Freedom of Speech, Rightwing Stylee!
One of the forums I post to, the progressive-leaning guerrillanews.com, had an interesting thread where a few members from the site tried to join the rightwing forms at freeconservatives.com...its an interesting tale and arguably a microcosm of the larger ideological battles that are on going the world over.

The first scary thing was the amount of trouble the 'free' conservatives went to in order to ensure they had control of the forums; it was not an easy task to join with obvious searches against any new members in a petty McCarthyist display of censorship and paranoia.

Even when a couple of people did manage to join, there was no debate only insults. Any sources of information not from sites or publications they subscribed to the ideology of, were dismissed and derided. It could be the case that the sources they so hated were wrong, but analysis and references as to why they were wrong were virtually absent. In the Borg-mind of so-called conservative ideas there could be no exceptions and it reminded me of a Stalinist state with an information ministry.

So how were dissenters treated in the forum-of-the-free? Well they were utterly persecuted. I assume they are going on the 'attack is their best form of defense' approach, which is cool in warfare, but with ideas? Insipid. Here's a few choice quotes from the attack on one of the GNN crew. First up is Large_Al replying to investigations as to the back ground of the new members and suspects of the forums:

So I was correct after all he was a drug induced Anarchist (teenager). At least a teenager in maturity level and intellect....And as he gazes out his window at the beautiful NZ landscape with the rolling hills with lush vegetation and thousands of sheep almost looking like clouds against a green sky. He'll stop and think! Then he'll say to himself. So Many Sheep and so little time!!

I'm sorry! Did Large_Al use the words 'maturity level' and teen based animal-sex insults in the same post? He did. Ah. Still, Large_Al has his own definition of 'the land of the free'...

It's a shame we can't hang these two from the big oak tree in the entrance of our community. You know like in the old west. We could put a sign on their bodies that reads "This is what happens to Weak Minded Individuals who come to our town and start trouble."

Indeed Large_Al, kinda makes me hope Bush visits your ranch. After that, the rest of the forum join in the sheep/New Zealand jokes until the moderator Warlady injects a little sense into the intellectual debate:

All those two trolls succeeded in was proving how immature and what a bunch of liars the left are. Grow up children. It's much more fun being an adult.

Thanks Warlady! So there you have it; elitism, American exceptionalism, immaturity, McCarthyism and pure basic intolerance. If this is being rightwing; you can keep it. The scary thing is that people like these are in control of the largest military force in history. But if this is a sample of the strength of their ideas, the the future belongs to us. There are the willing cannon fodder of a system that does not care for them any more than it cares for me or you, its just that i'd like to think that I'm under no illusions. Still, it makes me realise why most people are turned off by arguments of the 'left' or 'right' - both are historically bankrupt ideologies whos time has come. I'll leave you with this comforting thought; when the rubble of their arguments is matched by the rubble of their empires, maybe we can really have the American ideals of all being created equal and the free speech the world over.