IS TED NUGENT DEAD? It Is My Sad Duty To Report…
By Resa LaRu Kirkland (01/12/06)
I have been a frequent poster and fan of Ted Nugent’s forum for a couple of years now, but when I came back to it last spring after about a six month hiatus while caring for ill parents, things had changed. Some of the old schoolers like myself who had been there for more than a year were sending me warnings about one of the newer moderators there, some Buddhist little hippy named “J”, who was censoring the speech of conservatives and banning some of NUGE’s long-time supporters.
I refused to believe it was true. After all, NUGE has built an image as one of the few rockers who follows conservative rules, and who believes firmly in the right to speak whatever is on your mind, NO MATTER WHAT. So surely these old friends were exaggerating.
I should have known these friends were telling me the truth.
When I started posting again, I ran into J, who frequented my columns, even though he didn’t agree with a single of the conservative beliefs that I make clear in all of my writings. It was my first inkling that the rumors were true. I was only mildly interested in this pudgy, Buddha-loving hippy type, figuring that NUGE was trying to be fair in hiring someone whose views differed from his. After all, that is what free speech is all about, and I initially applauded NUGE’s apparent efforts to be more fair and balanced than the hippy press that has run America for so long has been to him and other conservatives.
I almost never read any of J’s posts, as they were always some hippy-commie wannabe crap, but he always seemed to come into mine. I didn’t care…again, that is what free speech is all about. But I was getting some bad vibes from this strutting little Stalinist. It was hard for me to grasp that he was part of the famed TNUSA group, who organize large hunts and are active gun advocates. Reading anything he wrote was like reading something straight out of the BIG RED BOOK OF COMMUNISM, or something from MoveOn.org. Still, my belief in what the American warrior has sacrificed so much for—the right to believe whatever you want to believe—caused me to tolerate him so long as he returned the favor.
He didn’t.
In true hippy fashion, J pulled the classic liberal double standard when it comes to free speech. I began finding long-time NUGE supporters and friends—people who had been with and known NUGE longer than J had—being suspended or even permanently banned. Having read the rules for using the forum, I knew that only extreme cases of foul language, severe—I mean really severe—name calling of other members, personal threats to other members or to NUGE or his site were reasons for pulling a member. Knowing NUGE’s rock hard support of free speech and his belief that everyone—commie and pro-American alike—should at the very least be able to speak his mind, I was shocked to see the mild or even non-existent excuses that J was using for kicking members out of NUGE. I still wanted to be fair, and figured that perhaps he just didn’t understand, or was taking his job a bit too seriously, or that—given his physical stature and pussy ways—that this was all he had in his life and was therefore being far too serious about it. So I wrote to several of the people at NUGE’s site, including Ted himself, to let them know that they were losing some very old and good NUGE supporters because of this one new individual who seemed to have taken his role as a forum moderator waaaaaay too seriously. I had seen some of these older members use far worse language, and even get downright nasty with other forum members before J entered the scene, and there was never once talk of suspending or banning them. And now merely expressing beliefs on closing the border, deporting illegals, or speaking out against Islam was enough justification for him to capriciously suspend or ban anyone whose views—ironically—mirrored those of NUGE.
The other moderators claimed they could do nothing, but I know too well that they most definitely could have pulled him aside and advised him that he was letting the mere role of a forum moderator go to his head, and that he really needed to get a life outside of the Ted Nugent forum board. But they claimed to one of my fellow NUGERS that they could not.
My own case of a temporary suspension came after writing about Muhammed Ali and the choice of him receiving the Medal of Freedom. This seemed to rub J the wrong way. I quizzed him about why he continued to come into my threads since he knew from the get go that he wasn’t going to agree with me. After all, that only makes sense. (But then, we all know logic and reason never work with hippies. It didn’t in this case either.) When I had the nerve to challenge him, and asked him to stop sitting around like some fat ass, he immediately suspended me for “name calling.” How a metaphor can be considered name-calling only works for liberals. Everyone who wrote to him in anger about banning me was kind enough to visit the disputed thread—which he eventually pulled, btw, in true hippy fashion—and then email me scratching their heads, desperate to figure out why on earth I had been suspended for so benign an event. When I assured them that they had the right thread, without exception they all said, “Hell, we’ve said far worse than that in the past…what’s going on with NUGE?”
What indeed. Which is why I decided to write this. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but NUGE has fashioned a conservative niche, and has loyal conservative followers, much like myself. Given all of those affected, we knew that we had to find out what had happened to Ted Nugent.
All emails from myself and the other shocked evacuees of Ted’s camp have been ignored. We all finally got together and came to a horrible conclusion: Ted Nugent is either dead, or he is a fraud. If he is dead, that explains why this plump hippy was ever allowed to decide who lived and who died in the first place. The far worse idea is that of him still being alive; then he either doesn’t know what is taking place at his own thread—inexcusable—or he doesn’t care—abominable.
Since none of my fellow former NUGERS want to believe that he could be a liar or a sell-out, that he would deliberately ignore his own fans upon whom he depends, that he would allow his own personal forum to become a hippy hang-out, we came to the painful conclusion that NUGE must be dead. There can be no other explanation.
So it is with a heavy heart that we bid Ted Nugent a fond farewell. But if we are wrong, and he is still alive, then it is with enraged hearts that we bid everything about NUGE a disgusted farewell. If the latter is true, the Motor City Mad Man is still dead to us. We will discard him into the same pile we’ve thrown Jane Fonda, the Dixie Chicks, and John Kerry.
You have a helluva lot of explaining to do, Ted. You’ve already lost your most fervent friends. They will now be hunting without you. You’ve already lost a lot of vets who remember your claims of draft dodging in Vietnam. They continue to serve without you. It’s starting to look like all you have left is a psycho hippy, a disgraced name, a lonely happy hunting ground.
Keep the faith, bros, and in all things courage.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Resa LaRu Kirkland
