The eventual Founders of the United States declared their independence from the British monarchy 244 years ago. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 was a significant moment for what has been called “self-government.” It was the Western culmination of the Age of Enlightenment.
The ensuing government brought the American colonies and their people together as one free and independent nation. It was an arduous task and an accomplishment that was monumental for its day. In the end, the Founding Fathers established a strong federation of states with a constitution designed to create and maintain a “more perfect Union.”
Nothing is perfect.
Nearly two and a half centuries later, the Union is failing.
It’s hard to say where exactly things went wrong. All we know is that, somewhere along the line, they did. The grievances of the original American rebels in 1776 seem like petulance compared to what citizens endure today. The abuses of the British monarchy have been long outdone by the government that its rebels created as a replacement.
A government brought into existence with the ideals of transparency, justice, and limited powers has become increasingly secretive, punitive, and controlling.
Government agents currently operate within the shadows, spying on and scheming against its own citizenry, its own elected leaders, and each other, funded with money taken from us – and we have no ability to demand their records and to hold them accountable.
The Fourth Estate has not only been practically useless to help expose these deficiencies and crimes, but it has often been complicit. Our contemporary media outlets have become almost discernible from the entrenched bureaucracy that peddles lies and misinformation. Journalism within the Fourth Estate, particularly of the investigative variety, is essentially dead. It has been almost completely overtaken by propagandists and partisan political party hacks.
Trust in the media has been at all-time lows for the past decade, sinking to its lowest on record in 2016. The trust itself is almost as polarized as national politics have become. Objective or unbiased news is hard to find, if it even exists. There are now openly “left-wing news” and “right-wing news” outlets.
The rise of the “Fifth Estate” – mostly independent journalism and social media – has allowed for some semblance of balance in the dissemination of information. Unfortunately, as this new media emerges and grows, it is treated in an ever more hostile manner by both the legacy media and the government establishment. Accusations and hit pieces abound in a steady effort to discredit both the information and these reporters and journalists.
A lack of critical data or the intentional deceit of sharing inaccurate information not only affects our politics, it also impacts our education, strains our social relationships, and limits our economic and financial understanding.
Uninformed or deliberately misinformed people cannot possibly engage in useful discourse with their friends and neighbors. Without accurate information from trusted sources, citizens cannot make properly informed decisions about the very government that has a heavy hand in their daily lives.
What we see as a result is increasing political partisanship, increasing antagonisms between social and economic groups, and even violence in the streets over political beliefs. Fuel is then added to the fire by the same media that sparked the original flames. With the help of bureaucrats, they gaslight certain factions and feed false narratives to others. In many cases, they set the stage for violent public confrontations.
There’s no better illustration of this than the current racial antagonism.
All summer long, and even into this fall, we’ve seen riot after riot, from coast to coast, perpetrated by the same organized groups. They march through the streets, harassing, intimidating, assaulting, and even murdering people that they accuse of being white supremacists, fascists, or Nazis – with no evidence whatsoever of their claims. They vandalize buildings, homes, and vehicles. They loot and they set fires to businesses.
These groups have done all of that in the name of “justice.” They have been told by the media that a certain race has been deliberately targeted and murdered by police in large numbers. They have been told by this same media that one political party and its leader are racists and corrupt and that they stole the 2016 presidential election. They believe that white supremacists are around every corner and under every bed.
These violent groups are then told by federal law enforcement agencies that white nationalists (of the extreme right-wing, of course) are in fact the largest threat to our “democracy.”
During the riots, an estimated $1-2 billion in claimed damages has been done since the end of May. Almost 40 people have been killed during riots and protests. Large swathes of cities have been burned to the ground. Countless numbers of people have been physically assaulted.
All of this has been done by people marching for the Black Lives Matter movement, in the name of militant communist groups, and by Antifa.
However, we’re told that white nationalists are the largest threat; that we need to fear the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis; that “extreme right-wing” militias are the biggest danger in our society. These claims would be comical if the consequences weren’t so deadly and destructive.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and their willing accomplices in the media have painted a picture of a society that simply doesn’t exist. While they purposely disinform the public about one side of the conflict (that they have created and exacerbated), they simultaneously ignore, defend, and/or cast in a positive light the side that is actually instigating violent and even deadly confrontations.
The level of dishonesty, misdirection, and gaslighting that has been witnessed just in the last five months alone is staggering. And this is just one example of the fraud that is being perpetrated on our society.
The erosion of trust and the seeming willingness to be distrusted are the most damaging and demoralizing consequences of the behavior of our government and media. When a society doesn’t know what to believe, then that society won’t be able to critically think, to critically judge, and to take any informed decisive action.
Widespread distrust of the media and government institutions is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. It is a sign that the state is no longer fulfilling its duties and is losing the confidence of the people. It has a crippling effect that cannot bring us anything but more corruption, more failures, more hostility, more distrust, and more disappointment.
We are currently witnessing the blatant corruption of the FBI. We are currently witnessing the unfettered bias and partisanship of our legacy media. Other institutions and partisans are joining them in their efforts. This will undoubtedly push us farther down the path towards a failed state.
Whether we want to admit it or not, failure is their goal. We should make the most of it.