The silence of the MSM
Among all the other disturbing trends of the Obama era, we have the specter of an MSM that has completely abdicated its duty to report fairly and to (remember this quaint phrase?) question authority. Many have pointed out that this has let Obama and the current crop of Democrats get away with actions that previous administrations would have been called on.
But it’s even worse than that. A silent, complicit, and enabling MSM doesn’t just let this administration get away with things. It emboldens its functionaries to escalate their offenses and to believe that they can operate that way indefinitely and with impunity.
If things seem to be getting worse and worse, the outrages more egregious, and our elected officials more open and shameless about them, that’s not just a coincidence. We are seeing the effects of a corrupted press. A more honest MSM would have helped to keep the forces of a power-hungry and corrupt government in check.
It’s rather like a functioning immune system. When that system is no longer working properly, then bacteria can multiply freely, take over, and sicken a previously healthy organism. This is what has happened to our body politic.
You are so right. Democrats right now are like criminals – well, they aren’t like criminals; they are behaving criminally – who have done one job, got away with, then a few more and got away with them, and are now on a crime and killing spree across the nation.
They are an organized and institutionalized Bonnie and Clyde.
They will rob, cheat, steal and injure until they are stopped in their tracks.
The worse the disease – and it is really bad – the harsher the cure has to be.
The cure will come eventually. The longer it takes, the harder it will be; the more catastrophic it will be.
We’ve already crossed a Rubicon or two. Nothing will be very pretty from here on out. Quite sad it had to come to this actually.
One does not have to purchase newspapers and magazines. I want my cable provider to allow me the same. I do not wish to purchase what I do not watch. The alphabet networks and the NBC / Microsoft-NBC cable networks being what I do not watch.
The Left believes its own propaganda.
I believe there is precedent for this being a bad thing.
Theyir rank and file always believed “all for the best” and “reality based” and “for their own good”… just not had a real opportunity install leadership to hold the las… reigns, as it were… until just recently.
The media themselves tied the traces that bind them to this wagon. They dragged themselves foamy and spittle flecked up and over the crest and delivered Their Choice to the podium of power.
Whores is too kind a word for these people. Truly.
For a class that prided itself on erudition and scholarly interest in events past and present, our Fourth Estate has proven unfit – spectacularly – to perform its stated function.
It’s devilishly hard to govern a free people. I hope it proves outright impossible to rule us.
The press are worse than a deficient immune system. They are an autoimmune disease, attacking healthy cells and tissues that protect the body while leaving the hostile, foreign organisms to ravage the host.
The press are the mechanism of placement, so of course they will not undo their own work.
…and it gets worse.
My wife was laughing over a John Stewart piece where they made fun over the entire kerfluffle about the Christmas Ornaments.
At the same time (with the help of idiots on the right with no sense of choosing battles) they managed to nail down any further discussion of Obama and indoctrination/socialism as “crazy talk.” because of stupid things they got several commentators to say.
As a result – the issues of Obama branding himself instead of promoting things as the president, the cult of personality issues, the socialist style philosophies he’s pushed, the socialist and self-described communists and revolutionaries he’s surrounded himself with become ahrder to talk about without sounding like a nut.
Why? The ornaments are a small issue – and only make sense as part of a pattern. Turning molehills into mountains – then allowing the MSM to turn them into the Peruvian Andes and deflate them – does not help us.
Darius . . .
We’ll never be able to control what the media reports. They have to decide that they have a useful job to do instead of just being cheerleaders for Obama.
As far as I can tell, the media still haven’t reported anything useful about the global warming fraud. They probably WANT there to be global warming so that they can moan and groan about it.
What is the reason that the US MSM are so on the Left?
After all, these are big capitalist corporations, who used to be on the Right.
Many rightleaning sources maintain that this is because of the power of big, international corporations, that want to set up a new world order and world government. In order to do that, all forms of national selfgovernment have to be broken, following the model that the EU uses to break the old selfgoverning European democracies.
With other words: big international US business, of which the MSM is a part, does no longer support US sovereignty and selfgovernment because it is no longer in their interest. They want to break down US exceptionalism and everything that goes with it, for the purpose of a new corporate world order, of which they hope do be an important part. They therefore support Obama: as a deeply anti-American president, he is the perfect guy to help destroy American identity, patriotism and sovereignty. ‘The fall of the republic’ is their goal and Obama is their means.
In other words: the new Left, allied with the Rockefeller Right, is the lackey of big international corporations, not of the working class.
