02/16/2005
[See also: VDARE.COM vs. Free Republic; Peter Brimelow On Free Republic Fracas]
At high noon on Friday, February 11, 2005, the article "Not So Free Republic: The Shot Heard Around The Net" was released to America in response to Jim Robinson’s banning of many rule abiding and long term users of Free Republic that disagreed with the Bush guest worker amnesty plan.
That message was heard around the Internet and we were both humbled and awed at how rapidly the news about Free Republic traveled and how many people came to our assistance. Countless websites, forums, activists and radio shows carried the news to their audiences and Freepers began to post and pass the news to others in their community. Many were not surprised by this turn of events because of Robinson’s past purges and the growing internal conflict within the GOP over immigration issues.
Robinson realized his community would eventually find this information, so he posted it himself and took a wagon train position on his own site. He has spent much of his time since then banning and suspending the accounts of countless Freepers and even members that have supported his site since the 1990’s. Many others made their farewell speeches and walked out of Free Republic to never return.
Robinson’s biggest mistake, besides implying he was fighting to keep Free Republic safe from secret Nazi conspiracies, was to show that the points of the original article were true for all to see. He banned true conservatives left and right in a vain attempt to control the debate while calling people names without any evidence his character attacks were true. He shot himself in the foot while that foot was placed deeply in his own mouth.
Robinson later admitted he had no direct evidence that any of the groups and individuals he banned and maligned were racists. He even admitted that he supported the President’s guest worker plan and ran a new poll that shows Freeper conservatives are clearly opposed to the Bush immigration plan. In this case it is Mr. Robinson that represents the fringe element and has supported unsubstantiated personal attacks on his forum.
Even Sean Hannity has written off Free Republic, saying "Everyone I knew basically left because of so much childish immature personal attacks, the propensity there to eat their own." [Listen to Sean Hannity’s Statement about Free Republic. ]
Although our points have been proven and reinforced by Free Republic’s closet skeletons, this fight is far from over. There is no joy in this regrettable conflict with Mr. Robinson. There is no joy in the fact that average Americans have to take historic political action to demand that our own President and Congress obey the Constitution and enforce our existing immigration laws.
We are fighting because we must; the consequences of inaction are too disastrous for our way of life, our values, and our nation.
Republicans, Democrats, Unaffiliated and 3rd Party voters along with men and women that are White, Black, Asian, and Latino support the security of our borders and the enforcement of our immigration laws. Every day more and more people are waking up to the fact that our immigration laws are being almost completely disregarded.
The main question that the President’s men and women won’t answer for us is this: Why are we giving the Federal government more power and money than ever before, deploying troops on the opposite side of the planet, and putting Americans through partial strip searches in airports to secure our nation while at the same time instructing our border patrol to stand down (catch & release) against the six to ten thousand illegal aliens streaming across our Southern border each night?
There are many more defenders of the President’s plan that are on the king’s payroll and the payrolls of those that influence the king. We must gather our supporters and engage those responsible for this travesty on the Internet, in the old guard media, on the sidewalks and desert plains, and at the ballot box.
We face superior finances and influence, but we have the wind of the vast majority of the American public at our backs and the true American Spirit in our hearts.
William Gheen is the President of Americans for Legal Immigration
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.