Slashdot Mirror
Free Republic v. Aldridge
Jim Howard writes: "The controversial conservative political web site Free Republic has won a permanent injunction against one of its users who was alleged to have conducted a campaign of disruption against the site. The decision was rendered by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia." Free Republic's allegations against the user are online as well.
80md?
be prepared that we may start muttering "McVeigh" under our breaths
And conversatives will sigh "SLA". Remember that left wing group of American terrorists who killed a mother in front of her child during a bank robbery?
Anyway, McVeigh is not a right winger. He hated all things about government which is not a right wing view. He was coined a right winger by the left wing media folks like Dan Rather (you know, the "independent" who raises money for the Democrats - no media bias there).
While the original posters message was over the top, there is hypocricy in the liberal camp. Here in Minnesota a 13 year old wore a harmless sweatshirt the read "Straight Pride" because his school has placed pink triangles around the school as "safe zones" for gay/lesbian/transexual kids (your basic government run indocrination centers - but I digress). Anyway the same "tolerant" liberals who put up the pink triangles banned Elliot from wearing his "Straight Pride" shirt even though the government run school could display "Gay Pride" posters.
So here we have liberals who want free speech, but ONLY if you say the right thing. So much for liberal tolerance.
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you!
There's nothing fascist about that.
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Sadly, due to all the graphical gingerbread, ads, and so on cluttering up the commercial sites, it's really enjoyable to read articles on FR that are totally unsullied by same. But when I see a news source I like, I will usually read the article over there because I feel a moral responsibility to give them ad revenue.
Free Republic really is a fascinating collection of articles, on a wide range of topics with a wide range of political viewpoints expressed. (Just look for the "barf alerts" to see articles opposing the general FR ideology).
It's true that there are many comments that are poorly thought out, ungrammatical and ill-informed. But there is some intelligent wheat among the chaff, and the byplay between users can be interesting.
It's definitely not as sophisticated as Slashdot, but it's aimed at a population much closer to the American average, so that should surprise no one. And surely the members of the American average deserve some kind of voice? They deserve to be heard, by those who wish to listen.
I ran a bulletin board system some years back that eventually wound up being overrrun by harassers; they're like locusts, and even a small number of them can completely destroy the atmosphere of a board. So on the whole, I have to side with Free Republic here; otherwise, every political forum would be effectively unusable. Even Slashdot, with its sophisticated software and elaborate moderation system, descends into unusability at times. Unfortunately, I suspect the average user could not be lured into understanding, let alone operating, a moderation system. Perhaps I'm wrong; I don't think I am.
Thoughts?
D
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And it seems that if you scream, shout and intimidate people in an attempt to influence a national election regardless of the vote, it's free speech.
Sure, like the known hecklers that got thrown in jail for 48 hours when Bubba Clinton came to town last fall.
Kind of hard to scream and shout when you're held in jail without charges, then released when Bubba's gone.
When you act annoying on a conservative web forum, it's illegal and you get taken to court.
When you write annoying opposing thoughts to a liberal president, it's not illegal and you get thrown in jail without going to court.
However, when you put metal spikes in trees trying to kill loggers, hack opposing websites to supress speech that you don't like, steal campus newspapers that prints things you don't agree with, torch expensive houses built on land you think should go back to the wild to deprive people of their homes, send bombs to conservative businessmen who you believe don't appreciate the environment, break into research labs and set infected animals free, it's considered "progressive activism" and is regarded by the social elite to be an acceptable means to the end?
Funny world.
I'd have to agree...
The story that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet has been thoroughly debunked by Phil Agre in http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Al.Gore. and.the.Inte.html
and
rebutted further later
That meme was a creation of Declan McCullagh, a "reporter" for Wired News who is a fanatical Libertarian so extreme that he managed to have a chapter of a book using him as a poster-boy for Libertarian ideologues If you think I'm just flaming, this aspect of his fabricated story being a Liberatarian hit-piece was extensively discussed in a debunking by Salon
After Declan McCullagh was repeatedly taken to task for his hatchet-job, over more than year, by everyone who was there, from Dave Farber to Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf he finally grudgingly retracted
But people still repeat it, because urban legends never die.