If this analysis is true, the war is no longer between the Right and the Left. But between the international elites of big international business and finance, international media, internationalist leaning EU, UN and US political elites and bureaucracies on the one hand, and all ordinary, freedom loving people of all countries, fighting for their right of self determination against these internationalist elites on the other.
Lord Monckton, a former advisor of Margaret Thatcher, is one of those who hold this theory. As a remedy he proposes to set up a ‘freedom party’ in all countries with the explicit purpose of fighting this new, ‘post democratic’ and tyrannical world order.
In his view the AGW fraud gets so strong support from big corporations and the media because the internationalist elites see it as an ideal means to set up the beginning of this new world government.
First, Merry Christmas!
Second, regarding the MSM, I have to say that I don’t think that they are any more incompetent, dishonest, short-sighted or hypocritical than they have ever been in since the first news-paper. It may seem that way because the 24/7 news media /news cycle is so all pervasive in our lives these days though.
Remember, in this day of the Columbia School of Journalism and the so called “profession” of journalism, in this era of blow-dried mannequin news readers on screen who earn fat salaries to read a teleprompter, that a plumber undergoes an apprenticeship with more rigorous training. A plumber must also take and pass an exam far too tough for journalists to pass, just to be qualified to work in their trade. Remember that when you see some supercilious smirking blow-dried monkey putting down anybody.
Any scribbler can write about events, real or imagined (writing well is another matter altogether). It’s one of the reasons that the fourth estate so hates the internet and bloggers in particular. The MSM no longer functions as the ‘gate-keepers’ of what information the public gets to see, hear or read.
The internet has ushered in an information revolution that is analogous to the revolution ushered in by the invention of movable type.
Journalism never was a profession, it was (and is) an occupation. An occupation that has lost most of its usefulness to the powers that be, except as the big mega-phone for partisan propaganda. So they do what they must to survive. Ever more shrill and extreme as they try in vain to slow their demise. Political powers, both left and right are disturbed by their loss of control of the message. One thing I suspect we can count on no matter who pulls the levers of power, will be the harnessing of the internet as we know it today. Watch and see.
I don’t see how the MSM today differ much from the contemptible ‘yellow’ journalists who stirred up the nation enough to enter the Spanish-American War. Who egged on both sides during the mini-war precursor of the civil war in Kansas in the 1850’s, or who encouraged the vilification of Germans and all things German in the run-up to America’s entry into the first world war.
I just finished reading a very good book by James Bradley, who also wrote Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys. The title is The Imperial Cruise and he focuses on the summer of 1905 when then President Roosevelt sent Secretary of War, William H Taft on the largest diplomatic junket in American history. While on this trip Taft negotiated a series of secret and unconstitutional agreements on Roosevelt’s behalf that framed America’s actions in the Pacific throughout much of the rest of the 20th century. The press was along too. They never saw or cared to look. They always missed the point if they saw a point at all. It’s very eye opening. One thing that occurred to me while reading it is how little things have changed.
There are two things at play here: first, the media are certainly on the same page philosophically as the president and Congress. Second, and more important in my opinion, is the fact that the major media are literally bankrupt, and fighting for their very existence.
Attacking the administration and Congress will not at this point save them financially. They really have no choice but to go all-in as cheerleaders and prostitutes in order to win a bailout at the taxpayers’ expense.
There is no other way.
“A plumber must also take and pass an exam far too tough for journalists to pass, just to be qualified to work in their trade. ”
That’s because there are real, immediate, and measurable consequences if a plumber gets it wrong. When the hot water line in the shower is hooked up to the cold faucet, the method of discovery is unmistakable and if you’re not quick enough, your scalded skin will show the effects for days. The plumber will also have no doubt he screwed up, too, when he gets the irate phone call as soon as you’ve applied the burn cream. And I haven’t even mentioned lawsuits yet.
With journalists, the effects are more subtle and insidious. We only see the effects over time, and even then, they’re difficult to quantify. How do we know the media is harder on the right than it is on the left? We sense it, and there are organizations that measure the bias, but for most people, it’s simply part of the background noise. One more thing to think about (or not) in lives that are already filled with extraneous “stuff”.
Wandrian,
You just confuse the issue by equating Left and Right.
That’s a lie and always has been. Ergo, you are either lying or repeating a lie unwittingly.
The “Right” is not “Big Industrialists”. No one who has actually looked at the world honestly since about forever woud ever think such a stupid thing.
Why don’t you graduate from sophomore year and start seeing what is right there.
