of showdown between New Hampshire and the Free-Staters is not totally outside the realm of possibility.
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| # ¿ Feb 3, 2012 23:54 |
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How come there's no reading list in the OP? I've just got my softcover copy of the Authoritarians and every page explains another twelve Freep posts. It really is enhancing my appreciation of this thread's very fine offerings, tenfold. Another recent one is The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robins. Argues that, less than a motley coalition dedicated to warring, making teh money and hating teh gays, all conservatives are grounded in one theme, the creation of new regimes of privilege and the defense of old ones against democratic threats. Not well-received by Andrew Sullivan or the New York Times book review. The Times review went so far as to call the author a left-wing Ann Coulter, which was just seriously over the top and I think betrayed a crippling squeamishness about these sorts of matters. Though it was probably these two articles that first unlocked the intense and intoxicating world of the American winger for me: http://exiledonline.com/reagan%E2%8...cheshire-snarl/ http://exiledonline.com/we-the-spiteful/ John Dolan, author of Reagan's Cheshire Snarl now lives in Freep's native Fresno and does a lot of great writing on California's fall to the Reagan counterrevolution.
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| # ¿ Feb 4, 2012 05:40 |
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Are there international conferences of right-wingers? Right-wing platforms from country to country really are shockingly consistent with one another. I'd love to organize one. Some international brotherhood and seeing themselves in the mirror might do them good. Even if they only wind up supporting the right-wing segments of other societies, it's a lot better than nothing. I read that the Daily Mail just overtook the NY Times as the most widely circulated paper, perhaps they could take a break from Fox and Friends and check out the Mail, see what real uncloseted racism reads like. Sometimes I wish we could go to a multi-party Parliamentary system, up and have our American BNP, and stop letting the racists cloak themselves to find acceptance in the big-tent GOP. It's the faux-politeness I really can't stand. Also, is Freep so expensive to run because Jim doesn't know anything about IT? Or does their traffic justify the six-figure bills. Right-wing sites are always so Web 1.0, (or more often Web v.5 beta), it makes me blush. deoetdoctrinae posted:Free Republic Monthly Budget. Once we get our monthly donations to the point where they will cover all of our expenses, we will not need to have fundraisers. Holy poo poo. They're paying themselves $20,000 a month to run FR. And freely admitting to it. And banning loving everyone, just for kicks. And bundling "taxes" next to administration, just to remind everyone of why they fight, and why upper-class salaries for the Robinsons are absolutely necessary. How much money is there really in taking advantage of these people? And is it ethical (answer is yes, btw). Is the vast right-wing radio/book club empire actually a liberal conspiracy to separate wingers from their money? This image is so soviet-dystopia it really is perfect for a Freep donation drive. 
agarjogger fucked around with this message at Feb 5, 2012 around 19:12 |
| # ¿ Feb 5, 2012 18:24 |
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I have another important question: If Free Republic was facing imminent and permanent shutdown and the Robinsons swore on zombie-Reagan they would not revive the site if the donation drive target was not met that very night, say $500 more: would you guys swoop in to save it?
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| # ¿ Feb 5, 2012 18:48 |
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So do they worship this guy, or what? I also love that one of them commented just how lucky they actually are to have 24/7 "moderation" for the oh-so-reasonable price of $200,000/year. Honestly, is Freep their first internet experience? quote:To: deoetdoctrinae; Wyoming Cowboy Free Republic: A Not-for-profit Corporation
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| # ¿ Feb 5, 2012 21:59 |
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Erghh posted:Giddy-up ya'll. Ahahaha. Coulter is OBVIOUSLY seized by feminine hysteria. fr posted:Remember, 99.999999999% ... These people should be walking Merriam-Websters by now, given their overreliance on sputtering hyperbole to express even the most benign of sentiments. I'm sure there's lots of speculation here about what the reaction might be on Free Republic if Obama actually did a socialist thing, like nationalized some big banks. I have a feeling you'd see the equivalent of heads exploding, as Freepers struggle in vain to find words momentous enough for such an occasion, realizing they already used every vile word they know to describe Michelle's butt and Malia's T-shirts. Furthermore, nine nine nine nine nine nine nine...
