What Of The Media And GOP

There was a time that one got their news from the three major networks or news papers and this was the gospel of the day.  After I had become politically active, it didn’t take long for the reality of liberal bias in the media to become very evident and I spent many evenings cursing at the TV, much to the wife’s displeasure.  Cable TV was fun, as it brought new programming and one day I had a life changing experience, called Fox News.  I knew immediately that this was a different animal and willingly became a FNC junkie.  It was a Friday, during the starting phase of the second Gulf War, I had been glued to FNC for coverage but the wife and I were going to the lake, so I reluctantly pried myself from the tube and drove to Guntersville.  As soon as the camper was set up, I turned on the TV but without cable all I could get was the network broadcast from Huntsville.  I thought I had slipped through a time warp or something because the war I was watching on the networks wasn’t the same one I was watching on FNC. Within minutes the old screaming and cursing started again, the wife retaliated by turning off the TV and ordering me out of the camper.  I shuffled along, still cursing to myself, and went to my brother-in-law’s camper, where he had a borrowed satellite setup going and soon I had my FNC fix and all was right with the world again.  As soon as I got home, I canceled the cable and bought two satellite dishes, one for the house and one for the camper, such was my obsession.

Just about the time we think we’ve got everything sorted out and in the proper places, life has a way of tossing us a curve ball.  As was the case with George Bush and the ill fated Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, I found people weren’t exactly who I thought they were.  This one perplexed me for several years until Glenn Beck introduced me to the concept of Progressivism, which is unique because a Progressive can be a Marxist or a Capitalist. Progressives all see the Constitution’s “Limited and Enumerated Powers” as an impediment to all the “good works”  that government can do through simply regulating and controlling the people, for their own good of course. When one learns that Superman likes to hang out at the bus station on occasion, it’s kind of a bummer.  I’ve learned that while the truth will set you free, it may make you damn unhappy in the process, such is life in the real world.  This phenomenon reared its ugly head again with Fox News, during the debate on the Debt Limit.  For weeks Bill O’Reilly and Stewart Varney had preached on the evils of runaway spending and the 14 trillion dollar debt, until they thought Boehner and the House Republicans might stand firm. Then Varney began to wring his hands over the so called “default”, which was never going to happen and Bill O’Reilly went on a full blown attack on the Tea Party. That’s when I realized that while Fox wasn’t as far left wing as the other media, they were media none the less. While the rest of the media was a brown dog with white spots, Fox was a white dog with brown spots, different on the outside only.  Glenn left Fox and started Glenn Beck TV (GBTV.com) and I’ve found my Fox obsession pretty much disappeared as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I still watch Fox but the trust has been forever violated.

Speaking of violated trust, the GOP is at the top of the heap.  I consider the Democratic Party as a Marxist party, therefore the enemy of my liberty but the Progressives in the Republican Party are just as dangerous. These people are no friend to the Constitution and certainly no friend to the Tea Party, though they’re afraid to openly admit it. The Tea Party has decided to take the Republican Party back to the roots of Founders and Reagan and this is a direct threat to the committed party Progressives.  They all go on the news “talking head” shows and tell us that anyone that is a true Conservative can’t beat Obama, so we must nominate a candidate with “moderate” principles, meaning Progressive principles. They are lying to us and the rest of the American people because Reagan was an unapologetic Conservative and he won two landslide elections. Last night I was watching the arrogant Bill O’Reilly and Britt Hume discuss the Florida debate, they talked about Perry and Romney as serious candidates but never once mentioned that Herman Cain won the Straw Poll by a wide margin.  They’re trying to impose their own personal preference as the “news of the day” not what really happened.

If we can’t trust the media or the establishment Republicans, then just who do we trust?  We trust ourselves, as Jefferson put it, “Fix reason firmly in her seat” and “Question with boldness”, rely on our own principles and seek our own truths.  Don’t take the word of the “experts” because they may have a dog in the fight, don’t trust the polls because as I was taught, “Statistics don’t lie but statisticians do”.  We are not the minority in America in believing that the Founders got it right in the beginning, arm yourself with the facts and take the message to those that are willing to listen with an open mind.  Honesty, character and truth will defeat the enemies of Liberty every time, it just takes Faith and effort.

Jim