Talk:Guardians of the Free Republics

They sent letters to all 50 governors

According to a spokesperson for the group, named Mr Hall, who was quotes in the LATimes, they mailed all 50 governors, not just the 30 governors stated in early reports. 64.142.90.33 (talk) 00:55, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I indicated that the FBI expects all 50 to get letters. It is just that this made news when 30 received them. Truthsort (talk) 15:06, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

What does this mean?

One of the points in the group's "Restore America plan" says

Quietly mirror the strategies of 1933 thereby using their (our) institutions, military and public officials to undo eighty years of subterfuge without provoking alarm, controversy or armed conflict.

What does this mean exactly? 1933 is the year Hitler began his takeover with the help of the brownshirts. They were paramilitary thugs who strong-armed Hitler into power. This would certainly seem to ring with White-supremacists. Are they suggesting another holocaust? Are the Guardians of the Free Republics in fact "Quietly" a White-supremacist hate group? --66.66.187.132 (talk) 03:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

No, The group wants to go back to a pre-1933 form of government. The New Deal was passed in 1933 and the group opposes it.[1] Truthsort (talk) 15:10, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Considering most US sovereign groups grew out of or were inspired by earlier white supremacist groups it would be entirely unsurprising if this group thought Hitler was a swell guy 107.205.151.228 (talk) 20:11, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Defunct?

As of March 24, 2011, the web site for Guardians of the Free Republics appears to be gone. Perhaps this "organization" no longer exists? Famspear (talk) 01:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe not, but I must say that, even though I created the article, this group probably never met the notability requirements. I thought maybe this group would become more notable than for sending letters to governors. Truthsort (talk) 05:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Guardians of the Free Republics/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Arsenikk ^(talk) 08:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• The lead is extremely short. Even for a short article like this, the lead should have a substancial size. At the moment, it does not summarize the article.
• All information in the lead is to be repeated in the main body.
• There is no mention anywhere that this takes place in the United States.
• Avoid terms like "linked to" as they are very vague. See WP:Weasel words.
• Never use all-caps. All-caps is a typographical choice, like use of fonts.
• I took a look at the web site; it is difficult to comprehend as they use a lot of buzzwords and innuendo. However, there is a fair amount of material there, perhaps some of it could be incorporated into the article? Then again, there are is a some information from the site as well.
• I am not convinced that the article meets the notability criteria. The problem is that Wikipedia does not consider people, events or organizations spurred from one, single event notable, unless there is significant coverage way past the time of the even. To put it another way: this incident, while reaching international news sources, fails to receive any news hits after the 3 April. If there was lasting impact of the organization, mainstream media outlets would continue to discuss the issue several weeks after the incident itself. See WP:NOTNEWS and WP:N. For an example, look at WP:AIRCRASH, which says that while a lot of accidents receive a lot of media attention right there and then, only certain fatal or otherwise very serious accidents are presumed notable.

Placing on hold. Arsenikk ^(talk) 08:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Additional comments

• After sleeping on the matter, I think I'll let the issue pass for notability, although it is a close cut. Although they havn't actually done anything notable, the news actually hit the Norwegian press.
• First sentence should be ... is a Texas, United States-based group ... (with 'Texas' but not 'United States' wikilinked). Don't presume that everyone outside the US knows where Texas is.
• While rereading the article, I realized that the article is extremely under-linked. For instance, link "U.S. State governors" ("state" shouldn't be capitalized here), "talk-show", "anti-government ideology", "civil war", all geographic entities below that of a country (Texas, Phoenix, Arkansas, Round Rock), Governor should link to "Governor of Arkansas", "Biblical law in Christianity" etc.
• There has been a convention that all cities in the US have a suffix for the state, so ti should be "Phoenix, Arizona". Don't blame me, it's a US thing.

Still on hold. Arsenikk ^(talk) 12:14, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations with a good article. Arsenikk ^(talk) 16:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

internet activism?

I'm just curious to know how this organization constitutes "Internet-based activism", since it isn't clear to me. They have/had a website. Is that their primary means of organizing? Because otherwise they just seem like any other organization with a website. --Lquilter (talk) 20:33, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Members of an organization in criminal acts

Why are crimes of individual members treated in an article about an organization? For a comparison we do not treat crimes of individual catholics in an article about catholicisim. Andries (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

The Catholic Church is a real organization with millions of members. And its stated goals are really its goals. None of that was the case for the Guardians of the Free Republics. The Guardians as far as I know, never extended its "membership" very much beyond the three main individuals (Davis, Turner and Unger) mentioned in the article and a few other people. All three are criminals. To compare these people as an "organization" to the Catholic Church and its millions of members would be misleading. Indeed, virtually everything notable about the "Guardians" relates to its dubious legal status. These people (Davis, Turner and Unger) were, by and large, fraudsters. Look at the crimes for which they were convicted: money laundering, conspiracy to defraud, bankruptcy fraud, filing false tax refund claims, etc. Famspear (talk) 04:21, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

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