In 2016 Doug Hagmann expanding on the nattering nabobs of negativism is a must read for every conservative, but more than that it is required reading for American voters who still put trust in talking heads.
I want to offer a slightly different take on Hagmann’s “fourth branch”:
The infamous reference of the press as the “fourth estate” by Edmund Burke has now been fully transformed into the much more accommodating “fourth branch,” a fully subservient and subjugated power that is facilitating government corruption at levels never before seen. This is particularly nefarious and readily seen by the lack of honest reporting by the media and the perpetuation of the lie that the platform of fear is nothing more than a cheap sales tactic for the GOP.
Why Trump’s Platform of Pessimism is Loathed by the Left and Why it Matters
By Doug Hagmann
July 26, 2016
http://canadafreepress.com/article/...ism-is-loathed-by-the-left-and-why-it-matters
By Doug Hagmann
July 26, 2016
http://canadafreepress.com/article/...ism-is-loathed-by-the-left-and-why-it-matters
Unlike print press:
The printing press is a device that allows for the mass production of uniform printed matter, mainly text in the form of books, pamphlets and newspapers. Created in China, the printing press revolutionized society there before being further developed in Europe in the 15th Century by Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the Gutenberg press.
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/printing-press
the tax code feeding television enormous amounts of tax deductible advertising dollars was a godsend to liars. If nothing else, the power of taxation makes television the fifth branch of government.
Print press and television repeated warned us about the Right's attack on our individual liberties, while they promoted, and continue to promote, a more destructive attack from the Left. That specific corruption was smoothed over by trivializing it as a harmless left-leaning bias.
In truth —— TELEVISION —— is the fifth branch of government.
Finally, print press abusing its First Amendment privilege is the reason newspapers are on their last leg. Whether or not print press leaned Left or Right it encouraged bigger government and more control over freedom of speech.
The only justification for a free press is when it maintains an antagonistic relationship towards government; every government —— liberal and conservative, democracy and dictatorship. America’s free press has not been antagonistic toward government in more than a century. Television actually promotes government as well as glorifying government parasites regardless of what they do; hence, freedom of the press is the one First Amendment freedom that is not worth defending.
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...Of-Freedom-Of-The-Press&p=2931557#post2931557
Notice that the press would still enjoy freedom of speech like the rest of us, but they would have to defend freedom of speech as a matter of self-interest instead of only defending their constitutional privilege while they feed the rest us to Socialist/Communist wolves.
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...-On-The-First-Amendment&p=3181699#post3181699