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To: wideawake

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is not a state entity.

Now, you can defend the Obama administration here all you like, and you can certainly label this piece as propaganda (although eliciting an emotional response is not the definition of propaganda, nor was an emotional response the goal of this piece), but I can plainly see what this administration is doing to our freedoms on a daily basis, and I will continue to speak out about it.


14 posted on 08/23/2012 7:14:37 AM PDT by WXRGina (Further up and further in!)
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To: WXRGina
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is not a state entity.

Correct. However, they did not detain him - the Chesterfield County police did. The FBI did not evaluate him, a local hospital did.

From what we know, the FBI were contacted as a courtesy, since he threatened federal employees.

Apparently the FBI agreed with the police that his problems were more medical than criminal.

and you can certainly label this piece as propaganda (although eliciting an emotional response is not the definition of propaganda, nor was an emotional response the goal of this piece)

First, eliciting an emotional response obviously was the point of the piece. It is short on facts and details and long on comparing the federal government to the Soviet Union. That's an emotional appeal - very few people have no feelings about Communist dictatorships.

Second, propaganda is defined by Webster's as "the spreading of ideas, information or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause or a person."

This article is clearly intended to denigrate the federal government by comparing it to the Soviet Union, and is also clearly intended to valorize Raub by selectively quoting the most sympathetic things he has written and ignoring the rest.

It is not reportage. It is propaganda meant to elicit and emotional response.

I can plainly see what this administration is doing to our freedoms on a daily basis, and I will continue to speak out about it.

In point of fact, the administration had nothing to do with the detention of Brandon Raub, so if you want to criticize the administration - a worthy goal, in my opinion - then it would probably be best to focus on the things it is actually doing to injure freedom.

16 posted on 08/23/2012 7:34:59 AM PDT by wideawake
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