Giveaways 2021-07-20

     Very few people ask “why?” with sufficient frequency. Even fewer demand an answer and refuse to rest until they get one.

     Consider the following three pieces:

1. Get Vaccinated – Or Else
2. Concerning recent church burnings in Canada
3. The changing tone of the Mainstream Media

     The unifying factor here might take a moment for my Gentle Readers to discern. So take that moment. What change of attitude is exhibited in each of those three subjects?

     What’s that? You don’t get it? Really, Gentle Reader! Wasn’t it just a year or so ago that innumerable persons on the Left, including Kamala Harris, proclaimed loudly that they would never, ever trust the “Trump vaccine?” Wasn’t it then that the Left was in high dudgeon about church arsons here in the United States? Wasn’t it then that the major media bombarded us ceaselessly with breathless warnings about the “authoritarianism” of the Trump Administration?

     That’s right. As the Left is now in power, the utility of those things has changed dramatically:

1. Vaccine mandates can now be used to expand government’s powers over us, nullifying the Fourth Amendment’s protections thereof.
2. It’s no longer useful to point to church burnings as a symptom of “systemic racism.”
3. And of course, it’s vital to Americans’ perception of the Usurper Regime that the Mainstream Media – a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party – take a calm and reassuring tone about its own coverage. Today it reserves the breathless warnings for alternative views from the Right.

     Concerning that last point, Ace has a few words of note:

     Just a few weeks ago, Tater was shrieking that well-trafficked podcasts get better ratings than CNN.

     Those absolute scoundrels! How dare they!

     And no matter how many times this is explained to them, they refuse to understand that the leftwing has already taken control of almost all the means of communication — TV, the biggest newspapers, AP, etc. — so of course a dissident media will tend to dominate in the secondary and tertiary streams of communication… like FaceBook.

     And now NPR wants the right driven off of FaceBook. The left wants complete control of not just the primary means of dissemination of thought — the publishing houses, TV stations and networks, newspapers, magazines — they want to also ban the right from the secondary means — talk radio, for one — and the tertiary means like the internet.

     Indeed.

     When federal power in the Left’s hands – as it usually has been, this century past – that which can be used to solidify or extend that power is promoted. That which would be detrimental toward that power is downplayed. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Gentle Reader; he’s merely there to wipe the windows.

     Tone can be quite as important as coverage choice and coverage framing. If the public “needs to be aroused,” an arousing, even alarming tone will be applied to any report that can be made useful in that fashion. If the public “needs to be reassured,” a calming, “everything’s under control” tone will be applied, regardless of the outrage factor the subject matter deserves.

     This is part and parcel of the degeneration of American politics toward total insincerity. The typical politician no longer asks his conscience “What would be right and proper in this situation?” Rather, he asks his inner calculators, “How can I use this to my advantage – or failing that, keep it from being used against me?” The media having been purchased lock-stock, and barrel by the Left, the tonal shifts and choices exemplified above will naturally follow.

     It seems that H. L. Mencken was, at worst, only slightly ahead of the curve:

     The typical lawmaker of today is a man devoid of principle – a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would cheerfully be in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.

     Two hundred forty-five years ago, this continent experienced a blossoming of public virtue and statecraft Mankind had never previously known. The leaders of the American Revolution led and won a desperate war against the foremost military power of the day. They went on to give the new nation the soundest foundation any state has ever had. But the two centuries that followed have made all too clear what I call the dynamic of power – what the late Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek described in The Road to Serfdom, specifically his chapter on “Why The Worst Get On Top:”

     Draw the moral – and keep an eye out for a convenient planetoid.