The Founders Greatest Disappointment

I am going to go out on a limb. I believe that the one area where the Founding Fathers would be greatly disappointed regarding the hopes they had for the new Republic is identified in the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution. Their hopes and dreams were that a “free press,” what we now call the mainstream media because of modern technology, would be the defenders of truth and would forever hold the government accountable.

"You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." ~ Mark Twain

As you can see, Thomas Jefferson had concerns. However, I doubt that he was pessimistic enough to anticipate how bad the media would be in the 21st century. Instead of being a de facto check and balance for government holding their feet to the fire, the majority of the “free press” is simply a mindless mouthpiece for the communistic liberal intellectuals. People in the media are products of the failed American “socialist education system.”

“Truth is a tyrant-the only tyrant to whom we can give our allegiance. The service of truth is a matter of heroism.” ~ President John F. Kennedy

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light." ~ George Washington

"Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking." ~ Ayn Rand

"A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good just because it's accepted by a majority" ~ Booker T. Washington

To paraphrase a friend of mine, the editorial standards for today’s mainstream media: The truth is so limiting.

"Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." ~ President John F. Kennedy

The lack of thought is quite evident with today’s mainstream media. How many times have you noted that every liberal media outlet is regurgitating the exact same verbiage as the talking points from the socialist Democrat Party. When I see this, I consider it laughable. Sadly, too many of the people Mark Twain refers to will remain misinformed.

Is the “free press” really free? I don’t think so. Too many “reporters,” and I use the term loosely, are simply selling the ideology of their ideological masters. They have been taught what to think, not how to think.