Mainstream Media: The Hypocrites Who Instruct Us
(For SDA visitors the video link is here)
When the tragety at Virginia Tech broke out, so to did the hypocrites in their rush to politicize what is really a rare event. An event all first world countries have faced from Sweden to Italy, Canada to the USA.
Guns, they tell us, should be banned.
The problem is that there is no proof that banning guns accomplishes anything (other than possibly harming people). Studies have examined rates of gun associated crimes between US States that allow carry and conceal vs. States that have strict gun control and find, on average, no difference. There are some criminologists who demonstrate that indeed the carry and conceal States have lower violent crime rates due presumeably to the deterrent of an armed woman while other criminologists argue that the evidence concludes otherwise. In the end my examination of the studies leaves me with the conclusion that there is no proof either way.
Liberals have lost their way on the route of classical liberalism, the philosophy that founded the USA, argueably the most inspirational nation for those great minds who in the 18th to 20th century deemed human rights the moral pursuit of humanity. The tyranny of the state has instead ambushed this moral journey and the old philosophy once mandated by the very people liberals sought to supplant still reigns. The state knows better than the individual.
(Its been a long time since politicians like these were bred.)
Recently self serving frauds like Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller have started calling for handgun bans. Outright bans that is. To possess a legal handgun in Canada is an intense process of which I will not delve into here, but one can easily find information on the procedure. In essense the process is as next to a ban as one can get. McGuinty and Miller are adept at diverting the issue from the real problem: criminality, for which they lack all vision and direction. What is worse, for a politician to say, “I have no solutions for this issue” or to construct a diversion? The media should be all over that type of behaviour - but they aren’t.
What simpler political process is there than to find a rather defenseless scapegoat and legislate a maze of bureaucratic laws for which to point to at the end of the day when you have to explain to the numb public all the work you and your politico hacks have been doing. Nothing looks better than a thick pile of laws to these guys. And it is simply too easy for the media to find numerous ivory tower think-heads to put on TV to repeat the government’s enlightened thinking.
Which brings us to today’s point, the Media and its Hypocrisy. From the days of the first printing press, which enabled commen men to cheaply print and widely broadcast their own philosophy to a large audience, the founders of journalism have never been said to be unbiased. The opposite, in fact, was expected. Many political parties in the blossoming democracies of Britain, France and the United States long had ties with particular pamphleteers and newspapers for which they could expect favourable exhaltations.
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(The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be Swallowed by another French Marriage. 1579. This pamphlet published by John Stubbs cost him his writing hand by decree of Elizabeth I. However it can be said that in the days of the all powerful monarch, the ability to sway large numbers of the public with cheap pamphlets lead to the spread of the ideals of democracy. One writing hand at a time.)
In the 20th century the new schools of journalism started to establish ethical guidelines for integrity in journalism. These involved the lofty ideals of unbiased reporting, covering all sides of an issue, facts based reporting and facts validation, refraining from personal opinion, and refraining from ambush style tactics. Remarkeably like most intelligent ideas, these caught on without requiring any silly laws from the government.
So it is with chagrin, but with no degree of suprise that I see the current mainstream media in Canada, such as CBC and CTV, attempt to “instruct” the rest of us with their “progressive” ideas - ideas garnered from the ivory tower of universities where people with degrees in ecology and biochemistry seem to know more about economic theory, and foreign relations than they do about their own subjects of study*. Sadly, it seems, the mainstream media will even stoop to lying in order to spread their ideas. In fact they become quite savage when their progressive leftist ideas are challenged.
You see time and time again you’ll hear them on CBC and CTV moan on about how same sex marriage is nobody else’s business (I agree) and that we shouldn’t be telling others how to behave or what to do, ie: abortion. Yet the hypocrites, with one sniff of someone wanting to collect handguns or big trucks will suddenly fly into a self-righteous rage. The same kind of rage they mock when it comes from a Catholic right winger railing against abortion or cloning.
Because when it comes down to it CBC and CTV know best what’s good for the rest of us. Sadly I’ve seen the media ramp up its efforts in this direction in regards to almost any political issue. There is no integrity anymore. One of the worst transgressors is Jane Taber of CTV (#24 of the 101 people who are ruining Canada) who regularly inserts her own opinion when moderating a political panel on Question Period. Still the number of schlocks that are not experts who make it onto the newswaves such as Bono, Gore, or Suzuki (all true hypocrites, check out Suzuki’s stink here) compared to the people who may actually know what they are talking about amazes me.
