By Bradley Harrington

“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.” —  Thomas Paine, “The Age of Reason,” 1794 —

So, as we have just seen in my last post, “Today’s Destruction of Journalism, Part I: The Death of the News,” very little of what passes for “objective news” in today’s journalism market actually qualifies as such, with the overwhelmingly large majority of it consisting instead of “unsubstantiated left-winger opinion masquerading as news.”

But that, Dear Readers, is just the “news” sections. When you take the time to actually wade through the pap that passes for “opinion,” I’m afraid that things get way, way uglier than that — and very quickly, too.

“But what a minute, Harrington,” you might say. “Aren’t ALL ‘opinions,’ by definition, subjective in their natures? Isn’t the idea of a ‘non-biased’ opinion a contradiction of terms?”

To which I would say: “Yes” in some respects … and “No” in others.

Allow me to clarify, please:

“Yes,” in the sense that all opinions originate in the minds of human beings, and are generally colored by those people’s personal experiences and thought processes — both of which are unique to each person individually.

But “No” on opinions being subjective as such; just because one has a “bias” does not preclude the possibility of comparing that opinion to the facts of reality.

There is, after all, an objective world existing and functioning independently of any particular observer, to which opinions can be compared to and evaluated by. Go ahead and propose, for instance, that eating rocks is a valid hypothesis for human nutrition — and your stomach will prove you a liar every single time.

So, when I talk about “objectivity” as far as opinion is concerned, what I mean is this: That the facts of reality are to be acknowledged and respected in their formulation — and that contradictions (either externally with respect to those facts, or internally with respect to other components of the opinion) cannot exist and are not logically permitted.

One will search Wyoming’s news media in vain, however, for such honestly-formulated opinion. What you will find, instead, will be the same typical sewer of “unsubstantiated left-winger opinion” parroted about by the national “drive-by” media throughout the rest of the country as well — and nowhere will you find a better local example of such swill than at Wyofile.com.

Swill such as this, for instance:

“Science should guide Wyoming’s response to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, not politics — especially when the disease is causing record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.

“Unfortunately, the Wyoming Republican Party’s central committee requires a cult-like adherence to its simplistic ideology, facts, science and lives be damned … The GOP’s far-right state leaders recently passed a resolution asking Gov. Mark Gordon to rescind his declaration of a state emergency and with it the authority for public-health orders …” (Kerry Drake, “Party powerbrokers play politics as COVID-19 kills Wyomingites,” “The Drake’s Take,” Wyofile.com, Nov. 24, 2020.)

Observe how Mr. Drake labels Wyoming’s state leaders as “far-right,” as he attempts to establish and associate the tacit connotation of “extremism” in his readers’ minds regarding those leaders. Yet you will hunt through Mr. Drake’s columns (as well as Wyofile itself) — and come up empty-handed — looking for any designation of the Democrats in our state legislature as “far-left.” No, it’s only the right-wingers who are to be considered as “extremists,” never the Lefties. See how language manipulation and concept-smuggling works?

As for Mr. Drake’s sorry attempt to claim the mantle of “facts” and “science” — well, that’s a joke, as any serious study of the actual facts and science will reveal. Here’s just a smattering of it:

■ In Denmark, when it was discovered that Sars-CoV-2 mutations were present in mink — a major Danish export — “seven of the 11 municipalities of the region went into extreme lockdown in early November, while the four other municipalities retained the moderate restrictions of the remaining country,” two professors conducted a rigorous study to test the efficacy of the lockdowns in slowing the spread of the disease.

And what did they find? “Our analysis shows that while infection levels decreased, they did so before the mandate was announced, and the restrictions also had limited and statistically insignificant effects relative to neighbor municipalities without mandates, where infection levels also decreased markedly in Aalborg, the most important municipality not subject to lockdown. A direct spill-over effect to neighbor municipalities was not seen.” (Kasper Planeta Kepp and Christian Bjornskov, “Lockdown effects on Sars-CoV-2 transmission — the evidence from Northern Jutland,” medrxiv.org, Jan. 4.)

■ And how about mask-wearing for coronavirus “protection,” another mandate both Mr. Drake and Wyofile love to love? “A high-quality, large-scale Danish study finds no evidence that wearing a face mask significantly minimizes people’s risk of contracting COVID-19. The randomized-control trial found no statistically significant difference in coronavirus infection rates between mask-wearers and non-mask-wearers. In fact, according to the data, mask usage may actually increase the likelihood of infection.” (“Major study finds masks don’t reduce COVID-19 infection rates,” “The Federalist,” Nov. 18, 2020.)

As with nearly all Lefties and Leftie “opinion,” however, Mr. “Drake’s Take” pays lip service only to true “facts” and “science”; when the rubber actually hits the road, such dogmatic dreck gets rolled up and smoked like a cheap cigar.

Hmmm … Now there’s an idea … Maybe we should just call this Wyofile garbage “Drake’s Dreck”? It would at least be refreshingly honest for a change.

