Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Train of Thought Field Trip: Free Republic

First: Stop reading this and vote. Seriously, go vote or a bunch of political science nerds will find you and beat you up with ballot boxes and copies of the US Constitution.

There, got that out of the way? Great. Now I know that it’s Election Day and poll-related posts are going to be flooding in, but I thought I’d dedicate one last post to what will soon hopefully be the past. As you may have heard, yesterday Barack Obama’s grandmother passed away after an extended battle with cancer. Reactions were almost universally respectful- clearly the guy cared about her very much, and I think it’s fair to say that this was definitely a blow.

Free Republic, on the other hand, didn’t feel that respect was really necessary here. Nor was sanity, but I‘ll get to that in a moment. For now what you have to understand is that Free Republic isn’t bound by the laws of decorum. They laugh at your attempts to humanize even those whose policies you oppose. For every Republican who took a moment to offer condolences, there was an equal but opposite Republican on Free Republic who sat down and attempted to win the coveted ‘most vile thing ever typed on the Internet’ award. It got to the point that moderators at Free Republic locked and deleted the threads- and you can bet that if those guys find something distasteful, it has to be truly odious indeed.

Luckily a poster on SomethingAwful managed to save the first three pages of the thread before it was erased. This is the real thread, not a SomethingAwful parody. I’ve gone ahead and donned protective goggles to save my eyes from the filth, and special posting gloves to let me type this one up without going insane with rage. Without further ado, the posters of FreeRepublic:

“Buddygirl” gets things started real classy like:

Oh how convenient that she kicks the bucket the day before the election so he
can get the sympathy vote.
Perfectly timed terminal sedation.......
Just in case she’s worried that she’s the only wretched ghoul on the internet, “Antivenom” gives his two cents:

Am I a terrible person,I thought the very same thing!
Off to a great start! Now it’s up to “AntiqueGal” to up the ante. I suggest adding a few drops of conspiracy theory and a touch of incomprehensibility:

So Barry goes and see’s granny. Granny dies day before election. She is probably
one know who really knows where he was born. Well as the church lady used to
say.”isn’t that special”

Masterfully done, douchebag! Hmm, maybe we could make it a little nauseating- and that’s where “Brian S Fitzgerald” comes in:

cyanide?

Sometimes one word really does say it all. At this point “KevinB” shows up, apparently from an alternate universe where John McCain hasn’t spent the last month down by a minimum of 5 points:

Not to be sacriligious, but I take this as sign from God seeking to spare Toot
from seeing her grandson be humiliated in the greatest electoral upset in
history.

Don’t worry Kevin, celebrating the death of a kind old lady isn’t even slightly sacrilegious! Sacrilege is normally invoked when the person or thing involved is holy. The word you’re looking for is loathsome! “Counterpunch” is our next contributor:

Disgusting. There is nothing this man won’t do to win.

Limbaugh-like eloquence there. “MHT” keeps thinking about the practical side of things:

Better pull her absentee ‘cuz she was dead on Election Day.

An old lady dies, a young man gloats. Fair trade. Finally, “Waus” takes us home with this wonderful addition to the popular discourse:

WAIT...I thought The Creep was the savior.
“1. a person who saves, rescues,
or delivers: the savior of the country.” clip
But, now, two people close to
him have died on the same day.
Something smells...and it’s BO.

So here’s the good news: I only mined half of the three pages that were preserved. The bad news: those posts are just the tip of an enormous fecal iceberg. Please, go vote: the greater the Obama win, the more tears these very people will cry tomorrow. Do it for the tears of the Freepers, people, if absolutely nothing else has motivated you.

4 comments:

  1. God, I just knew there would be something like this.

    On the plus side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQvw8rvcQxg

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  2. I hate people. Check out the BBC News thread on the US election. They are so optimistic I feel bad for them. I can't jump on the victory train yet: too nervous. I'll be drinking tonight...

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  3. "i vote for the 'halibut'"...hilarious.

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  4. hooray for drinking! i'll be doing the same. if you came here looking for equally vile and nasty retort comments to those unbelievable ones, you're in the wrong place. just don't talk to me after 9pm though when i'm five drinks deep!

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