I have a question for those DUers who occasionally lurk at Free Republic

First off, thank you for being a freep voyeur. I value intelligence reports, even if I make a sucky spy myself. Anyway, here's my question...

Do the "Free Repulicans" argue among themselves like we do, or as much as we do, or is it usually just a self indulgent pity party where they all share the same opinions and just try to out conservative each other with the most outlandish Clinton-blaming they can think of?

I'd try to find out myself, but I have a pretty sensitive gag reflex, so I can't visit the site. Still, as a purely sociological curiosity, I'm wondering if the culture over there is as scrum-oriented as we are, or is it more of a herd mentality.

(oops, mispelling fixed)

But I never go over there.

Just wonder if they attack each other with the virulence that we do here on DU.

... interparty arguing is what we do best.

and likely to adjust their thinking as new evidence pops up.

Of course, there will always be a section who would call for ending a debate they do not like.

Sometimes I'm amused by what's posted here. Sometimes not.

The mentality is more of sheep with a few worriers about the Repub party who get taken down hard. We have much more constructive arguments here and for the most part allow disagreements to happen but I am starting to wonder about that lately.

At the same time the far left accuses the Democratic Party of not being liberal enough.

The same extremes have mirror-image views on whether the "mainstream media" is dominated by liberals or by conservatives.

They are just as sure in their convictions as the left is in theirs.

Fear is not good on a discussion board but I am not sure what to post here anymore.

It happens every day.

When conservative ideology fails, the Freepers find fault in it being "not conservative enough". Their reasoning is that the principles are always right, so it must have been a human failing. This explains their faith in religion: the Bible and Commandments are always right, it's people who fail in disobeying them and sinning.

Liberalism is not so much a bunch of inflexible principles as it is a concern that people are being treated right. When a liberal idea fails (and on very rare occasions they do), DUers don't find fault in it being "not liberal enough". They look at the group of people that got the short end of the stick and ask how a more equitable accommodation could be made.

My favorite was the Great Digg War:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7641746

Because I collect firearms I surf the firearm-oriented forums. They spend an inordinate amount of time arguing fruitlessly about evolution, abortion, and religion in general. Other common subjects include 9 mm vs. .45 ACP, Ford vs. Chevy, what kind of camouflage to wear for a particular situation, and who is the biggest "gear queer" by virtue of how much silly "tacticool" stuff adorns their rifle.

If not for anonymity, it would be embarrassing for those of us who favor the mainstream scientific and secular views on those subjects.

The political focused threads there tend to be like a virtual spittoon - angry posters stopping in to chew on a topic, bitch and leave expelled waste into the overflowing brass jar. Counter opinions are either called out as trolls or measured and wrestled based on their total message count, which they seem to believe is somehow correlated to IQ. The posts in a thread tend be shorter, include more pictures and are more viseral, front of the brain, unchecked reactions (small thoughts if you will).

I visit there as one would visit a zoo - a chance to see how lower life forms interact in thier natural setting. It is also a place to peek into to be reminded of how fragile our society is and why stopping for a broken down car to help someone is not always a good idea.

Disagreement is not tolerated as much there.

On some issues, opinions diverge, but within a limited range.

Terri Schiavo was one.

Bush's surveillance program was another - this was an area in which there could have been good work done by left and right activists, since both sides share a distrust of government power when it comes to domestic spying.

Those two issues demonstrate the tension between principled conservatives who are pretty consistent when they mean "limited government", and the faux conservatives who simply use the label but really favor a right wing activist government. Because the latter tend to be "god and country" type social activists, they don't get thrown out and think they are the only ones there.

A very few of them are starting to realize that Barack Obama's "citizenship issues" is tinfoilhattery, and aren't being banned.

What happened at FR was a series of purges during the primaries. At DU, for example, one could voice support for any D candidate. FR is not "party" focused, so supporters of Giuliani were surprised that any approval of him resulted in immediate ban.

They do spend more time obsessing over whether new people are trolls than DUers do.

Generally, if someone doesn't toe the party line, or is very vocal about it, they get kicked off.

any polls you don't like are not to be trusted for one reason or another

weekend polls were crap, cell phone users were under polled, etc. (FR thinks these things favor dems, DU thinks they favor repubs). Rasmussen was held in particular distain from both sides.

I the distain of the mainstream media in general from both the right and the left very interesting. I still can't figure out if the media is "corporate" or "liberal"