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| # ¿ Feb 6, 2012 01:15 |
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The Rokstar posted:I love the "them dag gum gays wanting to get married is them wanting a special right that would put them above the rest of us, somehow" argument. As if when same-sex marriage is legalized it will be legalized for gay people ONLY. Straight people will have the right to get gay married, just the same as anyone. I think the conservative position on gay marriage is pretty simple. We have this thing that is valuable (marriage). This group we don't like lacks this right and wants it. Not only do we have the power to deny this valuable right to this disliked group, the value (perceived and real) of our right rises when fewer people have it. So when they say "protect the sanctity", what I really hear is "prevent stock dilution". If you believe in social domination, then no additional reasoning is necessary. You keep the gays down because it makes the position of your group seem ever sweeter. So basically conservatives will oppose the liberation of any new group in every single case because it decreases the amount of competition the dominant group has to suffer, and for that they are slightly evil.
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| # ¿ Feb 7, 2012 06:41 |
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The Robinsons, drawing two six-figure salaries out of a horrible-looking website whose users complain constantly about comically bad performance, just cannot be loving bothered to provide more than a ten-line, partially fabricated accounting of his userbase's quarter-million dollars. He zots anyone who dares question his absurd salary and they cheer and beg for more. These people just can't get enough abuse. The way they let that otherwise unemployable rear end in a top hat walk all over them with a smirk reminds me of the way they received the Bush administration. Of course cheering like apes when it's not them that gets the hammer (this time). I'm going to try to forget today that two fascists from Fresno get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to ban people from some godawfully creepy counterrevolutionary site.
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| # ¿ Feb 7, 2012 19:20 |
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Kavak posted:Navy. He wears a veteran's cap all the time even though he never actually did anything important, as far as I know. It's a talisman to ward off criticism.
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| # ¿ Feb 8, 2012 00:03 |
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angrytech posted:So when is RimRob going to switch to supporting Santorum? I bet he dabbles in accelerationist theory for a week or so, going full pro-Obama, before he finally declares Romney Freep's man.
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| # ¿ Feb 8, 2012 05:36 |
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Glitterbomber posted:I am betting he'll go full "WE GOTTA PUNISH THE ESTABLISHMENT VOTE OBAMA THAT'LL TEACH MITT" for like, a week before he realizes "wait poo poo no" It really all comes down to who isn't the Antichrist. Really, almost anyone is an acceptable candidate when you're running against the Antichrist. They're just not yet sure if it's Obama or Romney. And can you blame them? They need a sign, like if Obama goes on another anti-Israel bus trip, or if Romney is found in Newt's hotel room perched on his corpse cackling wildly as clouds swirl outside.
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| # ¿ Feb 8, 2012 06:42 |
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quote:To: kenmcg Freep is really coming around with regards to Fox. Which one of you finally got through to them?
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| # ¿ Feb 20, 2012 20:31 |
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TotalHell posted:http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1071/1071_01.asp Oh my god thank you for this. I'm going to be reading these all night again. We had a whole box of these comics dropped off at my evangelical elementary school that were put out for the kids. There were like 500 of them so the teacher could only leaf through a few, I'm sure. I read a few of them and am probably programmed to kill the Pope if I see him, or something.   
agarjogger fucked around with this message at Mar 9, 2012 around 02:51 |
| # ¿ Mar 9, 2012 02:34 |
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Pead posted:I doubt it, they do it for other words like death and racist. Some of these comments could be automated submissions spammed across many sites and written to pass all possible filters. Or people who comment on Fox comment on every other site too and so anticipate filters ahead of time. Censoring black is loving weird, but if I managed Fox's website I probably wouldn't think twice. On the other hand, who cares. Reading comments is like watching Saw movies, you know it can't possibly be real but it scares you anyway and you like it.
