What Price The First Amendment?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”.

Words. Simple and direct. No society on Earth had ever heard their like before… they were truly as revolutionary as the revolution that spawned them. It was the beginning of the evolution of the freest, most open and dynamic nation/state in history. Cobbled together from a handful of often cantankerous and contrarily independent colonies. How, then, were these wildly disparate groups of peoples forged into the instrument for truth and freedom that is the United States of America?

We know that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Even a cursory glance through our founding documents reveals them to be the inspired works of thoughtful, highly educated (most of them were reading Homer in the original Greek by the time they were 12 or 13 and doing trigonometry and calculus as well) men who risked everything to birth this nation of free men, against odds that reason said were impossible.

Information was passed from person to person. The papers of the period were mostly one page ‘broadsheets’ which could often be found plastered to the wall of the local tavern. Political views and opinions were often printed in pamphlets which were circulated through the towns and villages. There were no ‘professional’ journalists… only individual Americans speaking their minds and hearts.

The founders realized that a free and independent press was critical to having a free and open society. There is nothing at all in the Constitution, Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence that defines journalism. One does not have to pass some sort of litmus test to be a writer or a citizen journalist. At least until now, it seems.

Judge Hernandez

A federal judge has decided to take it upon himself to define what, in his liberally-inspired mind, is the definition of a journalist. He’s already way off the reservation as far as the Constitution is concerned. Judge Marco Hernandez ruled that blogging was not journalism and bloggers were not journalists. It didn’t help that the subject of this legal action was one Crystal Cox, a blogger who is being sued for defamation.

That Ms.Cox was obviously way, way off base is readily apparent when reading the available documentation. The very first paragraph she wrote in the blog in question says it all. She stated, “There are several reasons why I claim Kevin Padrick, Obsidian Finance, is a thug, thief and a liar”. Pretty obvious to me why she’s in hot water. Bloggers and journalists have backed away from this story like it was the bubonic plague.

Responsible journalism and responsible blogging journalism are one and the same thing. The facts are that you will, on any given day, find more truthful, cogent reporting in the journalistic blogosphere than all of the supposed main stream media combined. This uber-liberal Oregon federal judge should break out his copy of the Constitution, open it and read it… something which I’m sure is foreign to him.

This first amendment to our Constitution is the rock to which all of the other amendments are anchored. Protect it we must… protect it we will.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

‘Journalism’s’ Stealth Attack On Americans And The Truth.

It’s a sad state of affairs, but the facts are undeniable… we no longer have a ‘Fourth Estate’ in this country… instead it has morphed into a subversive, secretive Fifth Column.

The statue of Edmund Burke in Washington DC

The term ‘Fourth Estate’ is used to refer to the press, a term attributed to Edmund Burke, an 18th century Irish statesman. Journalism has generally had a favorable reputation in this country until recently, deservedly or not.

Actually, a close look at the history of journalism in this country will reveal a picture of contentious partisanship and political bias. The print media always had huge impact on public opinion in this country, starting with colonial ‘handbills’ posted in public places, denouncing King George and his tax collectors. With the advent of the linotype machine, print journalism was revolutionized and multiple-paged newspapers became common. With the introduction of news wires, information would flash from coast to coast in minutes.

Most journalists, from the late nineteenth century onward, prided themselves in their objectivity. This was especially true during the war years of the last century, although during World War Two news was censored to prevent vital information reaching enemy ears. There were just certain things you were not permitted to write about and most people understood the necessity of it.

During the Korean War, television journalism was in its infancy and reporting out of Korea was sporadic and sketchy. There was no network news and local television reporting was decidedly primitive by today’s standards. All of this had changed by the time we were engaged in the war in south-east Asia. The press gradually drifted from reporting the news to trying to influence opinion back home by coloring the information coming out of Vietnam and, in many cases, outright lying. Many Vietnam vets still feel that it was the press that lost the war for us. Notably, after the US forces withdrawal, North Vietnamese Commanding General Vo Nguyen Giap admitted that, after the Tet Offensive, his forces were on the ropes.

As an aspiring journalism student, I was to experience the leftward lurch of journalism instruction in college. Being a Marine veteran my views (and a penchant for investigative reporting on matters that made the school administration uncomfortable) often clashed with my leftist professors. That period, to me, was the beginning of the real decline of any semblance of objective reporting.



What we have today is something far more sinister. The term ‘fifth column’ was coined to denote a subversive element working to undermine a legitimate government. The so-called mainstream media of today is as far left as any subversive group has ever been. That their chosen weapon is the spoken word and not bombs means little, just as there is little to no objective truth in the Marxist garbage they spew at the command of their radical Marxist masters.

The silver lining here is that the internet has spawned the nemesis of the DeMarxist lapdog media. The new media has the DeMarxists and their servants in a quandary. They can scarcely open their lying mouths anymore without the truth being almost instantaneously disseminated around the globe. It’s made it very difficult to do business as usual… witness the plunging polling numbers across the board for Barack Hussein Obama and the cabal of Demarxist thieves.
Americans are getting the truth and the truth is going to set them free.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

The Obama Cupboard Is Bare.

The statist press is at its wits end. Their own spin machine is having a harder and harder time getting anyone to listen. So, the only thing left to them is to descend into the journalistic death-spiral of harsher and harsher invective, vituperation and baseless personal attack.



As an aside, I think that our supposed journalism schools graduate few journalists, as we understand the term. What we see coming out of school, more often than not, are ideologically indoctrinated leftist political hacks, working in the guise, no matter how shallow, of objective reporting. In point of fact, the lame stream press is a victim of its own success. They carried the hard left’s water for so long that Americans turned them off and tuned them out. The white noise of their constant drum beating, ‘Chicken Little’ sociopathy and ill-disguised anti-American messages  lost them the audience they once had all to themselves. It was lost to them in direct proportion to the elapsed time from the shameful political sellout of the war in Vietnam, which cemented the symbiotic relationship of the media and the Demarxists.

We think of the advent of the internet and internet journalism as being the turning point. Actually, the country’s gradual awareness of the paucity of factual news and objective opinion without the Socio-Marxist agenda preceded the internet. Americans were turned off and disgusted by the lame stream press and the gradual recognition of the clear and present danger to our Republic. What occurred was that the internet, internet journalism and the phenomenon known as the internet blogosphere, largely took the message away form the left. Exposing the radical Marxist agenda of the symbionts and their Marxist masters became the mission of internet journalism.



When Barack Hussein Obama came on the scene the situation was ripe for citizen revolt against the now obvious intent of the left. A mindless, headlong rush towards totalitarianism by the DeMarxists produced the citizen revolt we are experiencing in the Conservative Patriot movement, which is now sweeping the nation. The Patriot groups and the Tea Party activists are not nearly as fragmented as the left tries hard to portray. Even the knotheads in the RNC have figured out that they don’t have the reins on this. We’ve had it with a lot of them too. We want leadership, not deals! Can you hear me, John? Can you hear me, Lindsey?

This, I think, is one of the great differences between ‘us and them’. Responsible journalists will be as quick to condemn their own when they see wrongdoing as the political opposition. Journalism is, or should be, the process of truth seeking. Barack Hussein’s cupboard is the lame stream symbiont.
That’s why the cupboard is as empty as the Marxist message itself.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010