The “Left” are the one and only Totalitarian Monster that has been roaming the world for about 300 years now. They are the anti-realist philosoiphical left that are both Hitler and Stalin; Mao and Mussolini.
Pick up a few books and exercise your brain a little before you spread your adolescent sewer water knowledge. The world needs the clear water now.
Tim P.,
You are living in pretend world.
Tell me – would you say in the 1930’s that the German Press was no different than it had ever been? How about during all the TASS/Pravda years in the USSR? People were just over-reacting then, right?
Don’t you agree that Media has often been on the side of the Tyrant? Facts bear this out without question.
For you to obfuscate their pernicious role only makes it easier for them to kill minds as the Polies kill bodies.
Fight for the right dude.
Wandriaan:
I have said it before and I will say it again, I think there are now four main corners to the political spectrum: 1) International Left-goal World government 2) International Right: goal- completely open borders for free flow of labor and materials 3) Jihadists : Goal -World ruled by Islam.
4) Nationalist- people who still beleive in the nation-state. (Borders, language, culture)
The first three groups think the unsecured borders of Europe and the US may eventually work in their favor-and hope to beat the other two in the final game.
I’ve spent the first hours of this morning scouring the internet for a clear image of the Nigerian preppie that decided to go the jihad route. It’s laughable that only blurred images from school days are being offered. CNN ran a photo of the creep being frog-marched off the plane, but mysteriously had his face obscured. Why, in this age of camera phones, instant everything, why? Not sure if he’s the person who did it?, what the hell gives? I’ve read varying accounts, some have a few different details, BBC has video of his old schoolmaster and a recording of Jasper detailing how he put him in a headlock (civil rights suit anyone, ACLU?) but mostly it’s the same AP stuff everywhere. The New York tabloids dare offer a section for comments, but then those rags can be associated with the horrid tea-party folks. It will be interesting and probably rather predictable that this story will go the way of the Ft. Hood Massacre. Another celebrity prisoner for the Thomson Correctional Institute…or perhaps it will be called the Bobby Seale Truth and Justice Center?
Ever since Italian Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci devised his media and propaganda centered play book for a relatively “peaceful” Revolution in the 1930’s, the true believers on the far Left have relentlessly–individual after individual and group after group, decade after decade–implemented their distributed, self-actualized “conspiracy of shared values,” their revolutionary “Long March through the culture,” aimed at weakening, subverting, and destroying the key building blocks of bourgeois societies, their values and their leadership classes, and replacing their values and culture, their key institutions and their leadership class with those of the Far Left.
A “Long March”; a many decade’s long, constant, unrelenting, slowly growing, sly and stealthy subversion, then an all out assault against its weakened targets by the ideology, world-view, and amoral view-point of the far Left and it’s Postmodern thought; seeping into every setting and situation and venue, in thought and debate and action, in substance and process, in almost every classroom, in almost every newsroom, scattered throughout almost every book and play, animating almost every piece of art and throughout almost every newspaper, in almost every movie and TV show, at every city council and school board meeting, in our law schools and courtrooms, Congress and, now, the Presidency, in churches and corporate board rooms, in every big and small town in Europe, in America and around the world.
The Long March has worked spectacularly well, with the sickly, poisonous fruits of the “Revolution” we see all around us, which have twisted and contaminated our entire environment today.
This was not a natural, but a very forced “Revolution.”
Mike Mc: I studied leftist totalitarian regimes for decades, thank you very much. But one thing I learned from it is: the ‘totalitarian monster’ can manifest itself in every disguise. Whether they call themselves left or right is not essential, it is what they want and what they do. The ‘green’ movement has become for instance in the last decades more and more a disguise for leftist goals. ‘Big industrialists’ can support democracy and liberty, but they can just as well be on the side of totalitarian evil, as was certainly often the case in Nazi Germany. I would further more point out that most of the support money of Wall Street went to the Democrat Party, not to the Republicans.
jon baker: I think this analysis has merits. Freedomloving center-right people have to fight the Left and the Jihadists, but they cannot afford to take international bankers and corporations for granted. I don’t believe for a second these corporations have necessarily conservative values of liberty, nationhood, family etc. For all I know they can sell their grandmother for a profit, so we should be suspicious about them.
Lord Monckton is essentally defending this line of politics, and I, for now, tend to agree with him.
Count me with Wandrian and Jon Baker. All I can add is that the most interesting political development in 08-09 was not the election of Obama (although that promises to make things mighty interesting); it’s that the right has finally gotten it into its thick noggin that Business is not necessarily their friend.
