Freakerland has jumped the shark

[Walt Starr]

Read this Opus from a Freaker who has been there since 1998:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1375809/posts

It's incredible. They have jumped the shark.

Be careful, DU. This could be us one day. I wish to make amends to those whose views I've dissed so many times in the past. We may differ on a few things, but we are united in our goal of returning this nation to the freedom and greatness it once enjoyed.

[Fenris]

1. Notice something about this line?

Over the past two years, civility and thoughtful discourse has vanished from this site, replaced with demands for ideological conformity that are straight out of Stalinist Russia or China's Great Cultural Revolution, and unrelenting uncivility if said conformance is not forthcoming.

[Toby109]

16. A little too close for comfort

if you ask me.

[MisterP]

17. that they're dumber than earwax to take two years to notice?

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Is it possible that FR was once something different than what I've

seen for the past 2 years? I never knew it in any previous incarnation.

[BamaLefty]

2. Wah Wah Wah...

Freaks!

[Cleita]

3. Hmm. That's encouraging.

Maybe their lurking here is showing them the truth about the fascists they blindly are supporting.

[Undercover Owl]

4. what does jump the shark mean?

[MissB]

6. It means you've reached the high point

and it is all downhill from there.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. on Happy Days, Fonz jumped a shark with a motorcycle.. the

phrase now means when something decent or good went downhill

[Walt Starr]

13. Actually, he jumped the shark on water skis

It was an attempt to go back to the glory days when Fonzie jumped a bunch of garbage cans.

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. Yer right. Were they all on vacation ? been so long i have forgotten

[Walt Starr]

20. Yeah, Ralph Malph brought an ironing board to use as a surf board

it was over that show and would never come back.

[Walt Starr]

21. Yeah, Ralph Malph brought an ironing board to use as a surf board

it was over that show and would never come back.

[Webster Green]

10. Refers to a 'Happy Days' episode...

Fonzi jumped over a shark (on waterskis?). Its considered the turning point where the show really ran out of good stuff to write into the scripts.

[Walt Starr]

11. From Wikipedia

Jumping the shark is a metaphor used by television critics since the 1990s. The phrase, popularized by Jon Hein on his badly designed web site www.jumptheshark.com, is used to describe the moment when a television show or similar episodic media is in retrospect judged to have passed its "peak" and shows a noticeable decline in quality. Hein also uses the "jumping the shark" concept to describe other areas of pop culture, such as music and celebrities, for whom a drastic change was the beginning of the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

[Walt Starr]

12. From Wikipedia

Jumping the shark is a metaphor used by television critics since the 1990s. The phrase, popularized by Jon Hein on his badly designed web site www.jumptheshark.com, is used to describe the moment when a television show or similar episodic media is in retrospect judged to have passed its "peak" and shows a noticeable decline in quality. Hein also uses the "jumping the shark" concept to describe other areas of pop culture, such as music and celebrities, for whom a drastic change was the beginning of the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

[Longhorn]

14. It refers to an episode of Happy Days

when the Fonz (wearing his leather jacket, of course) enters a water-skiing contest and jumps over a shark being contained until it was to be shipped to SeaWorld. It is considered the episode where Happy Days officially reached a turning point in quality.

[MissB]

5. Fascinating

Though I doubt we'll be like that one day. We're far too diverse of a bunch.

Sounds like the reasoned ranting of an old-time conservative.

[solinvictus]

7. Wow!

I've been a lurker and sometime poster over there for a few months, but geez, this is the first time I've seen a serious poster call it quits in a public way.
He's right, though, the demands of lock-step behavior are outrageous over there. RimJob has all but forbidden any and all discussion of illegal aliens because of the Chimperor's edict in support of guest workers. I've seen some apparent paleo-conservatives melt down over this issue. I think, a few weeks back, I saw a moderately pro-union and pro-labor post deleted before many could respond or read it.

[finecraft]

9. This is my favorite exchange:

To: Poohbah
I seemed to remember people taking a lot of flack for supporting Tom McClintock.

To: Poohbah
You can't be series.

Series?? :wtf:

Who has the picture of the Moran guy? It would be most appropriate.

[fromBrooklyn]

15. They jumped off a shark? Or, into one?

Crazy like the tin-hat brigade but they say the stuff that my parents used to ground me for. Now, of course, I'm a grown up and I'm grateful to my parents for teaching me how to not be a jack-ass.

I can't wait until these often literally Crazy Radicals loose the luster of pertinence that they some-how attained.

[beam me up scottie]

18. Fascinating.

"To: Poohbah
Aw c'mon!

