In 1742, Scottish philosopher David Hume described the importance of a free press; “The spirit of the people must frequently be roused, in order to curb the ambition of the court; and the dread of rousing the spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition. Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.”
“The ambition of the court” today is beyond unacceptable – it is venal. Hume was not referring to a “court” of law, but the royal court... in our parlance, the U.S. Government. Its ugly tentacles have invaded virtually every facet of our lives, playing with trillions of tax dollars which disappear, without much objective scrutiny from the press, into a dark abyss. Ambition? If increasing our national debt to unprecedented levels... if deliberately, cynically, creating new generations of dependents just for votes... if “fundamentally changing” our nation and the way it works isn’t the kind of ambition Hume would say needs to be curbed, I don’t know what is.
“...The dread of rousing the spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition...” Obviously, there is little if any sense of dread in Washington, DC. If there is, it’s only the dread of not being invited to the next posh political party, or that lobbyists have lost your phone number. Our royals no longer fear the mainstream media will turn the people against them. If anything, they know the main stream media operates in full support of DC’s unbridled ambition. When mistakes are made, the MSM invents excuses. When plots are uncovered, the MSM buries them. Ever since it became ideologically dominated by the Left, America’s MSM has become a tool for that ideology, soul mates of Stalin’s “useful idiots,” working toward the day when one of their own would capture the White House. That day came with the election of our current Commander-in-Chief, President Obama, whose only dread seems to be using the military he supposedly commands.
A 2014 study by Indiana University School of Journalism found that just 7% of all journalists identified themselves as Republican, or conservative. That’s about one conservative among every 15 journalists! If it were not for the internet and one cable channel, we would have a virtual one-sided view of the machinations of Washington, DC. A situation even Joe Stalin might envy.
But, we are told, the internet is full of conservative sites spinning like unscrewing right wing nuts. May be. Unfortunately they are only preaching to their choir. It’s the vaunted “independent” voter who needs to at least hear what the right side has to say. “Conservatism” may be a word which frightens many, but surely – before this nation becomes a one-party, one-philosophy nation – the Right deserves to be at least heard by the nation’s independent voters.
“...Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.”
The safety of the hive should not be the driving force behind the press... a search for truth, or at least facts, should be. The press is the medium by which the genius of our nation (now buried under mountains of regulations) is roused to the cause of freedom and progress. It is now working diligently to repress any such progress outside the rigid orthodoxy of the Left.
Edmund Burke said “There are Three Estates in Parliament; but in the reporters’ gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” We do not need a political revolution in America so much as we need a revolutionary demand for an unbiased Fourth Estate. A boycott of bias! The press has been dominated by that 93% for so many decades now that the spirit of the American people has become inured, numbed, no longer willing or able to produce proper dread in Washington, DC.
America’s mainstream media, which too many voters still believe is telling them the truth, has become an out-and-out propaganda mill, a willing partner in the unbridled ambition of Washington, DC. Owned by a small number of wealthy elites, the corporate news has sold itself to the royal court for a ride on its gravy train, which Hume and all sensible people know is never free.
