Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive.

At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any “bias” essentially infinite. If somehow you nail them dead to rights in consistent tendentiousness, they will merely shrug and change the subject. And the press is protected by the First Amendment. That is where conservatives have always been stuck.

And make no mistake, conservatives are right to think that journalism is their opponent. Examples abound so that any conservative must scratch his/her head and ask “Why?” Why do those whose job it is to tell the truth tell it so tendentiously, and even lie? The answer is bound and gagged, and lying on your doorstep in plain sight. The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth. It is that imperative to entertain which produces the perspective of journalism.

And that journalism does indeed have a perspective is demonstrated every day in what it considers a good news story, and what is no news story at all. Part of that perspective is that news must be new--fresh today--as if the events of every new day were of equal importance with the events of all other days. So journalism is superficial. Journalism is negative as well, because the bad news is best suited to keep the audience from daring to ignore the news. Those two characteristics predominate in the perspective of journalism.

But how is that related to political bias? Since superficiality and negativity are anthema to conservatives there is inherent conflict between journalism and conservatism.. By contrast, and whatever pious intentions the journalist might have, political liberalism simply aligns itself with whatever journalism deems a “good story.” Journalists would have to work to create differences between journalism and liberalism, and simply lack any motive to do so. Indeed, the echo chamber of political “liberalism” aids the journalist--and since liberalism consistently exacerbates the issues it addresses, successful liberal politicians make plenty of bad news to report.

The First Amendment which protects the expression of opinion must also be understood to protect claims by people of infallibility--and to forbid claims of infallibility to be made by the government. What, after all, is the point of elections if the government is infallible? Clearly the free criticism of the government is at the heart of freedom of speech and press. Freedom, that is, of communication.

By formatting the bands and standardizing the bandwiths the government actually created broadcasting as we know it. The FCC regulates broadcasting--licensing a handful of priveledged people to broadcast at different frequency bands in particular locations. That is something not contemplated in the First Amendment, and which should never pass constitutional muster if applied to the literal press. Not only so, but the FCC requires application for renewal on the basis that a licensee broadcaster is “operating in the public interest as a public trustee.” That is a breathtaking departure from the First Amendment.

No one questions the political power of broadcasting; the broadcasters themselves obviously sell that viewpoint when they are taking money for political advertising. What does it mean, therefore, when the government (FCC) creates a political venue which transcends the literal press? And what does it mean when the government excludes you and me--and almost everyone else--from that venue in favor of a few priviledged licensees? And what does it mean when the government maintains the right to pull the license of anyone it does allow to participate in that venue? It means a government far outside its First Amendment limits. When it comes to broadcasting and the FCC, clearly the First Amendment has nothing to do with the case.

The problem of journalism’s control of the venue of argument would be ameliorated if we could get them into court. In front of SCOTUS they would not be permitted to use their mighty megaphones. And to get to court all it takes is the filing of a civil suit. A lawsuit must be filed against broadcast journalism, naming not only the broadcast licensees, but the FCC.

We saw the tendency of broadcast journalism in the past election, when the delay in calling any given State for Bush was out of all proportion to the delay in calling a state for Gore, the margin of victory being similar--and, most notoriously, the state of Florida was wrongly called for Gore in time to suppress legal voting in the Central Time Zone portion of the state, to the detriment of Bush and very nearly turning the election. That was electioneering over the regulated airwaves on election day, quite on a par with the impact that illegal electioneering inside a polling place would have. It was an enormous tort.

And it is on that basis that someone should sue the socks off the FCC and all of broadcast journalism.

Journalism has a simbiotic relation with liberal Democrat politicians, journalists and liberal politicians are interchangable parts. Print journalism is only part of the press (which also includes books and magazines and, it should be argued, the internet), and broadcast journalism is no part of the press at all. Liberals never take issue with the perspective of journalism, so liberal politicians and journalists are interchangable parts. The FCC compromises my ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas by giving preferential access addresses to broadcasters, thus advantaging its licensees over me. And broadcast journalism, with the imprimatur of the government, casts a long shadow over elections. Its role in our political life is illegitimate.