Our search for new friends or at least allies may take us to some new and unlikely places for us. To take one example, there are reports circulating in the British press that the it was the Russians who hacked Global Warming U’s computers and caused “Climategate”. Why they did so is anyone’s guess; nonetheless patriots in many countries owe them a thank you note.
“…the right has finally gotten it into its thick noggin that Business is not necessarily their friend…”
This has long been the case. Big business and Wall Street firms especially have long supported any government oversight role that preserves the competitive advantages that large enterprises often hold over smaller rivals. Which party generally supports more regulation? In the U.S., it’s the Democrats, of course. (The Republicans aren’t blameless, either).
Businesses are in business to make a profit, which should not surprise anyone. They will support whichever party or candidate gives them the greatest opportunity to do so. Patriotism may play well with the PR Department, but a favorable regulation, tax loophole, or government contract is probably worth far more to the bottom line.
To Wallo Dalbo: I agree that the ‘cultural revolution’ and the ‘long march’ have done far more bad than good in the Western world (perhaps also elsewhere). The destruction of the family, fatherhood, motherhood, the destruction of traditional values of honesty, duty and devotion to family and country, permissiveness to drugs and alcohol abuse, mocking of the values of beauty and truth, the hatred and ridicule of the sacred and the holy, all was very wrong.
But to gradually return to sanity, to do away with the Gramsci-madness, we first have to keep our political freedoms. Without those we will never be able to clean up the mess.
When the West keeps its political freedoms, future generations will be able to return to a more sane and wholesome culture, once the sixty generation has gone away.
At least, that is a possibility and that is what I hope and pray for.
In Whittaker Chamber’s book, Witness, the point was made that in the 30’s (and before), there were three classes in this country and in deomcracies abroad: the poor were Democrats (or Labor), the middle class were Republicans (or Tories), and the upper class were Communists. That is why so many communist spies came from Harvard (which had an influential and not silent pro-Nazi professoriat in the 30’s, which did not disappear just because of WW2) and from the most prestigious universities in England. And, a major reason that Chambers is despised to this day by our media is that he came from the lower classes and ratted out an elite, a Harvard communist, Alger Hiss. The socialists, whether fascists, nazis, communists, or whatever they call themselves, have long been comfortably ensconced in our institutions of higher learning and in our upper classes. When they deem the public receptive to their message, they even come out of hiding and announce their true leanings. In a similar vein, the marxists did not surrender to the wonders of capitalism when soviet Russia collapsed. They just looked for another vehicle to deliver their message, from which they could once again obtain power, and landed with a thud at the feet of environmentalism. Hence, the new term “Watermelon”, to identify an environmentalist who is green on the outside but red on the in.
Our press was, from the beginnings of our nation, very highly prejudiced in favor of one point of view or another. But, there was always a diversity of views. If you did not like the message of one newspaper you could always buy another, more attuned to your views. For a while some newspapers tried to rid themselves of bias, at least in their reporting of newsworthy events. The NY Times was world renowned for the objectivity and depth of its coverage of foreign and domestic news, even if its editorial page was very liberal. Sometime in the 80’s the Times discovered that the message on its editorial page was not getting through to a large segment of its readership, so it started to slip editorial pieces onto its news pages as if they were news items. So, with Pinch Sulzburger, began the long slow loss of readers who realized that the NY Times had deliberately chosen to substitute propaganda for news and could no longer be trusted to be accurate or objective. The paper went from writing stories that appealed to the intelligence of its readers to writing stories intended to convey the good intentions (i.e., the “goodness”) of its owners. As a result it became the subject of ridicule (the “NY SLimes”).
The 60’s created our worst generation. Children who were going to change the world and had no idea what that world was. Those 60’s children now inhabit our universities (and schools of journalism) and, having never grown up, actively keep more conservative professors from gaining a foothold. Some of the curricula they have been successful in espousing do not even pretend to be anything more than propaganda. Just think of “womyns’ studies (there is no man in womyn) or the many freshman orientation courses that demonize white males who are blamed for oppressing women, minorities, foreigners, the poor, and whatever the new victim group de jour is today. Our children are even bombarded with this stuff beginning in public elementary schools from teachers who should know better, but don’t. As a result of the very left leanings of our schools it is no wonder that most media are left leaning. Given their indoctrination throughout all the years of their education, reporters or announcers, or whatever they improperly call themselves, have come to settle on their views as representing the center. They are clueless.
I like JKB’s comment.
When the press actively attacks people with the prescription (Sarah) and gives adoration to the cancer (Obama) – what can we call that?
