BigMediaBlog

In an attempt to ask "Is Free Republic a Hate Groupp?", the DUmmies reveal a bit more about themselves than they might have expected. The poll currently stands at 60% "deffintely" agreeing that FR is a hate group.

First of all, there are the misspellings, such as in the title of the post and in one of the questions: "No, Free Republic is deffinitely not a hate group." The word "definitely" is misspelled the same way both times it's used, so at least they're consistent. Now, misspellings wouldn't be an issue, except one of the commentators says: "They [i.e., FReepers] also are poor spellers".

And, the post itself has a long excerpt attempting to define online hate groups. However, much of it can be more easily applied to DU than FR.

Then, there's post #23. It attempts to use google to show that FR is a hate group by searching for various racist terms. Can anyone see what's wrong with this search which brings up 697,000 hits? In this search, the hits I looked at were all quoting Sen. Robert Byrd [D-WV].

The post and the comments end up being one big case of projection. This is even recognized by a few of the more sane commentators: "However, some of our most extreme posts don't exactly put us into a good light either. The nonsense in 9/11 forum about Bush ordering the WTC attack, occasional troop-bashing, anti-Semitic posts about Lieberman being a "Likudist", posts supporting the Iraqi insurgency and posts that declare Bush worse than Hitler and Hussein make Democrats look like kooks unworthy of holding high office. (I recall one thread, when I was still a lurker, after Osama Bin Laden's video before the election, that concluded he wasn't so bad, and that OBL just wanted to expand his empire.)"

And, one of their semi-sane posters also posts this link. Score one for the FReepers.