The First Amendment, far from guaranteeing that journalism will be the truth, protects your right to speak and print your fallible opinion. Appeal to the First Amendment is appeal to the right to be, by the government or anyone else’s lights, wrong. A claim of objectivity has nothing to do with the case; we all think our own opinions are right.

When the Constitution was written communication from one end of the country to the othe could take weeks. Our republic is designed to work admirably if most of the electorate is not up to date on every cause celebre. Leave aside traffic and weather, and broadcast journalism essentially never tells you anything that you need to know on a real-time basis.

It is truly amazing how many people still believe the 'Mainstream Press' has any sort of prestige.

Yes. Well, broadcast journalism is the linchpin of that, IMHO. People who don't read (not to say that they can't, but for sure they don't) listen to broadcast journalism and actually think they know "what is going on." The government gives broadcast licenses, and the licensees try to vindicate the government's decision to do so, on the basis that they tell us "what is going on." Well, if all you knew about "what is goning on" is what a Dan Rather type will tell you, you certainly would be ignorant!
But we have been subject to a massive propaganda campaign to convince us that we have independent sources of information if we listen to more than one broadcast network. We don't; the networks are commercially competitive but they all have the same negative, superficial, arrogant, and cowardly perspetive. All the classic components of the makeup of the bully and the cynic, inherent in the commercial melieu in which "objective" journalists operate. And people wonder why "the media" is "biased!"

"There is a very effective, well-organized press that is … very up front in its right-wing, conservative inclinations and makes no apologies," Hillary charged. Yet no liberal or left-wing press existed "on the other end of the political spectrum … to counterbalance that," Hillary argued. Perhaps, in Hillary's mind, The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce helped provide that missing "balance."

Objective Journalism^TM is an establishment defined by:

the superficality inherent in its "the show must go on" deadlines.
the "boy who cried wolf" negativity inherent in its need to grab for peoples' attention.
the "you never pick an argument with someone who buys ink by the carload" arrogance of those who claim the virtue of objectivity.
the "you never pick an argument with someone else who buys ink by the carload" cowardice.
Objective Journalism^TM is the left's version of Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh defines his perspective openly and is optomistic about the American people, and people generally. Objective Journalism^TM is negative, superficial, arrogant, and cowardly - IOW, cynical and bullying.
Just like the liberal politicians who use the propaganda wind which Objective Journalism^TM creates.
Just like Hillary.
Hillary's Secret War"
Richard Poe

the most important development in US journalism during the 20th century was the emergence of a highly-centralized hierarchy, in which The New York Times and The Washington Post acquired a dominant status not unlike that of Pravda and Izvestia in the old Soviet Union.
. . . the first two questions we need to ask are:

How did these two newspapers acquire such power?

Why do these two newspapers tend to support the Democratic Party (which is not quite the same thing as supporting the left — or at least it didn't used to be)?

Quite. Indeed, to the extent that nominally independent souces of information are in fact not independent, serious issues of what would in less significant arenas of human endeavor be prosecutable "conspiracy in restraint of trade" seem to be raised.
Worse, as is becoming aparent enough to raise some comment among analysts, the Democratic Party is becoming ever less independent of this "conspiracy" - and all three branches of government is on board McCain-Feingold, which essentially codifies into law the fatuous notion that journalism defines objectivity.
But the rules which any journalist acknowledges define real commercial journalism include not only claims of "journalistic ethics and objectivity" but the deadlines which guarantee superficiality, and the "if it bleeds it leads" negativity for the sake of ratings which is perfectly analogous to the boy who cried, "Wolf!"
It is arrogant for anyone, and doubly so for anyone whose job it is to attract attention, to claim the virtue of objectivity.
The other virtue commonly claimed by journalists it courage; journalism persistently boasts of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable." Either journalism is powerful, or it is courageous - or it carefully chooses "comfortable" enemies who are not dangerous. In fact every "objective" journalist studiously avoids challenging one particular type of enemy - other "objective" journalists.
As noted earlier, the distinction between the Democratic Party and so-called "objective" journalism is becoming ephemeral. A Democratic politician can become an "objective" journalist at the drop of a hat; a Republican is suspect if s/he dares so much as get a gig as a lifestyle commentator. But the defining characteristic of liberalism - of journalism and Democratic politics - is that nothing matters to its practitioners except PR.
Nothing at all matters to these people but PR, and that is an elitist, antidemocratic, and essentially a cowardly POV. Because the individual practitioner of journalism is afraid of the collective, and the Democratic politician defines his politics by whatever negativity is coming from that collective.
Journalism, and the rest of liberalism, is just cheap talk and second-guessing. Socialism - the advocacy of government ownership of "the means of production" - is actually a second guess in the sense that "the means of production" themselves, and most products which are produced, have been developed by private enterprises which succeeded while other enterprises failed. Socialism wants the credit for the successes, and has no interest in taking responsibility for the failures. Yet the liberals do not already own the successes because they did not know which ones would be successes and which would be failures - only time shows that.
We the people have been subject all our lives to a massive propaganda campaign to blind us to the reality that journalism and the rest of liberalism is superficial, negative, arrogant, and cowardly. IOW, that journalism is cowardly, bullying leadership of a cowardly, bullying Democratic polical "leadership." Every four years the Democratic Party nominates a candidate for POTUS - but they do not nominate a leader. They do not want a leader. At least since x42 they have been all symbolism and no substance. They'll say anything that sounds good at the moment.
Excellent article about Jim Robinson - Showdown: The left vs. the Web
World Net Daily ^ | July 20, 2005 | Richard Poe

