Slumming

Every once in a while, when I start feeling a little too charitable as regards humanity, I hop over to the Free Republic web site. I'm not gonna link to them, but a Google search of "Free Republic" will provide the appropriate link to take you to their god-awful site.

The Free Republic, for those of you who don't know, touts itself as a "Conservative News Forum." The site is moderated (unlike our little democratic comment board here), and accepted posters drone on and on about how conservatives are just barely holding the tide against those demonic liberals, how much of a persecuted minority conservatives are, why Rush Limbaugh is better than Jesus, and so on. They also constantly conflate Christianity with conservatism, and you should have seen the sickening deification of Reagan. The standard fare involves a lot of name calling (okay, we do a little of that here, but we try to limit it to public figures, and not entire swathes of the population), paranoid delusions, misrepresentations of fact, and outright falsehoods.

Consider a thread, started today, regarding the emergence of Air America, the liberal talk radio network, and some complaints by the Democracy Radio website claiming that conservative talk radio is detrimental to American civil society. The responses by the Free Republic crowd are predictably vitriolic (I wonder whether or not the irony is lost on them).

In the comments following the news article (itself pulled from conservative Cybercast News Service--which site, along with NewsMax, FOX, and the Drudge Report, shows up frequently--an indication of the quality of news consumed by the FR crowd), we find gems like these (presented unedited):

The only hate mongers I have run into lately are left-wing fascist democrats who hate America, hate individual freedom and want to establish a left-wing fascist dictatorship in the United States based on left-wing ideals just like Joe and Adolph.

--snip--

The only thing being damaged by conservative media are the propaganda and lies spread by the far left propaganda masters.

Liberals keep telling us that they are some vast majority but the numbers tell a different story. Look at err America, where is their vast audience. Michael Moore claimed his movie would open in over 1,000 theaters, now the number is down to less than 500. Why must liberal media survive on taxpayer dollars? Simple, because we have a capitalistic society where the demand dictates supply.

--snip--

I have those sentiments also. I do not believe these numbers Al Franken is claiming to have for Air America. No normal human could sit and listen to liberal puke for any length of time and not get a migraine headache from having done so.

The problem is the same as it's always been: There are far and away more conservatives than liberals, but the root of the issue is getting them off their duffs to become as active as the dimlibs, if for nothing else than to vote in all elections.

Further, the almost complete infiltration by libs of the mass media, entertainment, and education ought to illustrate their agenda. Every time I think of this, I remember an old TV show that addressed the Cold War called "The Big Picture," whose central theme was how the USSR advanced its agenda "three steps forward, two steps back."

Communism is alive and well in the American left wing.

--snip--

My wife is a moderately conservative person, that is, she has conservative values as long as she doesn't have to think too much about them. She hates talk radio however. The problem I see is that a good TSH makes one investigate ones thought process and in doing so causes one to reassess their entire set of ideals. This leads to greater conservatism and this leads one to rethink ideas such as woman's liberation, etc.. In a nutshell, this can be discomforting for some.

The reason liberals hate conservative talk radio is that they expose liberals for what they are, liberal. Liberals running for office learned a long time ago (Walter Mondale) to never divulge their true self or even agree to the label of "liberal" because the only way a left wing liberal can get elected is to lie about who and what they are. Conservative talk show radio exposes these people for who they are. It is done by many classic and traditional methods usually excluding personal attacks. Liberal's ideas are examined using history and factual evidence and this on it's face discredits them. Liberals can't take it. They and the courts have their sights set on reenactment of the "fairness" doctrine in order to destroy the only weapon we have on the liberal enemies within.

Emphasis added in the last paragraph. I really like that bit about "excluding personal attacks." Have you ever spent five minutes listening to Rush Limbaugh? Personal attacks are a big part of his MO. They're certainly part and parcel of the commentary at Free Republic (and definitely within the thread quoted--one poster put up a picture of his dog taking a dump and referred to it as "making liberals," but I don't think we should put up that sort of trash here). It's just mystifying.

Go back up to the first quoted comment. Does anything about that make sense? "Left-wing fascist dictatorship"? Joe and Adolph? Oh, that's right. They were such ideological chums that they waged a four-year total war against one another. Or the second comment--where the poster says that "demand dictates supply." Sounds like someone slept through Econ 101.

Honestly, their paranoid sense of persecution amazes me. Republicans control all three branches of government, and the heads of major media corporations vote overwhelmingly for the Republican Party (it has been pretty good to the rich, no?). How can they still believe that they're under constant attack?

This is just a sample, and not even the most extreme one, of the stuff that's always going on over at the Free Republic (it still kills me that it's moderated, yet still called "Free"). I'm not saying you should check it out--certainly not if you're depressed or suicidal. If you feel your faith in humanity wavering, avoid FR. If you like to read insightful and coherent commentary, avoid FR. If you...well, you get the point.

UPDATE: I should have noted that each of the "snips" between the quoted comments indicates a different author. Yes, such brilliance cannot be the work of just one mind.