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| # ¿ Mar 20, 2012 23:10 |
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handbags at dawn posted:Still trying to figure out why "He will forgive all outstanding student loans." is a bad thing. The country is Flat Broke, but there's just enough money left to give all us retired patriotic conservative activists Medicare for life. Our grandchildren never call and don't appreciate our dollar-store Christmas presents, so gently caress them into crushing poverty until they do. Tars Tarkas posted:If he is re-elected the 3% will stand up or the nation will be destroyed. Wait who is the 3%? Which stat or poll is that from. The share of real Americans grows smaller and smaller, down from The 53% to The 3%? agarjogger fucked around with this message at Mar 21, 2012 around 00:01 |
| # ¿ Mar 20, 2012 23:53 |
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Logikv9 posted:i wish democrats were so goddamn intelligent and cunning that they really could plan every single one of these things out years in advance. Freeprule #6: The enemy is always literally Hitler. You've got to admire some of these guys just for their pure strength of imagination.
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| # ¿ Mar 27, 2012 05:46 |
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Triple A posted:They are classic chickenhawks, they never have the balls and/or the physique to actually revolt. If one of theirs actually rocked the boat, the rest will turn on him since they don't want to risk their sad little lives. Key words bolded. Take away their Medicare, slash their SS, throw some foreclosure papers and debt collectors at them and then get back to me on this. All that stands between a Freeper and a blaze-o-glory event is a $930.00 a month govt. check and the possibility of dying with dignity, in a bed at room temperature. Take away this and they start looking for different ways to die with dignity. Just look up foreclosure+suicide to get an idea of how well most people react to the prospect of becoming one of those people.
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| # ¿ Oct 29, 2012 11:50 |
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quote:- Do you have gold and silver set aside? Oh, yes! We have thousands of dollars in gold bonds, sold to us by that nice, young white-haired boy on his Fox program. Once society collapses, we simply fill out a request form, mail it to the company, and in 6-8 weeks we will have our gold nuggets in hand, ready to barter for the return of our daughter who we sold into indentured servitude.
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| # ¿ Nov 9, 2012 08:36 |
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I know I've asked this before but I can't get past it. What the gently caress is it with conservatives and Capitalizing words that do not Need to be Capitalized like Rock Quarry. Is there something wrong with them? Is German their first language? Are internet conservatives actually kinda dumb?
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| # ¿ Nov 11, 2012 22:24 |
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Maybe the GOP pollsters got it wrong because of their penchant for being lazy hacks and pulling poo poo out of their asses instead of working at their chosen profession, and expecting six-figure salaries no matter how many digits their numbers were off by. It's very difficult to tolerate really brazen irrelevance and incompetence on the part of conservatives, when they dedicate their lives to complaining about how unnecessary everyone but themselves and their friends are. Naturally incompetence and irrelevance with regards to absolutely everything is all we really see out of the right nowadays. There is a serious gap between the rank-and-file of the left and the right regarding how much they expect and demand of their leaders. And the leaders of the right pay for it by becoming retarded and continuing to believe anyway that they are enlightened little god-kings. Here's an article I didn't read but like the title of. I think it asserts that Karl Rove never believed Romney had a chance, but as a genuine Bushite, cared slightly more about becoming a billionaire than he ever cared about some goofy anti-tax movement. The Long Con: Mail-order conservatism http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_long_con
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| # ¿ Nov 12, 2012 14:06 |
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McNerd posted:It's a really interesting article for other reasons but it doesn't really address Rove. I'm guessing you saw Krugman's post where this article inspired him to speculate that Rove is just out to rip off conservative donors? That was basically all him though. Okay, now I've read it. It's much more relevant to Free Republic and its userbase than it is to this election. You can't really hate these people because they're preyed upon and monetized by people they trust and respect, just constantly. A siege mentality that was aggressively pushed on them has completely destroyed their judgment and now has them enthusiastically giving money to Pat Robertson to invest in African diamond mines. I probably found this article through the route you describe, it's hard to keep track during election season. Anyway if you follow Freep you've probably read an article similar to this one, though I like this one a lot. Freep are professional victims of the literally hundreds of thousands of the for-profit fleecers in their own party, whose job it is to see that old, bitter, traditionalists are punished severely for their good intentions. We think that MoveOn.org can be a little grating, but there's just no equivalent machine for harvesting cash from one's base on the left. quote:Closer inspection reveals the looming horror to be built on a non-falsifiable foundation (“could become”; “is likely to become”). This conditional prospect, which might prove discouraging to a skeptically minded mark, is all the more useful to reach those inclined to divide the moral universe in two—between the realm of the wicked, populated by secretive, conspiratorial elites, and the realm of the normal, orderly, safe, and sane. agarjogger fucked around with this message at Nov 12, 2012 around 14:58 |
| # ¿ Nov 12, 2012 14:44 |
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All Of The Dicks posted:Authoritarians respond to force. They lost, so they are responding. But elections are not force, are they? They really do have a fair bit of respect for elections (even as they do try to undermine the win around the margins, as a lot of people would), otherwise they would not be melting down. Fills my bitter heart with hope.