All this is very well, but . . . The issue is not dissimilar to water rights . . . Under what conditions do you allot a slot of bandwidth and under what conditions do you remove it?

The advent of the internet and satellite make much of the old limitations moot.

I think that's pretty much true; technologically they could probably replace the old media's simple receivers with a box with a chip or two in it that would receive satelllite at such low expense as to be, in perspective, free. You could also do the same sort of thing with celular technology - just like cell phones being enabled to browse among "calls" which were intended for the purpose, really broadcasts.
My central point is that the government created broadcasting by censoring competiton to enable distant receivers to pick up the licensed transmissions - giving we-the-people not the right to speak (and implied right to listen if in proximity to the speaker) but the right to be able to hear - bought at the expense of a duty to shut up. Now if I'm giving a speech and others assembled to listen to me, you do IMHO have a duty to shut up rather than preventing others from listening. But that seems fundamentally different from the government essentially assembling the listeners for certain people to speak to them. It is undoubtedly seductive to be enabled to listen to entertaining or demagogic speakers, but the right to speak on an equal basis is to precious to sell so cheaply.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN. All hyped the startup, none featured the scandal of Air America.
Which is OK, under the First Amendment. But does the First Amendment apply?
What a silly question! Does the First Amendment apply to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Time? Certainly - at least to the extent that it is not subordinated to McCain Feingold.
What a silly question! Does the First Amendment apply to ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR? Not remotely. Those institutions exist only due to the sponsorship of the Federal Government in the form of exclusive licenses to "speak" at particular frequencies in particular locations. In principle Bill Gates could start a nationwide newspaper or magazine tomorrow, printing only his opinions - and the government has no authority to censor him. But unless the government favors him with a broadcast license, Bill Gates cannot so much as start a 10-watt college broadcast station.
But the hyping of the startup and the subsequent suppression of the funding scandal of the "liberal" Air America by all those journalism outlets clearly indicates that the political independence of The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Time, and ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and CNN - and Air America - is illusory.
Of course, The Rush Limbaugh Show doesn't even pretend to be anything other than conservative - what's the difference? From a philosophical perspective there is no difference between the open partisanship of Rush Limbaugh and that of Al Franken; both lay their cards on the table. And from the First Amendment perspective the print media are unambiguously free to be partisan - even to the extent of claiming that they are not partisan.
The egregious malfeasance lies in the fact of de facto government sponsorship of ABC, CBS, and NBC - and of the de jure government sponsorship of NPR - none of which are politically independent of Air America or of the Democratic Party. But all of which disingenuously claim full political independence. They perpetrate the fraud, that is, that a mere consensus of those whose business is attracting attention is "objectivity." In claiming objectivity, the propaganda organs are guilty of claiming the virtue of wisdom - and claiming virtue is arrogance.

