Demagogues

Free Republic exclusive | 08/16/2016 | Conservatism_IS_compassion

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

A demagogue - a popular leader, a leader of the mob, . . . or rabble-rouser is a leader in a democracy who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation. Demagogues have usually advocated immediate, violent action to address a national crisis while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. Demagogues violate established rules of political conduct; most who were elected to high office changed their democracy into some form of dictatorship.
Demagogues have appeared in democracies since ancient Athens. They exploit a fundamental weakness in democracy: because ultimate power is held by the people, nothing stops the people from giving that power to someone who appeals to the lowest common denominator of a large segment of the population.

The methods of demagogues

• Scapegoating
• Fearmongering
• Lying
• Emotional oratory and personal magnetism
• Attacking the news media
• Violence and physical intimidation
• Personal insults and ridicule
• Folksy posturing
• Accusing opponents of weakness and disloyalty

As the song goes,

One of these things is not like the others.
One of these things just doesn’t belong.

Let’s take a look at Wikipedia’s “Attacking the news media” in detail:

Since information from the press can undermine a demagogue's spell over his or her followers, modern demagogues have often attacked it intemperately, calling for violence against newspapers who opposed them, claiming that the press was secretly in the service of moneyed interests or foreign powers, or claiming that leading newspapers were simply personally out to get them. Huey Long accused the New Orleans Times–Picayune and Item of being "bought", and had his bodyguards rough up their reporters. Oklahoma governor "Alfalfa Bill" Murray (1869–1956) once called for a bomb to be dropped on the offices of the Daily Oklahoman. Joe McCarthy accused the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Post, the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, the St. Louis Dispatch, and countless other leading American newspapers of being "Communist smear sheets" under the control of the Kremlin.

. . . and once again we see that “one of these things is not like the others.” Democrat Huey Long ordered violence to be committed against reporters, Democrat Bill Murray “called for a bomb to be dropped on the offices of the Daily Oklahoman” - and Republican Joe McCarthy harshly criticized a lot of newspapers.

The two Democrat demagogues - such they were - threatened or committed actual violence against journalists. Thus, these two examples could just as well be filed under “Violence and physical intimidation,” and the “examples” reduced to a single example - that a senator harshly criticized many newspapers. The question then devolves down to, “Are all newspapers members of a priestly or noble class which places them above harsh criticism?” That is the planted axiom of the charge against McCarthy.

I stipulate that all journalists want, and to the limits of their considerable influence demand, that we treat them as “objective” and thus above criticism. However, there is a legitimate way to scrutinize their claims, and simplify to argument to its essence.

1. Part of the justification for the presumption of objectivity of journalists is that there are many different, independent newspapers and broadcast stations. However, all major journalism outlets are members of the Associated Press. The significance of that statement lies in the facts that
   1. The AP newswire is a virtual meeting of all members of the AP. Since “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment or diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public” - a proposition readily accepted on the left - we are not actually dealing here with legions of independent journalists. We are dealing with a cabal.

   2. As a consequence of (1) above, journalists conform to a “style manual” which defines how certain things are expressed - or whether they actually can be expressed. Far from endorsing a cabal of all presses, the First Amendment is predicated on protecting the existence of free and independent presses. Including FR, BTW. And Wikipedia.

2. Journalists admit that “If it bleeds, it leads” - IOW, that bad news sells newspapers and that therefore journalists feature bad news. Here we have a contradiction: journalists admit to being negative at the same time they are claiming to be objective. Anyone who claims that negativity is objectivity is - a cynic. The opposite of cynicism is faith in the system, which T. Roosevelt defined when he said, “It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . .” Elizabeth Warren, OTOH, defined cynicism when she said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that - somebody else made that happen.” Having (owning) a business is, in effect, credit for having built it; cynicism arbitrarily displaces the credit to “somebody else.” There is no mystery why conservatives believe that journalists are their enemies; cynicism is the enemy of conservatism.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The “someone else” to which the socialist deflects the credit for the existence of a business is “society” - which the socialist uses as a euphemism for government. It is true that society does contribute crucially to any business, and indeed to any individual within society. As Thomas Paine put it in 1776,

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Society is a patron par excellence. The person who has hope only in the patronage of the government is in a severely disadvantaged position. And this is true not only of the welfare dependent, but of the contractor for whose product only the government is a customer.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Ping.