Stockwell Day must have rued the moment he tried to out-media the media and instead got avalanched like a brontosaurus in a mud-slide. It appeared that the only direction Day was going was extinction, his memory simply another fossil in the evolution of Canadian politics. The media hates Day, because he represents the very opposite of what they self-righteously pat themselves on the back all day for. He is against abortion and cloning, he believes in creation, he calls terrorists: “terrorists” instead of “militants”, and Stock thinks the Firearms Registry is a waste of money. Incredibly Day has turned out to be a very competent minister.
(Hey is that thing burning those mythical fossils? Look at the Greenhouse Gasses this guy wastes.)
So when asked once again by McGuinty and Miller to “ban handguns”, Day correctly points out that the increased control of firearms in Britain has not lead to a decrease in criminality and gun crime. In fact other than one sole year, gun crime has increased. Day is pounded in the media for this statement. The Toronto Star states, “Day’s statements, however, don’t appear to match with the facts.” Unfortunately for the Star, Day’s facts garnered from the UK Home Office are correct and it appears that the Toronto Star just decided to not read the full report. Instead they prefer to insert their own bias into the story, and an evident bias it truly is. Day proves that even though he is a Jesus loving Texas North freak, he still can read his letters better than any Toronto Yankee.
However nothing is worse than this pathetic media harrassment of a young Asian man in Virginia called Wayne Chiang who happens to have some resemblence to the psychopath that did the Virginia Tech massacre. The only resemblence I can find is that the two men were both “Asian”** and they both have guns. Basically this guy gets harrassed and stalked by a bunch of internet warriors because they mistake him for the Virginia shooter. Geraldo picks up the story and ambushes him on air. Soon like the second class stepchild that they are, CTV runs the story and Paula Todd makes a complete fool of herself on air by mocking Mr. Chiang.
In particular, CTV makes a mistake and accidently broadcasts the off-air discussion between Todd and her crew where she calls Mr. Chiang a “freak”. Her moral superiority just stinks, but it affirms what I originally thought when I saw the interview for the first time: she was mocking Mr. Chiang on air and attempting to make him look stupid and even dangerous. In particular two questions she asks sum up the mentality of the ivory tower today.
“What is your most {…} efficient weapon?” She asks. What does she mean here I wondered? The most efficient for killing people or perhaps she’s wondering which one produces the least Greenhouse Gas output.
and
“Do you know as many people in your age group with as many weapons as you have?” She wonders. Mr. Chiang does know many, probably because he is a member of a gun club and a collector.
Paula Todd simply appears to want Mr. Chiang to apologize for owning guns. It appears the intelligent young man even picks up on her subtleties in the interview. Overall Mr. Chiang presents himself in the interview as an articulate, intelligent, and law-abiding human being. He is no more a freak than anyone else with a hobby. Are his interests worth less than mine or yours? I wonder.
Todd presents herself as an arrogant elitist. In fact when she gets off-air with Breslin her fawning college-girl behaviour is absurd. She perfectly fits the stereotype of the ignorant anchorperson. Something which should be beneath her considering her education. She should be interested in facts.
Mr. Chiang’s story is best described by himself on his own blog, here.
The worst part of this whole debacle is when CTV airs a slideshow of the Virginia Tech shooter which includes pictures of Mr. Chiang amongst those of the murderer. Talk about a smear.
Now watch the three videos (you’ll have to download them because of bandwidth issues):
The Interview where Mr. Chiang gets ambushed
The off air discussion where Paula Todd calls Mr. Chiang a freak
(Please note the off-air discussion has been banned from YouTube by CTV. I found a link to the file.)
So what other confabulations have the mainstream media been responsible for? What agenda are they pushing? The regretable part of this story is that most people come home from work tired and dump themselves in front of the TV and ask no questions as they absorb the slop from the dirty trough.
And perhaps it will be the internet that saves us from tyranny much like the pamphleteers of old with their cheap media were able to usurp Kings, sway public policy, and teach others to question the implied truth and seek the undeniable facts.
(Is this Grail the Truth or a Legend?)
* If I had a dollar for every time I heard a flower child studing the mating habits of Polar Bears tell me the intricate details behind labour theory and cost accounting and the effects of globalization on market share I’d be a rich man and wouldn’t need to join the Canadian union of old economists who became doctors.
**Whatever Asian really is, is a mystery to me because they’re all as different as a Pole is from a Scot when it comes down to it but still the equalization bean counters like to put them in that slot if they come from somewhere east of Russia and West of the USA.
