What makes a Freeper?

[Jackeens]

I know, I shouldn't visit their internet cesspit, but it's the old "DON'T LOOK" thing - you automatically do if, like me, you're dumb enough.

So, okay, they're racist, homophobic and largely misogynistic. Some of them are anti-Semitic, some of them hate the entire world outside the U.S., apart from Israel....a contradiction I asked about before on DU, but I'm still puzzled.

They love guns, the death penalty, hunting and 'freedom', whatever that is, etc.

They quote the Bible a lot, in a slightly freaky away.

Their hatred of Obama sizzles.

Their comments on Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton are simply beyond belief.

They are violently repulsed by the notion that the weaker members of their society should be 'helped' by those more fortunate.

Etc, etc, etc.

I'd apologise if this was stereotyping, but looking at FR tonight I don't see anyone breaking the mould.

So what the **** makes them this way?

Seriously. I just don't understand them, where did all this venom, ignorance and bigotry come from?

If I was sensible I wouldn't go there and read their bile, but they are hard to ignore - after all, their 'type' murdered Dr George Tiller and Stephen Tyrone Johns in the last fortnight.

Do you understand what made them this way? Help me out here?

[baldguy]

1. Fear & Stupidity

[AllentownJake]

2. My guess

Lonely middle aged men whose wives left them or stopped having sex with them and are angry about it :shrug:

[AlexanderProgressive]

3. They hate Jews, but since Muslims are darker, they hate Muslims even more

They would take the side of the Nazis vs. the Jews, because the Nazis are pretty white; but Muslims are darker, and Freepers (and extreme right-wingers in general) despise dark skin people.
That's why they hate Latinos and black people too.

[FSogol]

4. Their parents told them it was ok to be selfish and that they were

better than everyone else. And that it was ok to be stupid because no one really knows anything.

[KansDem]

5. Here's one being made now...

[MrMickeysMom]

11. Bwah!

:rofl: ...my ass off!

[Politicalboi]

15. You better take that cat to a vet

Because that shit is toxic. LOL! Litter Critters.

[snake in the grass]

22. If there were an award...

...for the best post of the day, I would recommend you! That was simply brilliant!

[Milspec]

28. ROTFLMAO

:toast:

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. They're conservatives. It's in their genes.

Nuff sed.

[MADem]

7. I agree with the first poster--fear and stupidity. It's a toxic soup, that. nt

[santamargarita]

8. Don't forget Small Penis syndrome...

they try to make themselves feel adequate by telling people how big their guns are.

[Jennicut]

9. What made people follow Hitler? Some can be persuaded to hate others

out of fear and ignorance.

[Berry Cool]

10. Let me explain it to you, kiddo.

When Lack of Education and Lack of Human Empathy love each other very, very much...

[MrMickeysMom]

12. You mean with the affinity is so great that ajoining brain cells bust!

... cause, LUV had nothin to do with it!

[woo me with science]

13. Here's one way:

Jesus Camp Highlights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACyLTsH4ac

[trayfoot]

24. That video is SCARY!

I was raised in the church, but never experienced anything like this - thank God!

[woo me with science]

29. Those are just highlights.

The whole movie is on you-tube in 9 parts. Definitely worth a watch.

[CitizenPatriot]

14. Failure to thrive emotionally, intellecutally and spiritually

as a human being. Failure to evolve. Operating from base fear, typical of the unevolved and easily manipulated. Being sold a bill of goods about "their god" justifying hate (thereby making the believer feel better about their own powerlessness). Extremism and the unwillingness to dialogue with anyone who does not agree with them is positioned as a "strong" stance of morality. The desire for the under privileged to find others to exclude and hate, in a sorry attempt to elevate their own self-worth. All of this meets a gun-worshipping culture of pseudo-macho ideals, and you end up with a kkkonservative.

aka, domestic terrorists.

[nolabear]

16. I'm a psychoanalyst and I believe this--

"Freepers" are people whose lives, for one reason or another, have gone wrong in some fundamental way that has left them feeling a profound sense of lack(can happen in so many ways I won't even try to expound). They don't connect with other human beings in a healthy way, one that has empathy, recognizes that "you and I are the same and so I trust you in fundamental ways." Add to that some of the basic awful things that happen to people like getting fired, not getting some reward they believe they deserve, etc., and a site like Free Republic, where they can find a substitute for healthy relationships in the form of "common enemies," who MUST be the reason for their failures, and you have a recipe for escalation toward disaster.