As a card-carrying liberal, I and everyone I know deplore the exact actions you're referring to, most of which are crimes committed by extreme environmentalists. Funny, though, how you use their actions to tar just the entire spectrum of "progressive activists."
Interesting that you're against people thrown in jail for expressing political views, yet you didn't once mention the peaceful protestors who were pepper-sprayed and beaten by police in Seattle protesting the WTO. Hmm. No doubt if you respond to this, you'll mention the .01% who were violent, rather than the people I'm talking about, who had their rights trampled on.
Ah, but no, since extreme environmentalists are liberals of a sort, and extreme environmentalists have committed terrorist acts, the entire liberal/progressive movement is made up of supporters of terrorism. Wow, what fabulous, amazing logic! Thanks for clearing that up; armed with this new knowledge, I'll pick up a couple of Molotov cocktails on my way home from work.
-brennan
If Aldridge can start his own competing web site--which he can--and if he can put on it his views--which he can--then his freedom of speech has not been infringed. Free Republic set up their own web site, and tried to post their own views. Aldridge made every effort he could to stop them. Thus, Free Republic's free speech rights were violated by Aldridge.
Chris Beckenbach
I can see the case now: "Slashdot vs. Anonymous Coward(s)"...
It's actually a fun board to read, provided you (a) don't get offended too easily (some of the viewpoints can be a bit out there, even for me), (b) know your own mind, and (c) have a ton of free time.
Yes, FR can be a bit out there at times, but so can Slashdot. Think of it as an ultra-conservative Slashdot. They post links to stories, (and *cough* usually include the entire story, so you don't need to go read the article then come back to FR in order to comment on it) the stories are typically stuff you won't find on other news sites (it's fun and pointless trying to find Conservative stories on most news sites), and it is an eyeopener. Go take a look.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
First off, let me state quite clearly I haven't ever read FR, having just been there for the first time today. I spent about 30 minutes looking over the site and areas it has.
/.? Granted the general anti-conservative (or anything Republican) bent of the /. staff pervades, perhaps its to serve as a warning to some of the screwballs here?
/. with messages calling the operators trash, making bogus claims about their actions, promoting windows over everything else, and generally spaming the servers with trash just to make a point.
Regardless of their content, no individual has the right to slander a site. Apparently that is all that is real to the whole story, the guy basically took out his little tirade versus the eveeel "conservative" site and just invented whatever hyperbole he needed at the time.
Pleading the 5th in a civil suit is beyond belief, but alas its what happens when the ultra-left get pressed to act on facts instead of emotion. (this works just as well versus some of the ultra-right - but they are not as prevalent as some might think)
So why is this story on
The first rule of "freedom of speech" is that it does not give you freedom to slander, let alone freedom to violate anothers rights. It would no different than having someone constantly spam
Freedom of speech is very important, but you cannot have it without responsibility, and that is what this gentleman forgot. Its a very important ideal, even if you don't like the message.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There's a big difference between "create" and "invent." If I design a circuit board, and some originality is involved (not usually 8-), then I invented something. Meanwhile, on one line on the factory floor, about a dozen people and $2M in machines creates 800 circuit boards an hour...
Gore does have a habit of overstatement -- I guess he's trying to prove he really is a politician rather than a Mr. Rogers impersonator. 8-) But it's well attested that he really was the first Congressman to understand that the Arpanet could be more than a chat line for goverment scientists. And unless you are a knee-jerk conservative, I doubt that you can look up the whole story and then claim that Gore's overstatements are worse than every other politicians.
There were some really good reasons to vote against Gore, but the hoopla about "inventing the internet" certainly wasn't one.
The fundamental allegation is that after Aldridge's Freep log-in was blocked for egregiously violating their acceptable use policy, he used multiple e-mail accounts to get more than 50 log-ins under various names, and continued posting in violation of the AUP. Much as I dislike them, if there is any truth to that, they are in the right and Aldridge is wrong. It's a private web site. They have to right to kick you out if they want to. You don't have the right to sneak back in disguise.
