A few weeks ago during the big flap over the immigration reform bill in the Senate, I was linked to an article on freerepublic.com. The article discussed the bill, and, as is usual in an internet forum, had a space underneath for discussion. Upon reading through the thread, I immediately deduced that this was a conservative forum due to the fact that everyone was up in arms about howthe flood of brown people who would supposedly pour across the border if the bill was passed would culturally (and implicitly racially) destroy America. Having just read Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, the idea of human capital was very fresh in my mind, and so, assuming that conservatives would respond favorably to a free-market argument, I composed this:
Immigration laws are to human capital are what tariffs are to manufactured goods; wasteful. Protectionism has been long discredited by economists; immigration barriers are based on the racist assumption that an unskilled american is somehow worth more than an unskilled Mexican. Closed borders make Americans fat and lazy, just like welfare. I say open the borders; any American who was too lazy to get educated because they thought their citizenship entitled them to $12 an hour (or any more than a Mexican factory worker makes) deserves what's coming to them. Bring on the competition; closed borders are communist.I hoped that this would, at the very least, spark some discussion. Instead, the next person to post sent a report to the moderator, and, within 15 seconds, my post was removed and my account was suspended. Supremely confused, I checked the poster guidelines which I had not violated in any way, and then mailed the webmaster, who never replied. Confused and a bit hurt by my quick and effective censorship (my privileges were completely revoked so I couldn't even send a question to the moderator), I decided I wanted to learn more about this "Free Republic".
I started my journey by reading the "Statement of the Founder." The text of the statement has a certain totalitarian air to it, but what was really amazing to me were the responses (numbering over a thousand). Including such gems as:
Sir, being right means never having to apologyze [sic] or explain! Bless you and yours!and countless "dittos," FR exudes an thick atmosphere of groupthink. In fact, in the Statement, the founder says that
I'm biased toward God, country, family, liberty and freedom and against liberalism, socialism, anarchism, wackoism, global balonyism and any other form of tyranny."Wackoism" and "global balonyism"??? The fact that the governing ideology of this website contains terms whose definition can be redefined at the whim of the owner is bad enough. That more than a thousand people responded to this post with some equivalent of "right on" is downright terrifying. They've, in effect, given the owner of Free Republic complete control over what it means to be "conservative." Since they label themselves as such, their lives are made much easier. Instead of having to think critically about a particular issue as it comes up, all a Freeper (as they call themselves) has to do is log on and check the FR consensus. As any opposing views (even those that deviate slightly, like my post), are immediately squelched, the illusion of consensus is maintained, and the ideological front of the Freeper community remains rock-solid.
On the face of it, this seems unfortunate, but, as the internet allows all sorts of marginal communities to form, it isn't all that surprising that a nest of right-wing cryptofascists such as freerepublic should exist. What's disturbs me is that a few members of the administration, like press secretary Tony Snow, are known Freepers, and we don't know how many more lurk about or post with pseudonyms. The nationalist (read: dominant and authoritarian) wing of the Republican Party blows a lot of hot air about "freedom", but actions speak louder than words. Free Republic is a case study on how the authoritarian tendencies of the conservative ideology dominate any "ideals" that its adherents may pay lip service to. On the macro-level, the result of this state of affairs, of course, is the Iraq quagmire and our newly shredded Constitution. On the plus side, though, I did get to experience a little Verstehen: This is what using the whole internet must feel like in China.