[Ohioan]

Actually, Blame & Envy are the usual Demagogues' Path To Power. Thus Obama & Clinton attack the upper 1% in applying Karl Marx's formula for targetting a single enemy as a rallying point.

[DiogenesLamp]

It is likewise as unreasonable what some assert, That Printers ought not to print any Thing but what they approve; since if all of that Business should make such a Resolution, and abide by it, an End would thereby be put to Free Writing, and the World would afterwards have nothing to read but what happen'd to be the Opinions of Printers.

Modern Media are hyper partisan propaganda agents for one political party. All the public can hear is what they choose to allow the public to hear.

It is on the basis of their FAILURE TO REPORT essential information that we acquired scum-bag leaders such as Clinton and Obama.

[Bratch]

Desperation Grows Amid The Weaponized Media…

Posted on August 14, 2016 by sundance

Unfortunately when the wider U.S. electorate voted the Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers to be the president of the United States they were, perhaps unwittingly, ushering in a new era of fundamental change, governmental weaponization.

Events and outcomes ceased to be determined by laws, and the politics of any given event became the overriding filter through which all action, or lack thereof, would be determined. The last seven years have provided numerous examples for points of reference.

The IRS investigation of conservative groups was driven by politics, not legality. The investigation of officer Darren Wilson was driven by politics, not evidence or legality. The arrests of the Baltimore Six were driven by politics, not factual, substantial evidence. The FBI decision not to recommend an indictment of Hillary Clinton was driven by politics not evidence.

These are just a few examples of manipulated common law principles that have been overridden by considerations of political benefits.  The law is what they say it is, and everything is open to interpretation.  The rules are what they say they are, and subject to change at any opportune moment.

2016 is an election year.

Eight years of insufferable leftist, progressive, social justice and advancements from societal anarchy is at stake. Every individual, group, affiliate, entity and corporation who has aided and benefited from the advancement of the progressive-leftist movement will do everything within their power to ensure push-back is avoided.

People within various grievance institutions who benefit from discord and division are determined to permanently shift the fulcrum in their favor. Such a shift will stop the pendulum from swinging back against them, and protect their eight year gains.

The ground zero target is Donald Trump.

There is no such thing as a “free and independent press” to call this out. The final vestiges of a free/independent press were ground up within the decisions of the organized Journ-o-list team.

News media is now Corporate News Media, and corporate news media have an ideological agenda to retain if they are to receive invitations to the club gatherings. If puzzled, view any recent White House Correspondent’s dinner.

The Fourth Estate is dead.

So where does that leave the average person? Well, to start everyone needs to train themselves to see the manipulative endeavors ahead. Train yourself to see the self-interest behind every approach, every angle, and behind their attacks. Train yourself to see the propaganda as it is displayed because the propaganda will be heavier in the final three months before the election than ever before in the history of U.S. politics.

Fortunately, there are consistently visible signs the left is losing their argument. There are growing signs of desperation within the behaviors of those who need to retain a ruse in order to continue their usurpation and elimination of freedom. President Obama lashing out at Donald Trump yesterday was one such obvious sign.

If the left really felt Donald Trump was the caricature they portray him to be, they would not be exhausting any energy to isolate, ridicule and marginalize him. The opposite is factually true. If the progressive left felt Trump was easy to defeat they would not even need to attack. It is their attacks that historically signify that which presents the greatest risk to them.