One problem here is that we have a URL to the freepers' allegations, but nothing about Aldridge's response. Now and then I've noticed a conservative to twist the truth, or even to (gasp!) lie. (For instance, Gore never said he "invented" the internet.) Obviously Aldridge didn't convince the judge, but maybe the judge is a conservative Republican too...
Personally, I feel that at the end of the day, most "liberals" want the same thing "conservatives" want, good food, good love, and good entertainment. It's just that the politics and the path we choose get in the way of the end.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
We have earned our rights. The liberals have earned nothing.
You are wrong, if it were not for liberals fighting for freedom, we would have no freedom of religion, our children would be indoctrinated into christianity at very young age by forced prayer in school. There would be no freedom of speech, anything and everything that had anything to do with sex would be banned. It would illegal to be gay. The war on drugs would have turned our country into a military state and the constitution all but suspended. 99% of all the wealth would belong to 1% of the population and the rest of us would be working for 50 cents an hour in sweat shops. Women would be second class citizens, not only would abortion be illegal, so would any form of birth control.
To extend the rights of free men to conservatives is to institute a immoral military state. I, for one, refuse to do so.
Yes this is flamebait and I am a troll, please moderate accordingly.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power - Benito Mussoli
" . . .inalienable rights are endowed by our creator . . ."
No, we are endowed with inalienable rights by our Creator. But you were at least trying to quote the Declaration, so I'll take the thought for the deed and let it slide.
The problem here is that you and the rest of the liberals do not acknowledge your Creator. So how then can you appeal to Him for these rights? You can't. By rejecting the holy and spiritual basis for our Constitution, you reject the Constitution as well. Where does that leave you? Nowhere. By all reasonable standards, you are not a patriot, nor even a citizen -- yet you demand the same rights and privileges as men who fought and died for them.
You want "natural rights"? Here's a Natural Law instead: There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
when the rebels fought the men who kept them under their thumb in the revolutionary war, that was heroic.
but when the rebels fought the men who kept them under their thumb in Seattle, that's a bunch of long haired freaks.
You are correct on the first one, but in the second you drift off into absurd propaganda. Those so-called "long-haired freaks" (in fact, most of them were skinheads, the liberals' racist shock-troops) were not being kept under anyone's thumb. They were "protesting" against freedom. They were there to oppose the natural rights and liberties of business enterprises. They were fighting against the creation of wealth. They were fighting against the right to private property and freedom of association.
The dogmatic anti-prosperity/anti-freedom ideology of the Left is hardly comparable to the noble principles set forth by our Founding Fathers.
Your entire argument is meaningless gibberish. Reasoning by analogy is a bad idea: The results are rarely valid, and even then only by accident.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
It's sad, but true: Statistics don't lie.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
I wasn't trying to quote anything.
Be that as it may, "endowing" a "right" with anything (you didn't specify what) is a waste of energy. I mean, like, that's not what "endow" means, dude.
Are you saying that God plays partisan politics?
God prefers those who keep His Law. If one party does so, and the other does not, why then quite naturally God will tend to prefer the members of the former to those of the latter.
That's an obvious truth, but it doesn't have much to do with "partisan politics" as you understand it: God's not sitting up there saying, "My team, right or wrong!" He's saying, "My team, because the only way to be on it is to be right in the first place." See the difference?
This has nothing to do with "diversity", "tolerance", or "broad-mindedness": Those slogans are all red herrings. Would you be "tolerant" of somebody who bombed your city? No. Some things are just plain wrong.
By what right do YOU decide who is and isn't a patriot, much less even a citizen?
Simple common sense. Imagine you're running a business. Imagine that one of your employees sets your office on fire. Would you consider that person a good and loyal servant, or a dangerous nut? Would you give him a raise, or fire him? You'd fire him. You'd get rid of the dumb bastard, because even if he believes that he is right, he is still a dangerous lunatic. So it is with the liberals: They are devoted to destroying the foundations of our nation. We have a right to act in self-defense, whether you like it or not.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!