Omitting Air America
Townhall ^ | August 17, 2005 | Brent Bozell

When it gets to the bottomline, even the left has to make money to stay in business.

Indeed, the reason journalism is monolithic as it is, IMHO, is the simple go-along-and-get-along imperative. Negativity towards the actual doers - military, police, and bottom-line-oriented management ingovernment and industry - aggrandizes the importance of the critic, the journalist. The extreme of aggrandizement of the importance of the critic is the assumption that all actual management and all actual force is illegitimate and unnecessary. IOW, people who control things - who make decisions without waiting for complete information, when the decision would be too late to be effective - are always the target of second-guessing.
The police, to use an example from Thomas Sowell, are always either guilty of overreacting or of letting things get out of hand; in the usual case where things go smoothly, the journalist does not deign to comment.
Perhaps FR/bloggosphere is just the political version of the general trend for the Internet to improve communication and cut the cost of knowledge. To the detriment of the centralized information oligopoly, which simply finds it impossible to adapt to the reduction in the difficulty of its customers to get to the truth without dependence on middlemen who are out for number one.
Byron York: Cindy Sheehan is her own worst enemy
The Hill ^ | 8/17/05 | Byron York

Mind-numbed Robot posts:

To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Interesting essay.
I suppose that truly free speech has no obligation to be true or objective. It is the moral and ethical purists who see journalists as reporters of truth and accurate information. Libel laws keep the media somewhat in bounds.
My fundamental point is that First Amendment journalism inherently tends toward superficiality, negativity, arrogance, and cowardice:

deadlines make journalism superficial, not only by forcing the journalist to finish under time pressure but by requiring the journalist to start writing under time pressure. Which means that the article may be about fluff in the first place.

negativity is natural to people; it takes work to put things in perspective instead of merely complaining.

as long as there is no true competition in ideas on the front pages of newspapers, newspapers can all claim the false "objectivity" of concensus with each other. The claim of objectivity, like the claim of any virtue, is arrogance.

but since that power position of being able to talk down to the rest of us depends on concensus, each individual journalist is intimidated by the collective. Therefore you need not expect courage from a journalist - only the claim of courage.

However, the public looks to the media for truth and depends on them to be honest and accurate. Pushing a particular political or moral philosophy is accepted as long as both sides are presented and so long as what is presented is accurate.
Unfortunately, being honest takes courage, and that is not common among journalists. In fact, if you are actually courageous you will be read out of journalism as "not objective." I mean by that, for example, that everyone in journalism must have known the reality that CNN could not have a Baghdad bureau without kowtowing to Saddam Hussain. A true, accurate, honest assessment would have told the public that CNN was flacking for a tyrant, as CNN's Eason Jordan ultimately admitted The News We (CNN) Kept To Ourselves [must read] after our coalition deposed said tyrant.
Yet no other journalism blew the whistle on CNN. Why? Either because they were all too stupid to know it - even though they know why they didn't have Baghdad bureaus - or they knew a significant derrogatory truth about CNN and withheld it from the public out of fear of the repercussions of criticizing someone else who "buys ink by the carload."
When that fails the public starts looking for alternatives. That is what gave birth to the internet and talk radio as popular purveyors of information.

News as entertainment? I disagree that that is the driving force for audiences. Complete truth and accuracy are what drive audiences for news.
Don't misunderstand when I call news "entertainment." I do not mean that the reader of the front page of the newspaper thinks he's reading the funnies; indeed, the reader of the front page thinks he is performing a civic duty by informing himself as a voter.
But what the reader thinks he is doing and what he is actually doing are two different things; the superficiality and negativity of journalism are there not to inform but to attract attention. What the reader is actually doing is satisfying (more or less idle) curiosity - and flattering himself that he is doing more than that.
That is why I say the MSM is moving ever so slightly toward a more balanced approach. They are losing their reason d'etre, money.

23 posted on 08/17/2005 11:10:37 PM EDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all that needs to be done needs to be done by the government.)

