When I read,”the Times cheers on our enemies, because they’d rather be right than free”, on Extreme Mortman, I responded with…
Talking about, ‘How anyone can write … unironically is beyond me,’ I can’t believe that someone can say, ‘the Times cheers on our enemies, because they’d rather be right than free,’ earnestly?
What folks who consider the New York Times to be treasonous need to remember is that this is neither Stalinist Russia nor Maoist China… the US is doing its best to be a democracy and a true democracy demands a free press.
A democracy with a free press, ideally, is always going to make it virtually impossible for the military industrial complex — the gang in the Pentagon, in Langley, and in the White House — to maintain secrecy and absolutely strategic and tactical control.
The current climate of anti-terrorist and anti-terrorism is by necessity deceitful, cloak-and-daggers, and black-ops. When it comes to enforcing ethics and morality in a time of war, Neither the government nor the military does a very good job at self-regulating or self-policing during times of peace, many would say, and the free press has always been essential to keeping things honest.
A free press is especially important in a time when the neither the Courts nor the Congress do a very good job at performing their most important and essential obligation: checking and balancing the formidable power of the Bush Administration.
(I wonder if the White House is extorting Supreme Court judges, Congressmen and women, and Senators into their general harmless whining and blustering?)
When the government intimates that we citizens need to be transparent (give up privacy) because good Americans should have nothing to hide, we the people, and our papers, should expect the same level of transparency from our government, our military, our intelligence organizations, and from our police. We’re all just American citizens. No one should be above the law.
The Post is a ‘company paper’ and is far from world class, much more Yellow Lab than Pit Bull. When the Times stops being perceived as a gadfly by Fascistic enemies of freedom and democracy — the sort of people who say ‘the Times cheers on our enemies, because they’d rather be right than free’ — is the moment when America and Americans will surely lose our freedom.
