If you’re a student of American History, (and you should be), you would understand that the free press in our country have been active participants in the political discourse even before and as the United States was founded. You would also understand that the attempted undermining of one political ideology in favor of another by a willing and complicit press on both sides is really old “news”. Backroom (and in some cases illegal) printing presses have been used to influence political discussions around the globe dating back to the middle 1400’s. One need only research the American presidential campaign of 1800, pitting Declaration of Independence collaborators and close friends John Adams and his Vice President Thomas Jefferson against one another, to understand just how brutal press attacks from each side could be, even in the 18th Century. So vitriolic and bitter was the printed rhetoric of that election process, that the two parted ways after Jefferson’s victory and didn’t reconcile their differences until the last years of their lives. President Lincoln’s actions during the Civil War regarding the suspension of “The Great Writ” (look it up), are still debated in the better history classes of today. And JFK’s manipulation of a growing television media to his political advantage is legendary. So the notion that rhetorical political battles, media manipulation, and disdain for the opposition as “memorialized” by a free press are things born of the 21st Century, is at the very least a historically challenged viewpoint. With that said, the ideological hatred and trending violence we’re seeing in 2017 is indeed beyond anything anyone in the 18th, 19th or even 20th Century might have imagined. So why is this? How have we become so divided as a people to have lost sight of freedom’s shoreline? How have so many Americans been blinded to the real history of their country, and how that history actually insulates them from the failures of European style Socialism or worse? Well, the answers may surprise you, and our American free press are certainly culpable in any fair analysis…

Going back to the Adams – Jefferson campaign, it was really no campaign at all, in that it was waged largely in the newspapers with little actual campaigning by the two candidates. Jefferson’s “friends” in the press promoted his disdain for an overbearing federal government and chastised Adams as a would be monarchist in the English model. While those who favored Adams, called Jefferson “Godless”, and wrote of the mayhem that would exist inside his interpretation of the new American government. Today that “written and read” dynamic has changed with the advent of technology, the 24 hour news cycle, and social media, thus I believe creating an environment whereby the media must now exercise a good deal of restraint and responsibility, as they are speaking to far more people at once than at any time in human history. Historically, the American value system seemed to contain and frame most political battles, at least to the degree that a certain level of civility would usually prevail. The head of a party bore the brunt of the criticisms, (and an occasional hanging in effigy cartoon when needed for effect). Truth be told, the United States was a nation of mostly farmers in those days, and many struggled mightily with the challenges of everyday life, never mind the complexities of the burgeoning American political system. Nevertheless, when the masses finally did get to do their reading, they did in fact have a much clearer understanding of the matters at hand than I’m sure most of those protesting today’s conundrums. Literally hands-on knowledge and awareness of their hard fought freedoms guided their better judgment in the name of their posterity to be sure, and personal sentiments were viewed as just that, personal. There was if you will, a common-sense acknowledgement of a line between advocating for your political beliefs during an election cycle in the hopes that the results would better your life and the lives of your children, as opposed to today’s anarchists advocating the murderous over-through of a democratically elected government because you didn’t agree with the results.

In today’s 24 hour news cycle the press may cover a dozen topics in thirty minutes, and not have to wait for those topics to be disseminated to the respective “colonies/states” over a period of a month or two, (or more). News traveled overseas by ship, with return correspondence taking even longer. Today we see the debate taking place live in our living rooms, with split second soundbites and analysis coming at you fast and furious. The only problem is, it’s usually self-proclaimed experts and Hollywood Wanna-Be’s, and not necessarily the true authors of any legislation or discussion doing the initial debating. My point here is that the press now have complete control over the dialogue as well as the terms and substance of the discussion in real time, and if they so choose, may even add the ideological slant of a certain network owner(s) to that discussion in the hopes of swaying a complacent viewership. That’s a lot of power. Even worse, digital cable and satellite television have become mainstays of the American household, and the people inside that 60 inch flat screen have become members of our family, influencing the products we use, the places we patronize, and our social sitcom preferences, along with the opinions of the news folks supposedly bringing us the headlines of the day. Essentially, why bother doing our own homework when this guy or gal is doing it for us. And damn it, why would they lie???

