Why liberal elites" won't be able to destroy America

Self-published | 10/23/05 | Tim Condon

[ct235]

Liberal Elites: Why They Can't Sink America By Tim Condon October 22, 2005

Can "liberal elites" doom America and its position of world leadership? Jonathan Last has written a fascinating piece in The Weekly Standard titled "Rule America?" where he suggests that there are ominous parallels between the United States of today and a sinking, subdued Great Britain of the 1930's, dragged down by the hostility of the liberal elites of the time.

In fact, go ahead and read it yourself! Go on! Do it right now, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/. (Don't continue with this article until you read Jon's piece.)

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one reason why our own liberal elites will never succeed in bringing America down. What am I talking about? Why, how easy it was for you to read that article, by merely clicking a button! The Internet is going to save America...or, I should say, the New Media will, by breaking the liberal elite's media monopoly.

In 1930's Great Britain, anti-patriotic elites held a lock on the machinery of "idea dissemination," just like American liberal elites did until the 1990's. Thus, the British people were fed a steady diet of defeatism, doubt, and even hatred toward British Civilization. Those who opposed the elites had scant opportunity to fire back salvos supported by reason and rationality. So the liberal elites won and Britain was dragged down to ennui and pacifism, opening the way for the murderous gangster-statesmen of the 20th century like Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Mao.

What about America today? The parallels between us and Britain in the 1930's are ominous, says Jonathan Last. But remember you heard it here first: It ain't gonna happen. Why? Because American liberal elites have lost their media monopoly, and not a moment too soon.

Let's consider: It wasn't that long ago that liberalism had an ironclad media lockdown in America. There were very few national idea outlets, and almost none for alternative points of view. The national media was pretty much totally controlled by liberal "elite opinion." And they were only too happy to tell us how to think. Not only that, but they were also very careful to make sure that no pesky opposing viewpoints were allowed to be heard.

What were the main politically correct, liberal thought-control outlets? Well, Time and Newsweek for the weekly newsmagazines. The New York Times and the Washington Post (not to mention virtually every other big newspaper in America, save the valiant Wall Street Journal). And in the broadcast world we could choose among the babbling liberals on CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN.

Then came Rush Limbaugh. And the Internet. And Fox Cable News. And new magazines such as a revitalized National Review and The Weekly Standard. And online magazines like Tech Central Station, the Drudge Report, NewsMax, and many others. And then Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt, and a host of other conservative and libertarian talk-show hosts burst forth on the radio waves. Not to mention tons of bloggers on the Internet like Little Green Footballs, Instapundit, and Michelle Malkin, to name just three.

All of a sudden the liberal elite were not just being challenged, they were being beseiged and swept aside...and laughed at— laughed at!—while their circulation, readership, viewership, and very legitimacy began to sink ever lower. It's just wonderful.

Think, for a moment, of the stories that would have been suppressed and ignored if not for the new alternative news and information outlets. The rape of Juanita Broaddrick. Presidential oral sex in the Oval Office with a teenaged intern named Monica Lewinsky. John Kerry's faked Vietnam war record. And, of course, Dan Rather's and CBS's last-minute "surprise document" designed to sway a Presidential election...unmasked as fake within hours on the Internet.

In the meantime, consider some of the formerly unchallenged positions purveyed by the liberal elite in the Old Media, and see how they're doing today:

* American Presidential campaigns: The Old Media did everything possible to elect two of their own, Al Gore in 2000 and the truly anti-American John Kerry in 2004. Both lost. Gore would be President today if not for the New Media.

* Property rights: Liberal elites have always been bothered by the notion of private property. And today we see that elite opinion transformed into law by the Supreme Court Kelo vs. New London decision, where every liberal on the Court voted to allow local governments to seize private property...to be handed over to better-connected private interests. But a national firestorm of opposition has erupted, and will continue until the Kelo decision is reversed or neutralized.

* Political correctness and freedom of speech: Again the Supreme Court leads the way, ruling in favor of thought-crime (hate-crime statutes), favoring lawsuits for "hostile workplaces," and most of all, the McCain-Feingold travesty, a direct assault on First Amendment political speech. Who voted for all this? Why, the liberal elites on the Court, with the conservatives mainly in opposition. Yet the New Media is brimming with scarifying humor aimed at political correctness of all types, from South Park on cable TV, to cheeky, brash blogs on the Internet, to Rush Limbaugh and many others on talk radio. In other words, the opposition can no longer be ignored and excluded by the Old Media.

* The war against Islamofascism: Of course the Old Media highlights only bad news, bombs, and body-counts, since it wants America to fail in Iraq. Real progress and victories in Iraq—such as the just-completed vote to approve a new constitution—are buried in back pages or not mentioned at all. But the New Media bypasses the attempted news suppression by the Old Media, and widely disseminates all information, all the time, everywhere. The result is that Americans now have more rounded and complete information on these and other issues.

* Gun control: The Old Media believes that no one except the police should be allowed to keep and bear arms, so they carefully never mention millions of crimes foiled each year by citizens with guns. And of course they always highlight gun crimes, blaming the guns rather than the criminals. But oops! The Internet, cable TV, and talk radio are crawling with the unmentioned facts! And organizations like Gun Owners of America and the National Rifle Association win legislative victory after legislative victory, protecting gun manufacturers from blackmail lawsuits, extending concealed carry laws, and passing self-defense statutes such as Florida's new gun-rights "Stand Your Ground" law.

In short, the info-monopoly of the liberal elites and their Old Media lapdogs is broken! No longer can they ignore and marginalize opposing points of view as they did prior to the 1990's. Their ability to tell us what and how to think has been destroyed!

Those who hate and fear America—essentially the same people who brought down British civilization in the 20th century—still have plenty of outlets. Like termites seeking to eat away at the foundations of American Civilization, they will always be with us. But now, thank God (terrible breach of political correctness there!), they are opposed by new ideas and the truth, freely available thanks to the New Media.

The result? Now it's a fairer fight. And we all know who wins when both sides get heard.

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[Thombo2]

"Their ability to tell us what and how to think has been destroyed."Were getting there,but i for one am not that optimistic.Talk radio,Fox,and conservative web sites are a start,and the conservative movement is building momentum,but alot of citizens still rely on the msm/old media for information.Question:Would it be possible for a conservative or conservative group to purchase one of the broadcast channels?That imo would be a real coup for conservatives.

[ClaireSolt]

I have been thinking that conservatives need an organ that collects news. This morning several called c-span and complained on the unremitting negativity of the news. that probably comes from the wire services. As long as alternate media is still commenting on the same wire service releases we are defensive and not offensive.