Article by Scott Lively in World Net Daily
Is 'evil' too strong a word to describe the media?
THE FOURTH ESTATE
There are three important questions that need to be asked about the fake news media and America's future.
1. Considering how thoroughly ethically bankrupt the American media industry has become since the 2016 election of Donald Trump, and how aggressively its most powerful organs are actively furthering overt Marxist revolution through deliberate deception and emotional manipulation of the public, can the "Fourth Estate" ever be restored to its former integrity?
2. Does the First Amendment "freedom of the press" grant immunity to fake news propagandists for what seems like conspiracy with Clinton/Bush/Obama/Biden agents within the U.S. intelligence agencies to advance the Russian collusion hoax and target Gen. Michael Flynn and other Trump insiders?
3. Does President Trump have the power to force positive change in the media other than simply exposing their corruption and praising their nascent emerging competitors?
The founder of modern conservatism and brilliant 18th-century orator, Sir Edmund Burke, is the one who first named the news media the "Fourth Estate" – equivalent in power to shape public policy to the first three: the Church, the Nobility and the Commoners. He also famously warned that "the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." If Burke were here today, he would undoubtedly be chastising conservatives for having done virtually nothing to stop the media industry from becoming so grossly evil.
Is evil too strong a word to describe these media companies? "These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren" (Proverbs 6:16-19). Organs like CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and the Washington Post best represent the state of the media today, and clearly they qualify as abominations in the eyes of God on most if not all counts.
Burke was of the Whig Party, which formed in the 1680s to force the British monarchy to accept limitations on its power through the adoption of a constitution. That constitutionalist movement became a cornerstone of the political philosophy of the American colonists, culminating a century later in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution – including the First Amendment's protections of the speech, religion and the press.
The First Amendment has been under heavy assault for a long time by the Marxists, and both freedom of speech and freedom of religion have been greatly weakened (the latter more than the former), especially related to conservative social values. But the freedom of the press, which has grown increasingly more leftist in personnel and perspective since the 1960s, has not been curtailed at all. And the now almost completely Marxist media industry has used this de facto immunity from any meaningful accountability to become full-fledged partisans in a coup to overthrow our duly elected president.
This week comes evidence implicating anti-Trump media and deep state agents in what is called a "wrap-up smear" in which "open source" information in the nature of hearsay and innuendo is planted with the media by corrupt prosecutors, then used in the form of media reports as evidence against the targets of the "investigation" – a closed circular system for justifying charges against people who could not be charged based on actual evidence, using the presumption of journalistic integrity and investigative diligence as an alternative basis for persuading a court to grant credence to the prosecution.
If, as seems likely to me based on the well-documented revolving door between the realms of leftist politics and leftist media, the "journalists" participating in this scam did so knowingly – as opposed to being innocent dupes of their fellow Trump-hating progressives – then they arguably have committed crimes in the nature of conspiracy to obstruct justice, among other things. If so, the First Amendment would arguably be no defense to prosecution on these alleged crimes, and the legal "discovery process" would trump any claim they might have to keep secret their communications with their sources/co-conspirators. It is well-established that criminal speech is not constitutionally protected. I offer this as my answer to the second question above.
To the third question, regarding Trump's power to force changes in the media, I suggest there is both a negative and a positive strategy that can be brought to bear. The negative strategy is to file criminal charges against all the parties implicated in the alleged conspiracies. There is also the option of civil litigation by the Trump campaign and the individuals harmed, especially if the Justice Department cannot summon the nerve to prosecute.
The positive strategy is for President Trump to issue an executive order mandating ideological balance in all media news reporting funded in any part by public monies or using public resources, and creating a many-membered citizens' oversight commission to monitor compliance, designed to ensure genuine ideological diversity among the overseers. In parallel to that, he should issue a separate executive order declaring the internet to be a public resource equivalent to public lands and public airways, use of which is subject to constitutional limitations. This latter EO would not only affect all private news media who use the internet, it would also solve the Big Tech bias problem in social media. Of course, we would expect these EOs to be codified into statutes by Congress.
These actions of course would all be challenged in the courts, but assuming that a newly conservative-leaning judiciary in 2021, fresh from witnessing the narrowly defeated violent Marxist coup attempt of 2020, would uphold the people's right to reform their media, then I would confidently answer the first question with a "Yes": The Fourth Estate could be restored to its former integrity.
Please God, for the sake of Your remnant who want America to be restored to godliness and goodness, let this come to pass.
https://www.wnd.com/2020/10/evil-strong-word-describe-media/
