A continuing series of discussions of Mark Levin’s new book,
The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic
(Discussion #17 – Why all the lies?)
Several articles have been appearing lately pointing out the bizarre lack of credibility in our media today. There’s the ridiculous NYT article on Benghazi that they might as well have been titled, “Don’t Worry Hillary, We’ve Got Your Back!”. (As a companion to that, see this article by James Lewis. Full Pravda, indeed.) Then there’s Clifford May’s article on the state of media foreign news coverage and coverage of political and radical Islam, in general. And then there’s the column that caused all the trouble: Victor Davis Hanson’s article at NRO titled, 2017 and the End of Ethics.
The “trouble” caused by Hanson’s column is the week or so I spent nights cranking out my latest article over at the ArticleFiveProcess website. As a tireless, boring pedant and philosophy geek, I’ve been “working” for many years on the concept of deceit in our society, and the tendency of people to ignore or deny the truth when you put it right in front of them. I know many of you are fed up with the media’s coverups and whitewashing of all things Obama. From the recent spate of articles on media malfeasance coming out recently, it’s clear that media popularity is falling like a stone.
The article I wrote and published today is:
K-Bob: No Trust, No Sale
We go deep into the realm of deceit tolerated by society, and the reasons why. Here’s a short excerpt:
But Hanson’s article is not about our pathetic, personal struggles against perfidiousness. It’s really aimed at understanding the level of deception in a particular profession—journalism—whose membership is composed of people who are put forward as certified, authoritative, trustworthy sources of information. Hanson identifies several instances of mendacity in the coverage of events, all of which are transparent attempts to protect a historically-weak president from all criticism.
Aside from the fact that this particularly ironic form of transparency is the only transparency we seem to get under the current Administration, Hanson wonders if the profession of journalism has utterly abandoned ethics as a concern, if not as a core principle. But something else is going on, which is why we’re here, exploring this further. In each of his pointed queries we experience the echo of the same, implied question: How much more of this can we tolerate?
Our natural instinct to expect honesty from those whom we meet (A, above) is what allows the media to be important in our lives. Our nation’s media claim to be a window on the world that helps us stay informed. They present themselves as honest men and women, performing a service for hire. This makes it difficult to avoid thinking of the media—especially television—as an authoritative voice.
But clever men discovered long ago that our media represent a magic mirror into which we collectively gaze. We look into that mirror, and it controls the image reflecting back to us. It turns our ingrained expectation of honesty into the very means by which we may be mislead about the nature of the world.
If such misleading were limited to influencing the rise and fall of hemlines, or moving the occasional box of detergent, then it would be more akin to the old, village liar concept: a known factor (advertising) that can be easily dealt with. But somewhere along the way, men learned that deception could be used to influence much more than your choice of household merchandise. Thus came to be the Fourth Estate. And here is where the mirror concept closes, like a circle: the collective media are an “estate of the realm” in many ways, but in one particular way they represent an image of what our society has become. Fairly or not, they are an image of us.
So Hanson’s questions really apply to society at large. Are we, as a nation, throwing ethics out the window?
A side note about it is that I do all of the graphics for these articles (including my articles here, at Scoop’s). Also, my programming and use of plugins at the articlefiveprocess site has enabled me to try some things to make long-form articles more interesting (I hope). So let me know if any of you made it through the whole thing. I hope the message gives some folks hope that we can actually turn things around. Naturally it ties in to the need for an Article Five Convention.
Next, since this is a popular video site, I found a related video from Pat Condell that applies to the subject of media lies. In Pat’s case, he covers aspects that I did not, since I was focused on long-range and structural causes of dishonesty and lies. Pat gets right to the reality of good, old-fashioned fear and cowardice in the media.
Finally, my article is aimed at a positive outlook for the task ahead. But I caution folks about dragging our feet on this. Many of us worry about the potential for things to degenerate to a civil war here, or at least some physical regional conflict. But that’s not the only place we need to worry about war. Obama has purposely weakened our military at exactly the wrong time in history. You can go worry about it by reading Graham Allison’s article at nationalinterest.org.
Graham Allison: 2014: Good Year for a Great War?
It’s a scary, new world Obama has plunged us into. Let’s all keep our eyes wide open and stay in touch!
Previously:
Discussion #16 – A Few Quick Notes
Discussion #15: Our Cities: The Real Misery Index
Discussion #14: The Missing Balance and the Many Applications
Discussion #13: Activism, and the Scope of the Problem
Discussion #12: Cutting Back The Bureaucracy
Discussion #11: ArticleFiveProcess site news
Discussion #10: The Article Five process is how we go on offense
Discussion #9: the filthy habit of continuing resolutions
Discussion #8: Naysayers
Discussion #7: Tracking Our Progress
Discussion #6: Amendments on Spending and Taxes
Discussion #5: How much power do the states have?
Discussion #4: What If They Hijack the Convention?
Discussion #3: An Invitation to Our Friends on the Left
Discussion #2: Run Away!
Discussion #1: Zombie Doctrine, Tactics, and the Liberty Amendments