wardaddy I have been posting here 20 years except when myself and many others were banned for a year or so in 2005 for vehemently opposing amnesty and battling with a clique here that held sway..till they left in a huff over JR's proper edict that we would not support Giuliani...hence we came back, they left..some have snuck back in alas...Free Republic ebbs and flows to put it mildly..lol However...when I first started here my very first day I was absolutely stunned to find folks calling themselves conservative posting the most vile crap about the South, or race baiting as good as woke kid or calling anyone who disagreed a bigot or prejudiced etc at the drop of a hat....I was saddened to see that many here were really no different about minorities in general and many of those had a visceral hatred towards where I came from...that block of America that is by and large along with some Plains and Mountain areas the last bulwark against progressivism's tidal wave