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| # ¿ Nov 13, 2012 02:02 |
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Edible Hat posted:What does "GOP-e" mean? Something they had to come up with to distinguish the Democrat Cultural Elite from the GOP Financial/Power Elite. There's not supposed to be a conservative elite because real conservatives are flummoxed at every turn by a shameless and cackling omnipotent enemy. There is only supposed to be the liberal elite, by which they mean people who live in cities and use Yelp, or something like that. Of course, conservatives are liable to become loaded and start going out to the theater too, and that's how we get the GOP-e. It's all very confusing because Freep is always referring to cultural grievances and economic ones simultaneously, and they are constantly using one as a proxy for the other.
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| # ¿ Nov 14, 2012 01:59 |
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^^^^^^^ Honestly, this is what I actually hear in my head, nearly word-for-word, when any conservative gets up on television and argues for their destructive-by-design anti-human policies. This is what their argument boils down to. 1. Obama 2. ???? 3. DEBT SLAVERY agarjogger fucked around with this message at Nov 14, 2012 around 13:24 |
| # ¿ Nov 14, 2012 10:25 |
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Night10194 posted:To chime in on the American Exceptionalism thing, it's also loving dangerous. Because it's a way of convincing yourself nothing bad can possibly happen because you are ordained to be amazing forever, ignoring how many times your country either blundered into disaster or narrowly avoided it. If you are powerful enough, you actually do not need to accept reality and can opt to make your own and gradually induce others to accept it as well. Many more liberals would be conservatives if the United States were still powerful enough to set terms absolutely, which it is not. The right has serious delusions about America's power, both hard and soft. We are all soldiers in America's Army, and liberals are loving with morale by spreading fear and uncertainty. This mindset would lead one to want to murder the messenger when things go poorly in a place like Vietnam or Iraq, because it was not strategic failure that ended us, it was a lack of confidence caused by excessive self-reflection. Night10194 posted:It also leads to an unwillingness to realize we still have a ton of work to do, to get to someplace better Who is we? You and the right have wildly different definitions of we. Thatcher was not just freestyle Rand'ing it up when she proclaimed that there was no such thing as society. For the far right, there truly is no such unified body that can experience anything altogether. Nothing drives them battier than when scientists get on air and talk about how far we've come and what we know. How could anything belong to everyone all at once? It does not compute. Conservatives want absolutely nothing to do with your progress, and they reject every premise on which such a social construct is based. Freep is not incoherent.
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| # ¿ Jan 11, 2013 18:48 |
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| # ¿ May 20, 2013 00:48 |
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text editor posted:He's fleeced these people for SO MUCH MONEY Opportunism and profiteering kills movements dead. It wasn't six hours after some gently caress in Long Island printed up some OWS t-shirts that pundits were ready to stick a fork in the whole thing. This is a terribly corrosive thing, and aimed right at the heart of the Republican base. Maybe they'll find out the hard way that people who don't trust each other cannot accomplish anything, at all. Not even the death of trust/the social contract. I feel queasy for the large/frequent donors, but if Jimrob's financial misbehavior makes them think twice about willing their estate to Crossroads GPS or Family Research Council or AFP/AFTR, good.
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| # ¿ Feb 22, 2013 05:12 |
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