Apparently the tax burden this evil internationalist scheme has laid upon my acquaintance made it impossible for him to live his life to the fullest, even in his particularly upscale subdivision of my own overpriced Charleston suburb. Did I know, he asked, that Kennedy was shot because he was planning to dissolve the Fed, and that conditions in this country today parallel those which led to the rise of Hitler?

Welcome to Freeper World.

My neighbor's astonishing take on history and economics was just one of the bizarre views from the day, ending in an emotional evening banquet to raise funds for Linda Tripp's legal team. Tripp, speaking publicly for the first time since impeachment (which she set in motion by surreptitiously recording the anguished ditherings of presidential fellateuse Monica Lewinsky) and just days after criminal wire-tapping charges from the Monica tapes were dropped against her in Maryland, promised to continue her fight against the Demon Spawn, aka the Clintons. They had made such a shambles of her life, Tripp said, that she would never recover, economically or emotionally.

Yet she seemed remarkably cheerful Saturday, freshly face-lifted and looking forward with optimistic glee to getting more Clinton depositions on videotape in the course of her irony-impaired civil suit against the White House for -- yes -- invasion of privacy.

Free Republic is a loose, grass-roots style organization founded in 1996 by Jim Robinson, a Fresno, Calif., conservative. Its mission, as explained by Bob Johnson, the slender, well-spoken head of the fledgling activist arm of the organization, is to "reverse the trend of unconstitutional government expansion" and bring about "a restoration of our constitutional republic." Specific, long-range goals include the repeal of the 16th Amendment, which established the IRS, and the complete withdrawal from the United Nations. Intermediate goals include the rollback of gun control laws, dissolution of "unconstitutional" government departments, renunciation of many international treaties and repeal of regulations on business. However, according to Johnson, these ambitious efforts won't succeed if the organization fails to reach its primary goal of "ending liberalism as a significant cultural influence." In pursuit of that aim, it is bent on "leveling the playing field" in the media, and "balancing" the media's supposed 80-20 slant in favor of liberalism.

Johnson also plans to hit the "Achilles heel of the left": funding. Most left-wing organizations are not only generously supported by government money, Johnson claims, but by private entities who hand out grants, matching funds and other bennies to liberal causes. "Why," Johnson asked the assembled Freepers, "do we buy products from an organization that is giving money to our enemies?" He thinks those corporations should be induced to stop the handouts, or to give right-wing entities an equal amount.

Finally, Johnson said, the right needs to "retake our institutions," such as education, and higher education in particular, which is "dominated by liberals, fascists, communists, Marxists and other assorted luminaries." Young people these days come out of college with a "headful of mush," Johnson claims, and it takes them at least 10 years to "solidify all that Jell-O in their brains."

To quicken the congealing of liberal minds from rubbery picnic desserts into more respectable concrete blocks, Free Republic's busy Web site offers article reprints and media archives, as well as a lively -- some would say virulent -- forum for public discussion and "critical analysis" of current news and political issues. Free Republic has vociferously supported Tripp from the beginning of the impeachment crisis, calling her a "Hero and Patriot," and leading the effort to fund her legal defense. It's no wonder she felt comfortable making her first speech to the Freepers, because, as her lawyer Joe Murtha told us, she was sure what she said before these fiercely loyal partisans would not be criticized or harshly judged.

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