Locking up people and killing them is crude. It is messy. There are other ways to do it.
Not really. Other messages still get out. In the US there are messages from all perspectives and supporting all ideologies and ideas. From social democrat/liberal to socialist, to all different sorts of conservative messages, to libertarian, to "Bush caused 9/11 to happen" conspiracy talk, to Neo Nazi groups and the KKK, to the flat earth society...
We can encourage people only to report favorable views.
Encouragement comes from different directions and for different purposes. Its not dominated by one viewpoint and even if it was it wouldn't vaguely resemble Goebbels.
We can reward them with jobs.
A few voices could be rewarded in this way for "getting with the program", but there would be a tens of millions of others voices, and at least thousands of voices with some level of impact, that wouldn't be. Also once again the rewards come from different directions and for different purposes.
Most of the next few are just different forms of "we can award them", and I've already dealt with that. I'll skip to
We can punish them by restricting access.
A real problem but not a major one. Presidents try to control what journalists write and say by not giving access if they don't go along, but major stories leak anyway.
We can keep things secret by executive privilege.
Yes, and legitimately so in some circumstances, but questionable in others, and perhaps a moderately serious problem in a few. But again stories leak out. This only causes a delay, it doesn't let the administration control the press.
We can punish them by blacklisting them and keeping them from getting jobs.
You could try but in most cases it would be very ineffective. TV and newspaper shows don't go to the president or his staff when they want advice about who to hire.
We can monitor their activities. We can monitor who they talk to. We can monitor what they read.
To a limited degree we can, to a very limited degree its probably done, but to minimal effect unless you implement a real police state.
We can discourage them from voting.
??? Voting isn't the topic, reporting is.
Even if voting was, there is no significant program to discourage people from voting. If there was I would find it to be very questionable and probably negative, but it wouldn't change the basic nature of our democracy unless "discourage" amounted to a serious intimidation effort.
We can make it more difficult to show up at the polling booths.
I suppose we could but we aren't.
If we have to we can incarcerate them and charge them with terrorism
OK you tell me, what American journalists have been incarcerated and changed with terrorism?
--
Turning from the specific points to the overall pictures, you are implying that there is some sort of major conspiracy to subvert American democracy, and that this conspiracy has actually been somewhat effective. Even if this was true it still would really be like Goebbels but it is a serious charge, but you don't provide any evidence, or even any serious relevant argument to back up this charge. |