I like your tagline; my analysis of it is that leftists so habitually employ "society" or "public" as a euphemism for "government" that they are all like my uncle, and cannot tell you the difference in the meanings of the words. Thus the leftist will say, "society should" (e.g., provide vaccine for the children), and mean nothing other than that the governement should do it.
What is the difference between "society" and "government?" Nothing. Nothing but freedom, that is . . .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1465165/posts?page=23#23

The power position ultimately depends on us, the audience, not the interplay among the media and their interchangeable parts.

"Us, the audience" is not under your control or mine. There are still far too many of them - I listen to a lot of talk radio but very little "objective" journalism - for the two of us to think that journalism's arrogance is under our control. US soldiers feel the slap whenever TV journalists patronize them, and there's little enough that you and I can do about it until "objective" journalism becomes discredited as a paradigm.
A consummation devoutly to be wished, but only glimpsed so far in the distance . . .

I think the word "interest" better describes what you are saying than "entertainment" although the media themselves say that entertainment is the driving force for audience. They are wrong about the news department.

You are stuck in the "should be objective" paradigm. It is actually only naivete which makes us listen and nod our head when we're told of a wonderful

Code of Journalistic Ethics
Promises sound wonderful, but if you're listening to a carnival barker you don't take them seriously. And after hearing the overwhelming propaganda campaign which throughout our lifetimes has promoted the fatuous idea that journalists are objective if they say so, we're all a little brain-damaged. We want to believe so bad that we just can't remember that they really are all just a bunch of self-interested shills.
Self-interested left-wing shills.

"Us, the audience" is not under your control or mine.

It is individually, which expands into collectively. It is called the on/off switch or channel changer.

Almost all talk radio is conservative radio. It is certainly more successful that liberal radio. It is not objective in opinion but it does reveal the truth not told by the MSM. That is an example of audience choice. Were it just ideological rant, as we get from the left, it would not be as popular.

That is also what accounts for the popularity of Fox News Channel. The rest have lost market share to them almost to the point of irrelevance.

Nearly all newspapers across the country are losing subscribers. Is that because of the internet or is it because the internet and talk radio provide a contrast which the public chooses rather than the newspaper?

As long as an enterprise is dependent on support from the people the free market will decide their success or failure.

You make good observations about the interworkings of the media but, absent government control, which we see in PBS and NPR, they are all ultimately dependent upon acceptance and support of the audience. The success of Fox and talk radio and the decline in readership and viewership of the MSM indicates where America is. The leftwing media will change or disappear unless they gain political power and impose censorship and limit choices.

The leftwing media will change or disappear unless they gain political power and impose censorship and limit choices.

The leftwing media is in fact the Democratic Party. Democratic Politicians are wholly owned by "objective" journalism. And "objective journalism" has a big piece of the Republican Party, too - or there would be no need for hail Mary plays to try to get a conservative on the Supreme Court with a Republican president and 55 Republican senators.
"O’Sullivan’s First Law" states that
"All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing."
Which is just another way of stating the fact that people with the courage and principle to resist the bullying of "objective" journalism will be labeled "right-wing."
Nobody is objective - least of all people who actually think that they are objective. Journalists are negative, superficial, arrogant and timid. IOW, journalists are left-wing bullies.

NEW YORK -- The four Democrats competing in next week's mayoral primary found themselves trying to explain in a debate seen live on NBC4 and WNBC.com . . .

. . . The hour-long debate did not allow for lengthy answers. The candidates were asked about education, affordable housing, terrorism, crime, race relations, gay marriage, unemployment and disaster preparedness and in most cases had just 30 seconds to respond . . .

You see, that is just the trouble. They have, understandably enough, four candidates to winnow down to one nominee - and they have no principled way to choose among them, since the one who polls the worst could in principle be the one who is the second choice of the all the voters in the primary. So what do they do? They run a "first past the pole" race with a runoff against "second past the pole" if the winner doesn't get 40% of the vote.
And how do they inform the public on the candidates and the issues? They broadcast a brief live, competitive joint TV ~~debate~~ press conference among the whole lot of them.

