Propaganda Through The Ages Has Been The Enemy Of Reason

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 7-12-2013 | IBD Editorials

[NOBO2012]

 

Those who would rule know one thing for certain: Win the battle of ideas and you win control of everything.

In an open, democratic society such as ours, freedom of speech and what John Stuart Mill called "the marketplace of ideas" are huge benefits. They enable all of us, even the most marginalized, to make our case to the public, to be heard.

They allow reason to be inserted into public debate as an essential part of the checks and balances of the democratic process.

This is a healthy thing, vital for our republic.

But for those who would rule absolutely, such liberties are intolerable. Rather than ensure a free and open discussion of ideas, philosophies and politics, they seek to monopolize the conversation. And they do it with propaganda.

That's what the newest IBD series, which kicks off today, will be about.

But what exactly is "propaganda"? It's not the same as telling your side of the story. Or just having a point of view. It's the systematic distortion of the truth, usually by a government or with a government's explicit support.

And it usually entails the systematic exclusion of views that differ from the official view.

The lesson has been well-learned by tyrants of all stripes: By controlling both the media and the message, rulers can bend people's minds to their will...

[DesertRhino]

Last year weren’t the prohibitions against using propaganda against American citizens ended?
I know it was always a little bit of a joke to pretend that our government in recent decades hasn’t begun to bombard us with it at every turn, but there was a prohibition that propaganda developed for use overseas could not be used at home.

Not sure where it happened, but it seems like I remember this was included in Obamas NDAA that also called America a battlefield and that the military could arrest and detain without charges upon “deeming” someone to be a terrorist supporter.

[mjp]

Each used totalitarian media control to ensure that one message, and only one message, got through to people.

The assault on freedom of speech by the government spying policy, the collapse of the objectivity and impartiality of the press, and indoctrination of libtardism in the public schools and colleges is benefiting collectivism.. Collectivism openly demands that everyone think and act as a unit. It leaves no room for the vast differentiation and individuation of knowledge on which a division-of-labor society rests.

1) The propaganda of socialism fully displays this absurdity when it pretends that under socialism all economic decisions will be arrived at democratically.
2) Socialist propaganda also has created the impression that what individuals do under capitalism is anarchy of production and that rational action is planned action by the government.
3) The propaganda of the socialist redistributors has always depicted businessmen and capitalists as rich fat white men whose are oppressing the workers which justifies the seizure of their wealth for the purposes of mass consumption by the poor and the workers

[conservativeimage]

Propaganda is simply the spreading of any idea. The problem is that reason or common sense up til now has been assumed as common. Unattended and without a voice or advocate, i.e. fathers, confusion has taken it’s place. Become an involved father.