Look my fellow Americans, I’m not naïve’. I get that this is the 21st Century and a free press is a vital and necessary component of a constitutional republic such as ours. But that’s just it! Even in a free republic, every generation faces its challenges, and the reconciliation of all that’s being thrown at us by the media these days is ours. Our children’s future depends on us getting it right and not taking things for granted, like our Constitution, and those things told to us by some who may not have a vested interest in our individual success, AND might even seek to “fundamentally change” our free country into a not so free one. Let’s face it, our kids are counting on us to use our heads and acknowledge the obvious without having to be told how to see something. Their future demands that when a media fool seeking publicity holds up a representation of a bloody severed head of the President of the United States, or uses our beloved and hard fought flag of freedom for toilet paper, we speak out and say that’s not what the founders meant when they penned the First Amendment. Their future demands that when intolerance masquerades as tolerance, we point out that hypocrisy, and do so loudly. Their future demands that when one acts out violently against another, we require equal justice be applied under the law. Their future demands that we protect and defend their God-given rights enumerated in the Declaration and Constitution with our “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor“. And their future demands that those elected to represent their best interests in the seat of power, do so with honor and integrity first. Will we get it right every time, of course not? But for their sake, we sure as heck better try…

In the end, and whether or not the talking heads in that 60 inch flat screen want to admit it, Representative Steve Scalise is fighting for his life because some dimwit didn’t possess a simple understanding of his country and government, and just couldn’t reconcile that Democracy chose a different candidate to be president for the next four years. So he bought into that news media romanticized rhetoric and took up a weapon against his fellow citizens. Sadly, there are (some) out there calling themselves journalists, as well as a bunch of Hollywood elitists who have little or no understanding of the freedom which allows them to spout off as they do, who flat out egged this guy on. And now all of us are left to figure a way forward through what appears to be the most divided America since the Civil War.

So once again, what’s the answer you ask? Well, there’s more than one I would say. Moreover they’re not all necessarily centered on the media specifically. Nevertheless, first and foremost law enforcement across this great nation should be directed to and fully supported in their function to keep the peace first, and then to allow those “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”, so long as “the peace” is maintained in the process. (No punching women, urinating, spitting on, or otherwise defacing or damaging public or personal property, poking police horses with nails fastened to the ends of selfie sticks, or macing those who have just as much right to free speech as you do). Second, I believe that decent patriots all over this country should make their voices heard in their local governments and demand that our nation’s true history be taught in our public schools without exception, and also that the Ten Commandments be returned to those places where they have been removed, and promoted as the unequivocal bedrock of American culture and the basic and necessary values we know them to be. (Only in this way may we begin to repair men’s hearts, restore the family, and bring decency and mutual respect back to the debate). Oh, and I’m sure it would help a lot with the first answer. Third, that a basic but separate American civics examination be a requirement for high school graduates in all 50 states, so our college posterity will understand the cost paid in advance for their right to assemble in protest. Fourth, that the news media in our country remember,that truth is a necessary and critical component of journalism. And also that they wield a great deal of power and influence in the modern age, and consequently that they should act with honor first above all things. And lastly, that our system of national immigration be respected and enforced, so that the tenets of our creed “E-pluribus-Unum” will take root in all who come here to seek the American promise of a better life. The rest my friends, will come in time.

Now these may sound like simplistic solutions to what appears to be an insurmountable problem, and I would not debate you on that assumption. However more often than not, when faced with overwhelming circumstances of national consequence, and in a nation so conceived as ours, it is necessary to come back to the beginning, and the exceptional things that made us who we are. In the case of our current national posture, and considering the events of 6/14/2017 as a culmination of that which has led to them, I believe we have no other course of action at this juncture. #forourchildrenssake

God please bless Louisiana Congressman and Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise and his family, as well as all those who were injured on that ball field in Alexandria. And God please bless and keep the United States of America. We cannot do it with out you!