Posted on 11/14/2012 5:48:30 PM PST by neverdem
Brilliant commentary on the press. You need to keep telling this story.
IMHO; this is the most important sentence in your essay. Would a National Day of Repentance be a step in the right direction? Where? Led by whom? I would suggest the heart of the nation...we would need a turnout in the millions...I might go so far as to say tens of millions. Perhaps a 'human chain' of participants across the country...I'm just throwing ideas at the wall, but we NEED to repent...there is NO question about it.
Muchos Gracias.You need to keep telling this story.
How long?You are correct, of course - I need to tell that story. It’s just that it just seems that, even on FR, few will engage in a discussion of the points I make about wire service journalism.Sometimes I feel like Cassandra warning of the Trojan Horse. It just seems so ironic, when by all rights I should be "preaching to the choir” here. I am saying that not only do we have a legitimate right to the opinions we are drawn to FR because of, our primary opposition is provably sailing under false colors and proposing how they might be brought to book.
Everyone seems to just take for granted that it’s impossible to “bell the cat.” Just maybe, there is an outside chance it could be pulled off. I saw a credible-seeming web posting to the effect that the AP was found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act ‘way back in 1945. Case out of Chicago. Back then, of course, the mission of the AP - to economically propagate news around the country “instantaneously” - made it seem “too big to fail.” Six decades and an Internet later, the cost of nationwide communication is de minims - and the mission of the AP is now insignificant. We don’t have to economize on bandwidth any more. Any and all reporters can report to any and all Americans. Just like Drudge does.
If you think about it, FR is all about debunking the “gatekeepers” of information about what the politicians and the government are doing. Why do people speak of “the media” when “wire service journalism” is the exact target? Why blunt your attack that way??? And why limit your attack to one more example - among thousands and probably millions - of bias in wire journalism, and never attack the principle that the wire service journalists deserve no respect for having superior wisdom?
No facts, no logic, no ancient writings of wisdom which command our respect - nothing indicates that wire service journalists are anything more than shills. And yet we-the-people accord them pride of place, and cry in outrage when they violate “the sacred principle of objectivity” again. As if they ever did anything else!
It was the strawberries, I tell you!! Augh!!!
Well, if measured in “trust” the MSM is failing. People don’t trust them. Problem is psyops and false flag operations undermine conservatives, but we have beaten them on gun control, global warming, and petroleum - for now.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/157589/distrust-media-hits-new-high.aspx
When we lose it is because our message is garbled and doesn’t appeal to middle-class voters, particularly white women. As Obamacare fails we must point out that it is central planning that is failing, again. But, if we don’t have simple, clear and effective alternatives in place people won’t care.
How do you reform a system that doesn’t let you price by service usage and risk? You have to rapidly lower prices and increase access, that is a direct assault on the existing power structure. They’ll work to undermine that change.
It would be simple enough to 1. force published rates and 2. allow interstate competition between medical professionals and insurance companies. Of the two, published rates solves the problem the fastest, but flies in the face of “free marketers”, yet is a reform on a completely unfree market. Would conservatives support it to get from here to liberty?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/157589/distrust-media-hits-new-high.aspx
The Big Lie technique is a funny thing. We have the testimony of Germans who, when told Big Lies about the Jews did not believe them, rejected them out of hand. And yet they went on, over time, to act as if those lies were the truth.Let the lies be unanswered and, fatuous as those lies seem to you and me, otherwise intelligent people will vote as the lies direct them to.
Democracy, or a democratic republic, is based on the theory that the people are independent and cherish independence and freedom. What we have in wire service journalism - what we have in the Associated Press - is a propaganda institution every bit as dedicated to the Democrat party as Goebels’ propaganda ministry was to Hitler and the Nazi party.And it manages to be quite seductive to those who are feeling insecure.And if there is anything that you know journalism feeds on, it is insecurity. It is their food and drink.
Interesting article; thread; and great posts! Thanks for the pings.
The Seductive Lure of Socialism
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.
This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.
The Law and Morals
You say: “Here are persons who are lacking in morality or religion,” and you turn to the law. But law is force. And need I point out what a violent and futile effort it is to use force in the matters of morality and religion?
It would seem that socialists, however self-complacent, could not avoid seeing this monstrous legal plunder that results from such systems and such efforts. But what do the socialists do? They cleverly disguise this legal plunder from others — and even from themselves — under the seductive names of fraternity, unity, organization, and association. Because we ask so little from the law — only justice — the socialists thereby assume that we reject fraternity, unity, organization, and association. The socialists brand us with the name individualist.
But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence.
A Confusion of Terms
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
The Influence of Socialist Writers
How did politicians ever come to believe this weird idea that the law could be made to produce what it does not contain — the wealth, science, and religion that, in a positive sense, constitute prosperity? Is it due to the influence of our modern writers on public affairs?
Present-day writers — especially those of the socialist school of thought — base their various theories upon one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general — with the exception of the writer himself — form the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important group. Surely this is the weirdest and most conceited notion that ever entered a human brain!
In fact, these writers on public affairs begin by supposing that people have within themselves no means of discernment; no motivation to action. The writers assume that people are inert matter, passive particles, motionless atoms, at best a kind of vegetation indifferent to its own manner of existence. They assume that people are susceptible to being shaped — by the will and hand of another person — into an infinite variety of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected. Moreover, not one of these writers on governmental affairs hesitates to imagine that he himself — under the title of organizer, discoverer, legislator, or founder — is this will and hand, this universal motivating force, this creative power whose sublime mission is to mold these scattered materials — persons — into a society.
These socialist writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, labor-corps, and other variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school laws.
The Socialists Wish to Play God
Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. This is so true that, if by chance, the socialists have any doubts about the success of these combinations, they will demand that a small portion of mankind be set aside to experiment upon. The popular idea of trying all systems is well known. And one socialist leader has been known seriously to demand that the Constituent Assembly give him a small district with all its inhabitants, to try his experiments upon.
In the same manner, an inventor makes a model before he constructs the full-sized machine; the chemist wastes some chemicals — the farmer wastes some seeds and land — to try out an idea.
But what a difference there is between the gardener and his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his elements, between the farmer and his seeds! And in all sincerity, the socialist thinks that there is the same difference between him and mankind!
It is no wonder that the writers of the nineteenth century look upon society as an artificial creation of the legislator’s genius. This idea — the fruit of classical education — has taken possession of all the intellectuals and famous writers of our country. To these intellectuals and writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.
Moreover, even where they have consented to recognize a principle of action in the heart of man — and a principle of discernment in man’s intellect — they have considered these gifts from God to be fatal gifts. They have thought that persons, under the impulse of these two gifts, would fatally tend to ruin themselves. They assume that if the legislators left persons free to follow their own inclinations, they would arrive at atheism instead of religion, ignorance instead of knowledge, poverty instead of production and exchange.
The Socialists Despise Mankind
According to these writers, it is indeed fortunate that Heaven has bestowed upon certain men — governors and legislators — the exact opposite inclinations, not only for their own sake but also for the sake of the rest of the world! While mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of the human race.
Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country is this idea — the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is a concealed power called law or legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or persons of undisputed influence and authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves mankind.
Bastiat(1801-1850)- “The Law”
What is Romesh Ponnuru’s body of work? What collective pays him to write? What is their agenda? Has the writer articulated a defense of freedom or individual liberties against an oppressive state, or is the writer locked in the current paradigm? Has the writer earned a wage in any other endeavor? So many questions...
Very good post. Good suggestions.
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