Let's just suppose that what they actually wanted to do was inform the public enough to get a good candidate for mayor. What would they do? IMHO they should:

conduct actual debates, without the presence of any "moderator" other than a chess timer to allocate equal time to the microphone of each participant in each debate.
Conduct the debates on radio, so that
- the facts and logic of the debaters are more important than their hairline or waistline, and
- cost considerations do not limit the number and duration of the debates unduly
allow candidates to use notes and/or laptop computers in the debates.
strictly limit the number of participants in each debate - preferably to two.
conduct enough debates to vet each candidate against each other candidate
make each debate long enough that the no candidate can hide their actual agenda

IMHO that process would seperate the wheat from the chaff - candidates who aren't ready for prime time would probably realize it by the time they got their clock cleaned by three different people in three seperate three-hour radio debates.
I thintk that method of debating in the general election would enable Republicans to blow Democrats away - Democrats depend so heavily on being protected by journalists (see Hillary Clinton, poster child).
Democrats Debate, Asked 'Why Is Bloomberg Popular?' (NY) WNBC Television ^ | 9/8/2005 | Puppage

There's nothing wrong with the strong connection between the DNC and media people who support them (Both parties use the media to their advantage when they can. They'd be unprofessional if they didn't).

I have no problem believing the documents were forgeries. I just can't say I've come to that conclusion on my own. - liberallarry

As a teenager I had the experience of having demostrated something to Dad and having him criticze me for taking the chance. I replied, "It worked, didn't it?" Dad rejoined, "Once in a million!" My reaction was to repeat the (actually low stakes) stunt, which predictably (in my own recondite experience) worked again. Dad replied, "Twice in two million!"
The moral of the story is that:

You can always avoid a contrary conclusion if you can set the standard of proof arbitrarily high. And,
It is easy to set the standard of proof arbitrarily high - if you are Dad talking to a young son. You need power to control the standard of proof.
You claim that you "have no problem believing the documents were forgeries" and yet you set the standard of proof to infinity with your rope-a-dope "I haven't looked at it" evasion. You have not looked at it, and you will not - because it's too clear that you could not sustatin your worldview if you did look at it.
From the fact that the "memos" are patent forgeries it follows not only that Mary Mapes was tendentious but that CBS as an organization was and is tendentious with its "independent commission" which was about as independent of CBS as your left eye is from your right.
As an impartial arbiter of truth, therefore, CBS News is rotten to the core. And what follows from that? All other news organizations know it - and do not say so. They do not say so, because Big Journalism is permanently in full go-along-and-get-along mode. Competition exists among the various organs of Big Journalism - but not ideological diversity. Big Journalism defines itself as "objective" journalism. But it is not objective; no human institution is. Big Journalism defines "objectivity" as not breaking the mutual admiration society pact.
I assert that there is no ideological competion among Big Media organs, even though I do not claim that they are all controlled by the Democratic Party nor even, as some would have it, Hillary Clinton. Big Journalism is a voluntary, ad hoc "organization." Big Journalism self organizes on the principle that "you never pick an argument with someone who buys ink by the carload." That is a principle which is at once arrogant and cowardly. Externally arrogant toward the general public, and internally cowardly among each other.
Each individual journalist is not able to control the course of journalism, any more than George Bush could with a breath have controled the course of Katrina. The individual journalist is not Big Journalism; the individual journalist is a mere celebrity among many celebrities. Movie stars are celebrities, not inherently qualified to speak authoritatively on farm policy for having portrayed farmers on TV or on law enforcement for having portrayed cops in the movies. And yet the Democratic politician - whether Hillary Clinton or any other - does not control Big Journalism either. All are entrained in the dervish of whirling motion, unorganized and yet systematic. All liberal celebrities, bound up in the one idea - that nothing really matters except PR.
Those who insist on any other principle, the PR Borg vociferously punishes with negative PR. They are "extreme right wing." Most of all they are "not a journalist, not objective." Thus a Bernard Goldberg can be a journalist - until he insists on a principle which is independent of, and therefore contradictiory to, the PR principle. Bernard Goldberg writes Bias, and he is an unmade man - "not a journalist, not objective."
What is the issue between those who call themselves liberals (or who, having run that word into the ground, insist on being called "progressive," or some other virtue) and those whom those "liberals" call conservatives? Conservatives, idealists that they are, have taken for granted that the issue was truth. But reality is different. The issue is not truth; the issue is whether the issue is truth. Whether, that is, the issue is truth or power.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.