Anyone else think that we've converted many who were Free Republic posters?

[KoKo]

Or, is it possible that with their world beliefs crashing around them they will dig their heels in and still believe?

I wonder if many who just followed the ideology haven't had their eyes opened by visiting liberal sites through the years...first to make mischief.. and then realizing as BushCo sold our country off that there was truth on the Dem Blogs they could no longer deny.

We have to hope, anyway. O8)

[wake.up.america]

1. Very unlikely to convert many freepers as they are more interested ...

in form and not substance.

[Fovea]

2. Jessie James continued to fight the civil war

as a guerilla until he was shot in 1882. By that fact alone, I figure they will be supporting the neocons until the last of them is packed off to the hague.

[hlthe2b]

5. Re: Jesse James--desire for retribution lasts a lifetime

He and his counterparts built a lifetime of hate and sought retribution based on both perceived (and undoubtedly some real) offenses against southern sympathizers in Missouri and Kansas. I'm DEFINITELY NOT defending James and that whole horrendously violent bunch of Quantrail anti-abolutionist marauders, but I can at least understand the lifetime mindset that they maintained.

By contrast, hate-filled and ignorant Freepers, have nothing other than a lust and addiction for hate, authoritarian fascism and ignorance, IMO. There is nothing else to explain it... Certainly no imaginable justification.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Does that not, in a way, make the freepers worse than the

James boys? The Jameses (from their POV) came out of a devastating war, to live in an occupied territory where the bluecoats and the yankee bankers had the power of life and death over the citizens - they had very specific grievances, the loss of property and the loss of the lives of friends and neighbors, to justify their crimes.

The freepers, on the other hand, are just making shit up. Nobody's done anything to them to make them nuts. They don't need any convincing to be hateful and bloodthirsty. It's their natural state.

I'm currently reading "The Silent Brotherhood", about Bob Matthews and The Order, how they derived from John Birch Society and Christian Identity churches - and it is scary shit. And the scariest thing about it is they were not all total losers - many were otherwise completely normal, intelligent, educated people who were somehow drawn into this weird paranoid alter reality. And the stuff they're saying there can be found on FR any day of the week.

[hlthe2b]

7. I would tend to agree, NCevilDUer...

I don't have to agree with the James and Younger Brothers, and the other Quantrail Riders, but at least I can intellectually understand their behavior, given the times and events they experienced.

[Fovea]

8. They rode to Minnesota

to rob the bank owned by a former Union commander they hated. It did not go well for the Youngers.

[Hamlette]

3. it would be interesting to know how many posted there 6 yrs ago vs now

seems when I first joined DU, 6 years ago, there would be the occasional thread posting about Freepers bragging on how much bigger their site was vs DU.

Recently I saw a post here that DU is much bigger than the Freeper site. Might not prove we converted any/many but it might show it has become more difficult to be a bush bully.

[warrens]

4. The freepers who left have their own sites

One really foul one is Libertypost. Some truly rank stuff there.

The reasonable ones have sites as well. When they turned on Bush, they got the boot.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Freepers? No.

There's no hope for them.

However, five years ago 90% of Americans supported Bush. Now it's 30%.

So that's a good deal.

[baby_mouse]

10. Let them be.

In the end they will all physically relocate to somewhere barren and build an enormous glass wall between themselves and the rest of America, standing inside at the boundary with badly-spelled messages on bits of card on sticks, waving them silently at the empty desert...

[KoKo]

13. Probably the truth of it....but I have hope that not all are "brain dead." n/t

[lovuian]

11. I know on You tube I have had Republican commentators

and they tell me they are republican too on their comments under my videos
But I have listened to Dean and reached out for what we agree on

They didn't Like Bolton AT ALL and glad he is out
and they are Mad about Iraq

its not often that I can agree with Repubs but thats the tide thats turning
We are starting to agree

So yes there is Repubs looking for others to talk to about their frustrations
I believe in redemption and maybe they are looking for it
Thats why forgiveness is important
Yes they are leaving Freeperville and venturing out to YouTube and other places

[Jacobin]

12. No. They don't use reason

They are cultists who see the world through the fog of doggedly held 'beliefs' that reason and facts cannot penetrate