Maybe the press is part of the cancer itself. Spreading to the bones and the lymph nodes. Hiding with good intentions and yet they have bad intentions.
People around this country with rose colored glasses – please wake up to the fact that it is better to teach a man to fish than give him fish. The more dependent we are the less we strive to succeed. Communism or socialism is not a guarantee for equality or justice. It is a guarantee of a societies demise and for misery.
You are so right. The MSM foisted Obama and the Dems on us and bear much of the resposnibility for the multiple catastrophes that will result. I cut off my subscriptions to the New York Times and the even more left-leaning Newark Star-Ledger years ago. I heartly encourage everyone to do the same.
I enjoyed the comments on this thread. So may folks with great knowledge of history.
This cartoonist has more sense than most AP writers…
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2009/12/23/
Good observations Steven G. Obama was reported upon and elected by those with a childlike view of the world, between ages five and seven I would say. There really is such a thing as the children’s vote.
Not to worry, once the Iranians sail nukes into our ports they will develop a new appreciation for reality. We should thank the Mullahs really.
Baklava said: “People around this country with rose colored glasses – please wake up to the fact that it is better to teach a man to fish than give him fish. The more dependent we are the less we strive to succeed.”
I know you are talking about self sufficiency economically, but what about the ability to produce the basic necesseties to stay alive- like food?
Rush should not be mocking those people raising chickens in their backyards in the city. The more our society becomes urbanized-the less of our own food we are able to grow-the more we become dependent on giant agribuisiness- the easier we can be controlled.
Maybe Rush has mocked them because some have suggested this as a way to “save the planet”. I think as conservatives we should be pushing small family gardening and poultry production – for different reasons.
jon baker,
To me that issue is not political.
I have 50 skills. Electrical, gardening, sewing, tiling, painting, cleaning, caring for fish, plumbing, making soap, making jewelry, cooking – hey you name it.
However, if people think it’s appropriate to raise chickens in the city – it isn’t usually. Disease is spread through these animals.
I don’t know of this discussion Rush had.
But if somebody is following the law – who cares? If those chicken raisers are making funny statements about global warming or whatever – then it does raise an eyebrow. But I don’t know what happened.
We should all be allowed to strive to succeed without being punished.
Health Care plans range from catastrophic to cadillac. What business is it of the governments to PUNISH people for buying more? Taxing those people to give to those who don’t buy yet earn $75,000?
It’s reverse incentive.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed6
The reverse incentive does this to Americans…
Other people can see the opportunity this country offers.
As this opportunity shrinks because of big government policies there is less and less incentive to do well and work hard and learn hard.
A follow up column by this teacher
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/wellesley/2009/12/lazy_american_students_after_t.html
Apparently she took flak. Her last paragraph in this article said:
By rejecting criticism, we are doing a disservice to our students. It is not anti-American to point out flaws in our educational system; it is both patriotic and necessary.
Seems to me she’s blaming the US students, who are the victims of our universally crappy secondary education. Education in its fullest sense includes the inculcation of standards, which I know the Asians get in spades. Odds are she is a Dem, thus de facto supporting NEA and ATF. Her last para., which you posted, sure sounds like Hillary, setting up and knocking down another straw man.
Baklava, I’m not sure three or four hens in the backyard is worse than a 50 pound dog. After all, chickens can eat the grass and bugs, then you eat the eggs. But you can’t eat dog eggs!
Im not suggesting that on a city lot people can raise all their food. I’m suggesting that they can raise part of it.
How is it political? Ive watched the left push gardening as some sort of “green” saving the planet kind of thing too long. There have been conservatives doing gardening all the way back-its an American thing. I hate it to see leftists pretend this is somehow progressive- like they own it!
Bad times may indeed be coming. Many of us Conservatives see it coming. We need to prepare for it. Store up all the ammo we want- and I have been-but im not planning on eating bullets.
jon,
I may not be correct. But I had pigeons who made a home on my roof. Googling that world and working with professionals for month showed me HOW many diseases and what not birds like the pigeon can pass on to humans.
If your dog is fairly wild and bringing back dead animals I’d be worried.
But if your domesticated, bathed, well fed animal is giving you what pigeons and chickens can give you I’d be HIGHLY surprised.
And… That is what I’m saying. It’s not political. However there are rules for what you can have in a city and you’d have to consult with those rules.
At any rate. Look at the top 10 failing cities. They are all run by liberal Democrats. The funny thing is how silent the legacy MSM is on this topic.
I meant to say “months”
Tom,
I’d advice you read the article.
