Good Intentions

Sitting on flight back home from Orlando. Attended my nephew Michael's HS graduation at the Amway arena. He overcame some serious adversity to finish high school. He's now off to FAMU to pursue an engineering degree. I am so proud of him. He's going to do great things.

Halfway home and reading "A Patriots History of the United States". Came across an interesting passage on the impact of the  early 1800's railroad boom on mail distribution and political power that provides some interesting context for the recent moves by the FCC to protect "real journalism".

Largely due to the growth in railroads and the appearance of special mailing privileges, the distribution of political newspapers grew dramatically in the early 1800's:

"Congressman shipped speeches and other election materials to constituents free, thanks to franking privileges. Partisan concerns also linked post office branches and party-controlled newspapers by reducing the cost of distribution through the mails. From 1800 to 1840, the number of newspapers transmitted rose from 2 million to almost 140 million at far cheaper rates then other printed matter...if the newspapers had paid the same rates as others mails, the transmission costs would have been 700 times higher.

The meeting party system, by 1840, had thus compromised the independence of the mails and a large part of the print media, with no small consequences. Among other defects, the subsidies created incentives to read newspapers rather than books. This democratization of the news produced a population of people who thought they new a great deal about current events, but who lacked the theoretical grounding in history, philosophy, or politics to properly ground their opinions."

It's no wonder the decline of the "mainstream media" causes palpable sense of fear amongst amongst the leftist political elite. They need to control the message lest people discover the true impact of their destructive agenda. The FCC's motives with respect to net neutrality and so-called journalistic integrity has nothing to do with fairness and the public good. They have everything to do with keeping the masses numb and malleable.