Or, take another longtime Wyofile contributor, Mr. Dustin Bleizeffer. Like Mr. Drake, he calls himself a “journalist,” but you won’t find much of his opinion on Wyofile; no, if you want to get a real feel for how Mr. Bleizeffer thinks, you need to go check out his Twitter feed under the handle of @DBleizeffer.

Here, for instance, is what Mr. Bleizeffer had to say about the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and “no-fly” lists: “I do not want to fly with anyone who stormed the Capitol to terrorize Congress and overthrow our democracy. Report those who participated, put each individual on trial and serve justice.” (Twitter.com, Jan. 10.)

And another sampling, just to give you a richer flavor: “’Newly installed metal detectors’ – they’re new? Also, what about racist, cultural and environmentally fascist horned headed gear detectors? Zip-tie detectors? Fascist mob detectors?” (Jan. 12.)

Based on these tweets, and several other tweets and retweets like them, it certainly doesn’t stretch the imagination too much to consider Mr. Bleizeffer as a strong advocate of law-and-order, does it?

Except that two days after the Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd, he was tweeting a different tune completely:

“It would be wise to strip police of all weapons and ‘authority’ to use any force whatsoever. ‘Police’ chiefs need to mandate de-escalation measures among the ranks and furlough those cops who are not up to the task of de-escalation.” (May 30, 2020.)

Other than that one tweet regarding the disarming of police, however — something similar to building a car without wheels or an engine, and just about as stupid — you’ll search Mr. Bleizeffer’s tweetstorms in vain for hardly any other mention of the rioting that took place over the entire summer of 2020.

So, apparently it’s OK, in Mr. Bleizeffer’s mind, for Leftie politicians to say things like:

■ “Everyone beware. They’re not gonna stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after election day … They’re not gonna let up, and they should not.” — Kamala Harris, 2020 —

■ “Show me where it says that protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful.”— Chris Cuomo, 2020 —

■ “I will go and take Trump out tonight!” — Maxine Waters, 2017 —

■ “I just don’t know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be …” — Nancy Pelosi, 2018 —

But these statements aren’t to be considered to “seditious” and “insurrectionist”? Or to be thought of as an “overthrow of democracy”? Or, as in the case of Ms. Waters, as murder threats? Are you kidding me?

And more: Apparently it’s OK, in Mr. Bleizeffer’s mind, for people to sign up for Leftie hate groups such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter (“Pigs in a blanket! Fry ‘em like bacon!”), and to go out and burn down police stations, establish anarchic “CHAZ” zones, loot businesses, assault courthouses and police, light the streets on fire and murder Trump supporters.

Commit those kinds of crimes, Dear Readers, and you’re good to go! Mr. Bleizeffer, along with all the rest of his Leftie “journalist” lackeys, will open up their arms to you and sing your praises to the skies.

Dare to tell protesters to “peacefully and patriotically” march to the Capitol to have your “voices heard,” however — or be one of the Trump supporters who attended that rally — and you’re in big trouble, whether you actually took part in the lawlessness of Jan. 6 or not. Now, you’re “domestic terrorists” and worthless slime who ought not to even be allowed on an airplane any longer.

Isn’t the principle clear by now? If you’re conservative, capitalist or a Trump supporter, you’re just “rubes”  who have no rights and deserve to be scapegoated out of existence; but if you’re a Leftie, anything goes.

And this, Dear Readers, is what passes for “objective opinion” in “journalism” today — with this kind of filth being echoed everywhere you care to turn by ABC, NBC, CNN, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fox News or MSNBC. Et cetera. Ad infinitum. 24/7/365.

And how is it, one can’t help but wonder, that these reverberations of “opinion” repeat themselves so consistently throughout the “journalist” echo-chamber? And how is it that such parrotings dovetail so well with state-supported propaganda? It’s almost as if there’s a single puppet-master up above, pulling all the chains of all these contemptible little puppets all at the same time, so that they all dance jerkily to the same sorry tune.

Ah, but we’re going to have to dig a little deeper than the front page of sensationalist newspaper headlines to figure that one out. But it’s really quite clear when you think about it … Our “journalist” media operates in lock-step with our statist politics because they both emanate from the same source: Our ideas.

Ten generations ago, it was our good ideas of life, liberty, property, individualism and personal self-responsibility that created the United States of America in the first place — and it has been our bad ideas of tyranny, enslavement, collectivism and death that we have allowed to wipe them out.

Consequently, it is only with a resurrection of the ideas enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that we’ll ever have any chance of experiencing any of those freedoms ever again.

And that, Dear Readers, will be the story of the century — if we can only find someone capable of covering it.

Next Up:

Today’s Destruction of Journalism, Part III:
Big Tech’s Restrictions Reminiscent of Commie/Nazi Purges

Bradley Harrington is a computer technician and a writer who lives in Cheyenne and blogs at https://reignitinglibertystorch.com. Email: brad@reignitinglibertystorch.com.

Back to top of column
Back to top of blog