You wrote, “Seems to me she’s blaming the US students, who are the victims of our universally crappy secondary education. ”
Victims with fast thumbs (texting) sit in the back (too cool for the front) and flirting…..
Yep. Those are true signs of victims… I feel really bad for them !
When I was in college – I challenged the instructors. My psychology teacher went on an anti-gun tangent every 6 minutes. Predictably.
My report in that class was on the psychology of guns and how rape dropped 87% in Orlando Florida after 1500 women were armed and trained. I listed a number of other examples.
I got an A.
“Tim P” asked me to post the following comment for him, because for some unknown reason it was blocked by the spam filter:
To better understand the use of the mass media to influence the public, I recommend two books. Public Opinion (1922) by Walter Lippmann and Propaganda by Edward Bernays.
Both were highly highly influential writers. Lippmann and Bernays worked for President Wilson’s US Committee on Public Information, which was responsible for generating the anti-German propaganda that helped sway a neutral US to go to war on the side of the allies.
Borrowing from Wiki…
Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and was a pioneer of modern public relations.
Again, from Wiki,
Both men shared the same dim view of democracy and the common man. “This elitist thinking ( By Bernays) was heavily shared and influenced by Walter Lippmann, one of the most prominent US political columnists at the time. Bernays and Lippmann sat together on the US Committee on Public Information during World War I and Bernays quotes Lippmann extensively in his seminal work Propaganda.”
Now let’s fast forward to 2009 and to Thomas Friedman, noted NYT columnist. Earlier this year Friedman wrote a controversial column in which he argued, “… Communist China’s system is preferable to ours because it “can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century…” Friedman further gushes about authoritarianism, “Because once the directions are given from above, we would be overcoming the worst part of our democracy (the inability to make big decisions in peacetime), and the very next day we would be able to enjoy the best part of our democracy (the power of our civic society to make government rules stick and the power of our markets to take advantage of them).”
Viewed through the prism of this type of thinking, the MSM actions become easier to understand. I see the issues of today not as liberal/conservative, left/right. Nor do I view, nor have I ever viewed corporations as the friends of freedom loving people. I view the political issues as being fought between three distinct groups. Those who would advocate a state solution. Those who would advocate a state/corporate solution. And the public upon whom any so called solution will be inflicted.
Neither the statist or corporatist group has the interests of people at heart. Neither advocates limited government, unassailable fundamental rights of individuals or the primacy of individual freedom over the greater good of society as a whole. Both the authoritarian state and the corporatist state would sell our freedoms down the river to further their own power, which they perceive as the greatest good.
Our whore political class, both democrat and republican have sold us out to the highest bidder and will gladly be their shills as long as they get a cut. As for our media, they are simply the hawkers of whatever goods their owners are selling. Useful idiots for the most part. The bureaucrats? They will simply do what ever they are told to do as long as they can keep their jobs and security. They will always be able to claim that they ‘were only following orders.’
Note the alarming increase in government jobs, especially under this administration.
The founders of this country, having been through the revolution and having witnessed the failure of the original confederation, very wisely drafted a constitution that specifically prescribed the powers of the branches of government and allowed each of those branches the power to check the others. It is why the Bill of Rights was also added. Fundamental, inalienable rights. If the fundamental rights of individuals are not inalienable, then they are subject to negotiation as any part of a common contract.
In the last 100 years, as this country has emerged as the preeminent in industrial, economic and military we have seen the slow and gradual erosion of our freedoms and individual rights.
One of my grinds with today’s democrats and the Obama administration in particular is that they have more openly than any past administration advocated the statist solution. They work for the increased pace of the gain of state control at the expense of individual freedoms, in the name of the common good.
Say you are measuring the power output of a device. The power output of this device, as you increase the input frequency, declines in a linear fashion. As you continue to increase the input frequency, at a certain point you notice the negative slope of the linear decline of output power decreases sharply and you see the graph’s descent get much steeper at this point. One term for this in electronics is a 3dB down point.
Obama’s administration is such a point. Here is where the erosion of individual rights and freedoms begins to deteriorate much more quickly and openly than they had heretofore. I do not liken Obama and today’s democrats to an event horizon surrounding a black hole because there is no coming back from an event horizon.
However it is up to us, all of us to determine our fate. I don’t think it is going to be easy or comfortable. As for the media, I never trusted them before, nothing has changed.
It would be impossible to write an accurate story about political history in the US over the last four decades without focusing on the MSM and its pivotal role.
Well written article. Looking forward to more.