Of course the particulars are a lot more complicated than that. But the danger quotient is there, as we have, tragically, seen.

[erinlough]

21. A very wise post

when I think of the freepers I know personally they all fit one or more of the traits you mention. I think the desire to always have someone to blame for whatever happens to them or whatever they do is the strongest trait, that and what seems to me to be the inability to see past themselves.

[mwb970]

25. Yes, that's key.

Freeper types always seem to have one or two specific individuals that they focus their hatred on. (These are the people they blame for the fact that their own pathetic lives are so screwed up.) It reminds me so much of the Two Minutes Hate from the book "1984". This is one way that totalitarianism (evidently a goal of the Freepers) comes to pass.

When I was a kid (in the 60s) all I heard from the republican side was communists, communists, communists. I got the idea they were everywhere, but I couldn't tell which ones they were and I didn't understand why everyone was supposed to hate them so. I remember asking my parents in confusion, "Who exactly are these terrible communists?"

Fast forward to the (first) Clinton presidency, during which the level of hysteria and hatred for this one man rose to unimaginable levels. The wingnuts criticized him for every single thing he did or had ever done, everything he said or had ever said. They made up and spread a whole lot of crap about him being a murderer, drug smuggler, etc. etc. I remember thinking, gosh, this is just like all that "communist" stuff, except much, much nastier and focused on just one man (the very man I had supported for president).

Now, the Obama Hate from the wingnuts makes the Clinton Hate look like a child's game. The horrific virulence and violence of it is unprecedented. Fox "News" and the hateful radio gasbags advocate violence and are shocked, shocked when the desired acts actually occur and they are implicated. Who, us?

How wonderful America would be if we could undergo a rightwingectomy of some kind. Tragically, the Freepers seem to be here to stay, barring the Rapture.

[The Wizard]

17. Short on pecker size and IQ. (NT)

[Patsy Stone]

18. Israel must exist

until it is destroyed to bring on the Rapture.

https://letters.salon.com/71cba6f5f0bccc98a9f5966272c55af2/author/index81.html

"There are several different flavors of The Rapture. One is pre-Tribulation. One is mid-Tribulation. One is post-Tribulation. For most Rapture believers, the idea is to escape the wars, plagues and other torments of the Tribulation via the Rapture.

"In order for the Rapture to occur, there must be a state of Israel. There is currently a state of Israel. For a specific group of Rapture believers, the Rapture is expected to occur one-half of the way through the Tribulation, a seven year period. That equals forty-two months. For these believers the Rapture is imminent, contingent on the destruction of Israel. In other words, the Tribulation will begin with the destruction of Israel, and the death of two-thirds of its Jewish inhabitants. Forty-two months later, the Rapture will occur.

"And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith Jehovah, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried" (Zechariah 13:8, 9). According to Zechariah’s prophecy, two thirds of the children of Israel in the land will perish, but the one third that are left will be refined and be awaiting the deliverance of God at the second coming of Christ which is described in the next chapter of Zechariah. 1988), p. 108.

"So, for those who believe in the imminent Rapture, it will first be necessary to have a state of Israel (that part is done) and then to see it destroyed (that part is still being worked on). Otherwise, the Rapture is no longer imminent and could take thousands more years to occur.

"If my memory serves me, I believe that, at one point, Pat Robertson had set the start date at 2012. I'm also thinking that he floated the idea that it will begin with a tactical nuclear exchange that will quickly escalate into a global holocaust."

So, really, if you believe all that, you'll believe anything.

[Stellabella]

19. They're really losers in life, which is why they have to hate others.

It's the only thing that makes them feel marginally better about themselves.

And there's the ignorance, stupidity, cruelty, greed, etc. etc. etc.

[mitchum]

20. Incest?

[jberryhill]

23. Child Abuse /nt

[Dappleganger]

26. Getting along with other Freepers.

[beac]

27. Pent of frustration due to lack of access to spell check and a basic confusion about

homophones (homophon-obia??)

I'm series, this coold be teh hugh reezon their all so incentsed about teh muslins and teh fashshism and teh taxashion.

[Hellataz]

30. it wasn't just their "Type", Stephen Johns' Murderer is a freeper

They just made every effort to delete his postings after he was caught.
I have no doubt that Dr. Tiller's Killer visit the site as well.