One might for instance discuss federalism vs. the central government we now have; I do understand your point. But I think that federalism vs centralism is widely if dimly understood (at least I for one have understood the original federal design from my youth).OTOH I reached the age of 35 without so much as recognizing that journalism had a consistent political tendency, and 55 before I began to be clear on the nexus between that political tendency and the business model of journalism--and the disjuncture between First Amendment freeedom to speak (and implicitly to listen by choice and to individually decide) and the propaganda idea of a "right to know"--to shut up and listen to your betters.
Yes, people find it difficult to accept. But I understand that; it took me over fifty years to begin to figure it out. It's difficult precisely because the main propaganda thrust of big media is designed to make it so. And it is an interesting challenge precisely because of its difficulty.
Yes, like federalism First Amendment freedom is an endangered species which the SCotUS could scarcely vindicate in one sweeping decision outlawing all broadcasting. But at least I would like to think that Clarence ("high-tech lynching") Thomas could see holy land afar off. That attempted lynching wasn't "high tech"--nothing digital about it; it was simply the PR Establishment waging war on prudent judgement by we-the-people.
McCain-Feingold will go to SCotUS, and neither the plaintiff nor, certainly, the defendant will address the central issue. The central issue is the PR Establishment, and the impropriety of the government's contribution to it.
This is a very revealing statement. Many of us have long argued that leftists do not ask, "Who is right and who is wrong?" but rather, "Who is strong and who is weak?" in determining their positions on world and national issues. The substitution of power criteria for moral criteria is one of the reasons the left so often takes immoral positions. It is, therefore, helpful to hear such a candid acknowledgment of Hollywood liberals' moral confusion. Not to mention ignorance -- no Palestinian city has been "turned into rubble."
The tendentiousness of the Politically Correct movement is most stark in the case of journalism, which hypes itself as "objective" but actually makes its living delivering entertainment to audiences--and, thereby, audiences to advertisers. But that begs the general question, "Why does entertainment default to anticonservative values?" This seems to provide an answer.Rooting for the underdog on Monday Night Football is "passion without consequence." But in a political context, rooting for the underdog is rooting against the powers-that-be, against tradition and those who prosper under that tradition.
The irony of rooting against American tradition is that our tradition is to give the individual a chance to try new ways of doing things. Conservatives look at an individual who prospers because of the leadership he assumes by dint of his own efforts and see the little guy as compared to the government. PC thinking, OTOH, looks at that same prosperous leader and sees only a fat cat as compared to the poor.
The truth is that in America "the poor" is to a remarkable degree a phantasm, an aprocraphal construct. The so-called "poorest quintile" of the American economy is neither a quintile (only about 15% rather than 20% of the population) nor a static group of people without much money. Although it includes truly poor people it is loaded with young, upwardly mobile people.
The "richest quintile" does include rich people, and its aggregate income is large. But that is partly because it is not a quintile but a full quartile (25%), not 20% and certainly no merely 15%, of American incomes. And even the 80th-percentile (say nothing of the 75th-percentile) income is scarcely rich by American standards. Top-quartile Americans know all too well that it is no trick at all to descend to lower quintiles--which may explain why they work twice as many hours in a year as is typical of the lowest "quintile."
PC is all about emotionalism, excitement, and superficiality. It is the domain not of the little guy who posts logical analysis on a low-cost web site but of the true fat cat who can make money with huge investments in production values--and who is deathly afraid, not of being shown to be illogical and unscientific, but of being out of step with others similarly situated. Mere logic can usually be trumped by good PR, but a flame war with other people who buy ink by the barrel is--horror of horrors--bad PR.
Denis Preger, JWR