media matters

Real news smells like onions… (Photo credit: Dave Delaney)

The recent Tea Party movement was encouraging to me because I worry about the fiscal future of our country. And yet some how our mainstream media have managed to successfully paint this great American movement as racist and radical and dangerous. Since when did a belief in our constitution, reducing government spending, taxes and the national debt, become radical? I suppose such beliefs are radical to a European socialist or a communist, but to an American? I don’t think so. Certainly not to this American.

And the amount of unreasoning hate and intolerance that is shown today in the media is disheartening. How can liberals, who I would assume believe in free speech, just as I do, feel that free speech is okay unless the speech is coming from a conservative or libertarian? Huh? I am still really troubled by how unfairly Sarah Palin was treated by the media and by the Hollywood elite.  Sarah was the target of countless personal attacks and ridicule, instead of being given fair and honest treatment.

Most of our mainstream media simply don’t fairly represent various sides of issues anymore.  The much scorned, yet very popular, Fox News does at least attempt to have both “sides”. However, it seems to me that they do this in such a way to promote more disagreement (which I suppose equals ratings). Many times they have people that seem to me to just be mindlessly spouting talking points or that are allowed to make fallacious arguments, like ad hominem attacks, unchecked. I remember hearing Bob Beckel comparing Vice President Dick Cheney to Darth Vader once, for example. What’s with all these personal attacks folks?  Can’t we simply discuss the issues and facts?

If you have Dish Network, I really recommend that you check out “Real News” on channel 212, the Blaze channel. They have multiple people intelligently discussing the news and issues of the day and they don’t raise their voices or call each other names. I find it very refreshing.  Since media matters, let’s make sure we are watching and reading the right media.

how many lefts make a right?

Conservative author and commentator William F. Buckley, Jr. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today’s left is not the left I knew and loved in my youth. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never considered myself a liberal.  Although a political philosophy, like liberalism, that is founded on ideas of liberty and equality should fit me perfectly because I also believe in those ideas fervently.  No, in my youth I was more impressed and influenced by William F. Buckley, Jr.  His blending of libertarianism and conservatism was always well-reasoned and intellectual.  I really enjoyed watching his show on TV and reading his writings as I grew up.  I especially miss the kind of thoughtful and reasoned discussions of many sides of topics that happened on the Firing Line and is so absent on today’s TV screens.  I always enjoyed listening to both liberal and conservative views.  Not today.  Today’s progressive left has moved so close to socialism that I do not recognize them.

Of course, left and right are not really helpful terms anyway. At least, I’ve never felt so.   It is popular, for example, to refer to fascist  dictators as right-wing while communist and socialist  systems are left-wing.  However, I see more in common between fascists, totalitarians, communists and socialists. They all are statists to me, they all believe in centralized government control of the economy and social policy.  So, does that mean if you go far enough to the left that you somehow meet the far right?  Is that why Hitler and Stalin hated each other?  Because they were so much alike?  Perhaps, the political spectrum is some kind of weird full circle.

Today, neither major party really represents my personal political views.  I am so very frustrated and disappointed with current politics and today’s politicians.  I fear that the future of the U.S. is in serious jeopardy and we only have ourselves to blame.  I have basically been a Republican all my life, but I don’t support the party that wants to “borrow and spend like there is no tomorrow” and makes government bigger, but just not as big as the other party.   And the big government loving Democrats have went from “tax and spend” to “tax, tax the rich more, and spend baby spend”.  Where have all the fiscal conservative Democrats gone anyway?  Maybe, they have all died and went to heaven or something?