From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Mar 29 2003 - 13:47:23 MST
Mitch writes
> I like Fox as a determined counter-balance to the "major
> networks" and CNN which I have monitored to frequently
> have a Liberal-Bias on foreign policy. FoxNews has a
> Conservative-Rightist bias on foreign policy, and it is
> there that I find myself most in tune with.
Yes, this has got to be correct, and also an honest statement
of how you, Mitch, see the situation. I have found it common
for conservatives, or conservative/libertarians to readily
admit that Fox News has a conservative presentation.
But a telling, peculiar asymmetry exists.
Why is it that liberals are for the most part unable to admit
that the old major network coverage, ABC, NBC, and CBS, have
a liberal bias? Why does some CBS insider like Bernard Goldberg
have to right a book "Bias", or do other writers such as
William McGowan have to write extremely well documented books
like "Coloring the News" to make the point that should have
been obvious to anyone for the last 40 years?
What is it about the left that they cannot admit the truth
concerning something like this? I have two theories. One
is that they so deeply question the legitimacy of conservative
views that by fiat all such views are "right wing extremist"
and hence negligible, no matter how often people like Reagan
or the Bushes are elected to high office. This seems just
rather blind.
My other theory is that the left has inherited a tradition,
or aspects of a tradition, that goes all the way back to Lenin.
In revolutionary Russia, Lenin and his followers labeled
themselves the Bolsheviks, or "Majority". It was a conscious
political move to (evidently) subtly affect the semantics of
the discourse, so that they'd retain a psychological advantage.
Ever since, many on the left appear to believe that they possess
a special dispensation from God or someone to have pre-eminence
in political matters. The most glaring example is the advent
on university campuses in the 1980s and 1990s of the "politically
correct" movement. This notion was sincerely held by many that
their adversaries held a palpably "incorrect" view---shades of
Vladimir Lenin! That they could embrace such a fantastical
notion that their views were nearly by definition *correct*
only bespeaks the degree to which this special dispensation
is and was entertained by them.
I have always been eager to find any examples of non-symmetry
between opposing ideologies, because on most counts, e.g.,
intelligence, morality, education, acquaintance with the facts,
"common sense", etc., the sides are of course quite equally
balanced.
Lee
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