The institutional systems of governance and corporations that have been provided steroid shots from the presidency of Barack Obama will work in synergy with each other to gaslight the electorate and convince the masses the alternate universe is actually real. A free and clear thinking electorate are their enemy.

In essence the united efforts of generational leftist Marxism will be to create self-fulfilling prophecies. Those in control of common constructs need to convince the U.S. electorate to vote against their own best interests. We will see and hear of various filters being applied to social media platforms – there will be one singular common benefactor; just look for it, and it will show itself.

Communication is a critical element of control. The historic battle space remains the same,the battle for the mind. Modern media and technology will be utilized to it’s maximum benefit to convince and persuade.

Inoculate yourself and your family. Learn how to navigate and discern.

Remind yourself to breathe.

The Rebel Alliance.

 

 

[DiogenesLamp]

However, all major journalism outlets are members of the Associated Press.

This does not go far enough. The vast bulk of our broadcast news comes from Media agencies located in New York City. This area is one of the most heavily biased portions of the country, and it serves as the foundation for their hiring pool.

In addition, everyone in the "news" media is a member of a Union, and the Unions are already heavily affiliated with Democrats.

The "media" has created and maintains a monopoly of opinion that is unavoidably skewed to the left, because among other things, they don't hire people who have contradictory opinions.

There are several other reasons why the existing media is unavoidably leftest in perspective and therefore deliberately biased against conservatives, but to mention them would diffuse the focus on the ones I mentioned above.

The fact remains, we will not repair this nation until we get equal time on the broadcast systems. We cannot fix anything until we end Liberal censorship of facts damaging to liberal ideas.

[WMarshal]

What we have in America is a GovCorp Media Machine that is 90% owned by 6 major corporations that filter and manipulate the facts to fool Americans into accepting the depredations of those at the top who on them. There are so many idiots in this country that read only one paper or one source of television news and have no clue how ignorant ignorant they are and how they have been victimized. Americans need to start avoiding government/corporate news wherever possible. They also need to be aware that formerly truthful new media is often bought up and merged with the GovCorp Media Machine and have to be read with a jaundiced eye as well.

When I read online news I often find reading the comments a must because they often counter-argue the premise of the article with links to factual resources the refute the slant of the article. That is why the powers that be want to eliminate, control and criminalize comments.

Right now America has entered a reality similar to Orwell's 1984 and we are at an inflection point, either patriots win and we begin to restore our God-given freedoms or we will be enslaved until the point it is intolerable and the blood big a to flow.

We live in interesting times.

[DesertRhino]

Fits Hillary to a T. That IS why you posted it,,, isn’t it?

[PGalt]

HOORAY c_I_c. Great post/comment. BTTT!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The fact remains, we will not repair this nation until we get equal time on the broadcast systems. We cannot fix anything until we end Liberal censorship of facts damaging to liberal ideas.

. . . and we cannot justify equal time for conservatives when the argument is framed as “equal time between conservatives and objective journalists.” That is an obvious loser, and it is not what we are demanding. We demand equal time between traditional advocates of freedom (i.e., philosophers in the etymological sense who do not claim a monopoly on wisdom but who do insist on the reality of truth), on one hand, and cynical demagogues on the other. It actually is a reprise of the contest between philosophers and sophists. The sophists claimed to be wise, the philosophers did not make that claim but insisted on facts and logic rather than appeals to authority.

[DiogenesLamp]

. . . and we cannot justify equal time for conservatives when the argument is framed as “equal time between conservatives and objective journalists.”

I am taking it as a given that we will frame the argument as equal time between conservatives and liberals who have long controlled the airwaves by pretending to be "journalists."

It actually is a reprise of the contest between philosophers and sophists. The sophists claimed to be wise, the philosophers did not make that claim but insisted on facts and logic rather than appeals to authority.

And this is a rather accurate description of the exact divide we are facing.

'What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’

— Lord Melbourne —

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[PGalt]

BUMP!