Viacom lie debunked here on Snopes.com
Phone (212) 975-4321 Fax (212) 975-1998
Posted on 09/22/2004 4:02:28 PM PDT by No Longer Free State
Why Rathergate is Important
The reason Rathergate is important has nothing to do with Dan Rather or CBS. The reason it is important is about the threat this scandal presents to our 1st Ammendment rights to freedom of expression.
That's right, I said "our" rights. The First Ammendment from which we derive the government's responsibility to protect our inherent right to freedom of expression is about the rights of all individuals equally, not the rights of a few select members of any protected class, like reporters. This is a notion many -- if not the majority -- in the main stream media have long lost sight of, but it's one they need to be reminded of if this scandal is to lead to any good for anyone.
Consider: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This language protects the rights of all the individuals that make up this nation, not the right of reporters to print whatever they want with impunity. It protects our right to have access to dissenting political voices. The press is just one venue through which we acheive that access. Reporters are allowed to protect confidential sources not to keep investigative reporters in business with access to whistle-blowers' juicy stories, but because we have a right to hear from those whistle-blowers who might otherwise be intimidated into silence by individuals in government who forget that it's their job to serve us, not the other way around. This right relies on the press presenting true facts, weeding out lies, and presenting opinions as opinion, not fact.
The folks who both gave the forged documents to CBS and the folks at CBS who presented them as authentic with cursory and flawed analysis threaten our rights. Why? Because they are abusing them. Abuse of rights by a few has always been considered grounds for trampling rights for all.
Consider: Had a relative few never abused our right to keep and bear arms to commit criminal acts, would that right have been trampled in the congress and courts as it has been? Would anyone have wasted the effort in distorting the interpretation of "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" that has happened in so many of our communities (to their detriment)? Instead, the lawbreakers offered a justification in the minds of the gun control crowd that the rights of the many are subordinate to their preferred solution to the crime problem.
Consider another section of the First Ammendment that has been distorted by abuse. The words "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" have been intentionally distorted by those who have abused their right not to believe in any religion. They have convinced sympathetic courts to override these words, particularly the last clause. Because of them, our right to practice our religion freely in public has been trampled.
It would take much too much space than I care to dedicate here to chronicle the abuses we've faced to due process, property rights and other rights that were supposed to be protected by the Fifth Ammendment. The sixth ammendment has been overinterpreted to provide special rights for criminals rather than to balance their rights with those of their victims.
Bottom line: It CAN happen because it HAS happened in the past.
Getting back to Rathergate, our right to hear what a free press has to say is subject to trampling as much as our other aforementioned rights have been. We've all seen various misguided individuals, groups, and government officials calling for a governmental solution to the falsified documents and their presentation by CBS. If CBS, the media industry, and we citizens allow government to fix this problem for us, we're likely to all be disappointed by whatever corrective action they take and apply to us all, just as the citizens of Washington DC should be disappointed by the results of their gun ban on fixing the crime problems there.
Rathergate is important, but the fix to Rathergate is equally important. The media and the people MUST hold CBS, Rather, Mapes, Lockhart, and Cleland to account for this debacle BECAUSE it IS important. Just don't leave it to the government to fix the problem for us.
Well, the government has the responsibility to prosecute the crimes committed in this fraud.
Absolutely. That's why I didn't list the actual forger in the list of those WE must deal with.
Bookmarked (a very good read).
It is an excellent post. OK OK, I am biased this is my beloved. Having said that, while he was in Iraq, he would send home updates and family and friends would get anxious 3 days out from his mailing.
He may be one of finest FA Officers, but, boy if he wanted to write or run for office I would be in his corner.
Viacom lie debunked here on Snopes.com
Thanks!
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"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own interests of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity." --Thomas Jefferson
"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson
"I prefer a small government which may permit some evil, to a large government which promotes evil at my expense." -- Michael Lee (mlee@esd.dl.nec.com)
Dear Seadog: Less decorations make a good poster.
Please accept my apologies, sir.
U an a bit confused, were you talking to Seadog about the VIACOM gif's. I did not see what Seadog did something wrong?
No he didn't. I was indeed confused. And tired. My aplogies to you too.
And the mythical and non-specific "media and the people" won't, capitalized words notwithstanding. Fraud and a naked attempt to stage a bloodless coup d'etat, which no one will name as such, is a matter for the government agencies to investigate and prosecute. Enough, please, enough of this everything is a constitutional issue business. I don't see it in other countries which somehow manage their affairs. CBS subversives must be prosecuted1 (And won't, take my word, so your and my posts are just useless rants, that's all.)
Maybe you know: What do they call that ceremony sailors do when they cross the artic circle?
See posts #2 and #3.
Google is your friend.
See... http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq92-1.htm
...and...
"There was one final ceremony on board both icebreakers as they sailed south. As they had not celebrated the crossing of the Artic Circle on their way to battle the Germans, there were still a number of "ice worms" on board. These were the unfortunate individuals who had not been initiated into the realm of King Boreas, as all sailors who cross into his territory must be, and made into "Polar Bears," complete with a certificate. More than 300 Coast Guardsmen, who experienced battle in the icy north, put up with the tortures inflicted by the current members of the crew who were already Polar Bears, and they too joined the hallowed ranks of Arctic veterans."
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/Externsteine.html
Great! Came up at lunch today -- the autumnal equinox. King Boreas?
Damn Fine Vanity.
Thanks.
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