They called me a death cultist Nazi doctor for reading a CT scan, and I'm staying.

Stick around!

31 posted on 04/01/2005 4:35:23 PM PST by Jim Noble (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God)"


Yet totally illogical. A freeper that can read, speaks up for the truth, gets called a "cultist Nazi doctor" but insists on staying for more of the same.

As Spock would say:

:wtf:

[Mr_Spock]

25. I don't say WTF!

That's funny - if you support using fact-based arguments you are a Nazi? Very funny.

[beam me up scottie]

34. It really IS

April fools. That site should have imploded years ago.
Brain damage, it's gotta be.

[ultraist]

22. Christian identity KKK groups should be avoided because of public opinion?

Not because they are a violent TERRORIST group?

Is being a christian identity sympathizer, a white supremicist, a neo-nazi, a racist or an anti-semite illegal activities in themselves?
The issue is not legality, but public opinion. Which will not be helped in this case if the pro-Terry side becomes associated in the media with Christian Identity, white supremicists, neo-nazis, racists and/or anti-semites.

212 posted on 03/17/2005 11:05:13 AM PST by malakhi
< Post Reply | Private Reply | To 211 | View Replies | Report Abuse >

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: malakhi
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Terri's fight being associated with Christianity. That is unless someone is a radical leftist.

229 posted on 03/17/2005 12:02:29 PM PST by Diva Betsy Ross
< Post Reply | Private Reply | To 212 | View Replies | Report Abuse >

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diva Betsy Ross made a valiant attempt to...ahem...whitewash Christian Identity, but it didn't work.

To top things off, we had people embracing as some sort of conservative icon, to the extent of posting a fundraising link.
(bold added)
--------

They ARE associated with the Christian Identity white supremacists! Randall Terry, Dendreth, Operation Rescue, Rudolph, etc...

NO WONDER this guy is leaving. They are extremist whack jobs over there.

[priller]

24. It takes a lot for disillusionment to set in

I always thought that conservatism valued thinking over feeling, careful contemplation of facts over wild-eyed repetition of every damn rumor to come down the pipe, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. For a while, Free Republic met those criteria in spades.

Those days are long gone, and I have serious doubt as to whether or not they're coming back.


Free Republic met those criteria in spades?!?!? When? Sheesh! Well, the good thing is, once disillusion sets in, it usually takes hold pretty hard. Poohbah might start posting over here before long.

[Walt Starr]

26. I'm learning a lot from the Freakerland meltdown

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1375756/posts

Please, let's keep the long knives sheathed in DU.

I again apologize to anybody whom I may have offended in a debate on DU because they did not agree with me.

[Mr_Spock]

28. Darn, I wish I could click on Freper links

I just can't do it

[Tansy_Gold]

35. Don't turn into a spineless wienie, Walt, in the name of

civility.

Sometimes we gotta offend people.

Spineless wienieism gets us nowhere.

I lost a long-time friend over an incident in which she took offense at my pointing out that her facts on an issue were wrong. Should I have apologized so as not to offend her and let her go on believing something inaccurate? Did I want to maintain a friendship on that basis, where I had to lie to protect her "feelings" all the time?

Sometimes the truth, no matter how carefully or politely we couch it, proves to be offensive in and of itself.

[Nevernose]

27. The page title is "Poobah's Opus"

Yet another thing that disturbs me on multiple levels...

[AlCzervik]

29. i actually feel kind of bad for Poobah but i do see some similarities

To some of the things that have been going on here.

[Nevernose]

30. And: Is "abnegate" a word?

Yes, for those of y'all who were wondering, abnegate is in fact a word.

It is also relatively unused since the nineteenth century or so, suggesting that "Poobah" (a proud Freeper) is an idiot savant, has one hell of a thesaurus, or is a poster who has parents rich enough to send her to a decent university.




1. To deny oneself (anything), to renounce or surrender (a right or privilege).

1657 Deuine Louer 12 The which will of ours I meane is lesse abnegated or mortified in or by matter of abstaynings or restreignings then in or by those of suffering. 1846 GROTE Greece II. II. vi. 534 Voluntarily abnegating their temporal advantages. 1861 MILL Utilit. ii. 23 All honour to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life. 1870 Pall Mall G. 7 Sept. 1 To do so would be to abnegate the one claim they have on the popular allegiance.


