This is an oldie which my searching on FR did not turn up.It contains interesting discussion of laws of polics and government with which I was not familiar, tho I knew Sulivan's Law.My own preferred proof of Sullivan's Law is to prove the following "law" of my own:
Free commercial journalism, under competitive pressure, will bully society at large.Journalism is superficial because of its deadlines, negative for the same reason that the boy cried "wolf" - and in love with its PR power. Each individual journalist both loves his own PR power and fears the PR power of journalism as a whole.That is why journalists are bullies - and why it requires courage to take the positive, long-range perspective of conservatism. Organizations for conservative purposes will therefore be bullied - and given dismissive labels such as "right wing" - by journalism.
Organizations which do not have explicitly conservative purposes will therefore distance themselves from conservative organizations to gain access to the protection of the cowardly, bullying herd of journalists and fellow travelers. Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right wing will over time become left wing," follows.
Bump.
To my way of thinking, they're a bunch of wimps clothed in 1st amendment and "the pen is mightier than the sword" rags. Style/symbolism over substance is their only weapon. A weapon that has worked only too well on their target audience and an apathetic electorate.
FGS
Can you imagine some one thinking.. "I am not a sports fan.. I think there should be fewer atletic events. Therefore I will make my living covering athletic events."
Did you ever meet a newscaster that did not like goverment ... local state and national? Did you ever meet a newscaster that was not infavor or courts having great power?.... Did you ever meet a newscaster that was in favor of smaller government?
Can you imagine someone saying "I dislike government and would like to downsize it and therefore I am going to make my career reporting on government.
The media is biased because they are government fans. The like government and want to see it grow and expand.
How do I explain people like Rush? That is simple. Rush says it himself. If you ask Rush his profession he will not say he is a jouralist or newscaster. He will tell you he is an entertainer. He got into radio and had his early success as a D.J. His job was to entertain listeners. When the people Ronald Reagan's appointed to the FCC made political talk shows legal, Rush understood that ruling would allow political talk shows to become entertainment. The reason liberals fail to have hit talk shows is they fail to make their shows enteraining.
Al Franken is not enteraining because his leftist beliefs make his audience the butt of his so called jokes. People who are the butt of jokes rarely find them funny.
But make no mistake... you can only get unbiased coverage from entertainers whose purpose is to entertain. When entertainers try to become talk show journalists they fail.. everytime. And government fans (newscasters) fall very flat on their entertainment face.
O'Sullivan's First Law::All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.Michels's Iron Law of OligarchyI cite as supporting evidence the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, and the Episcopal Church. The reason is, of course, that people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don't like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy takes over — and the rest follows.
The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties.[1] It claims that rule by an elite, or "oligarchy", is inevitable as an "iron law" within any organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of organization.[1] Michels particularly addressed the application of this law to representative democracy, and stated: "It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy." He went on to state that "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy.” Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, that he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.I think that O’Sullivan’s First Law is true, and is so because journalism of the inherent tendency of wire service journalism. Capitalism proposes that people deserve authority to the extent that they deliver for the people. Socialism, OTOH, proposes (without actually saying in so many words) that people deserve authority based on how effectively they criticize those who deliver for the people. And that is precisely the inherent tendency of journalism. And it is exacerbated by the suppression of ideological competition which is inherent in the business model of any wire service (any wire service has to claim objectivity, and since it cannot deliver even a good-faith attempt at objectivity while claiming to actually be objective, any wire service would suppress ideological competition and call it “objectivity").