2. To renounce or abjure, as a tenet; ‘to deny,’ J. (The only meaning given by him.)

1755 JOHNSON Dict., Abjure: to retract, recant, or abnegate a position upon oath. 1775 DE LOLME Eng. Const. (T.) They have abnegated the idea of independent rights of the people. 1858 CARLYLE Heroes 312 (1858) The very possibility of Heroism had been, as it were, formally abnegated in the minds of all. 1875 FARRAR Silence & Voices iii. 52 Man when he abnegates his God is a creature so petty, so foolish.

[susanna]

32. Ack. I knew that word.

It is not widely used in modern speech but it has been used in many historical (written) works, which is where I have seen it.

So, maybe I am an idiot savant? (Emphasis on the idiot.) ;-)

[Nevernose]

33. I'd seen it, too --

But I'm ostensibly an English teacher, and even for someone who reads books about words (for fun, no less), abnegate isn't a word that pops up all too often.

Maybe it's frequently used in law, or some other technical application?

[Contrary1]

31. Geez...they have a crappy message board.

You would think that the great minds that run the show would make it more user friendly.

But to do so would no doubt require that they spend 10% of the funds raised to that end. Maybe
the morans that donate to keep the site up and running should save back a few bucks to buy a clue.

[Catherine Vincent]

36. Imo, that place was never civil.

During the Clinton years, a lot of their posters had the fbi knocking on their doors for making threats against Clinton or any Democrat.

Nasty bunch of folks.

[Bake]

37. DU isn't far behind. "Series"-ly

A lot of the old guard have left already. There is CONSTANT -- and I do mean CONSTANT -- flaming of liberal Christians by those who refer to us as "Cloud Being Believers," "fairy tale believers," etc. (Not you, Walt!).

Honest to God, sometimes I am just about an inch away from leaving here and never coming back, mostly because of the religion wars. I've always respected Walt's opinions, and Walt's always respected mine, but some of the others, sheesh --- I thought we were on the same side. I've never flamed or even criticized one single atheist. But I am a Christian, and a LIBERAL one, because of what I see in the Gospels as what Jesus was all about. And I get flamed for it.

I'm not gone -- yet. If and when that happens, I won't be all dramatic about it. I won't post a big "I'm outta here" post. I'll just leave. How many others have done that? A lot, I'd bet.

Bake

[eaglenetsupport]

38. I've been meaning to go over there

And check it out cause I hear people here talking about it all the time and it sounded interesting, what with the alleged heads bursting and all.

Now I think things are much worse than I thought. That place is INSANITY. I thought FOX was bad. FOX is moderate compared with what they got going on over there. Did anyone read any of the TS threads they got going?

It occurs to me that the public should be seeing what they got going on.

A word of caution to DU should be viewed in the poohbah thread though. Reasoned discourse and focus on real work is a lesson we could use.

[Bake]

39. Won't happen here. Reasoned discourse, that is.

DU is all about the Great Religion Wars.

Even though we're (presumably) on the same side of the political spectrum. And I have YET to see one atheist flamed here as a "hellbound, godless, perverted," etc. etc. etc. But I've seen TONS TONS TONS TONS of "Imaginary Cloud Being," "Fairy Tale Believers," etc. A helluva lot of painting with the broadest brush possible.

I'm just about at the end of my rope. And I've been here since The Beginning.

Bake

[eaglenetsupport]

40. I'm becoming disillusioned

in the last week or so here. I just read a thread about how the 60's generation was a joke and no merit at all and all the posters were talking like the new young generation is the root of progressive thought and we are just a bunch of wing-nuts that all morphed into the neo-cons. I really am beginning to think we're in much more serious trouble than I originally thought when I came back in Nov. 5th, 2004. I guess reasoned discourse might be asking too much and I haven't even gotten to suggesting to ease back on the foul language abit, which I see as very in-mature and unprofessional and detracks from the serious work that needs doing.

[Bake]

43. I've been here since 2001 and I've about had it.

Between the broad-brush Christian bashing and the "ain't nobody got the truth but me" attitudes ...

Kheph died. I don't know how Will Pitt stands it around here anymore. It just ain't the same.

Bake

[alittlelark]

41. This reply was the best (in my world)

To: Poohbah

Aw c'mon!

They called me a death cultist Nazi doctor for reading a CT scan, and I'm staying.

Stick around!

31 posted on 04/01/2005 4:35:23 PM PST by Jim Noble (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God)

< Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies >

[norml]

42. Sometimes I feel sorry for the damage I do there

but only sometimes. The role of my FWeeper identity is to praise the worst, and condemn the best. This thread gives so much to work with. So many idiots to agree with. So few with any sense to destroy. Time to pile on!