Category: Fleming

There are countless books and articles on the press: its history, its role in defining democracy, its problems, its scandals.  What is hard to find is a serious discussion of the fundamental dishonesty, the trivial huckstering that characterizes even the best newspapers.  I once had dinner with a distinguished European scholar, who, with a little encouragement, asked me why there was so little freedom of discussion in the United States.  Was it due to the village mentality described by Tocqueville?  Or was it merely the effect of the tight grip of the media oligarchy?  If the latter was true, how...

Most Americans are convinced that they live in a democracy.  Who can blame them?  They have been told nothing else throughout their lives.  Until not too long ago, there had been a remnant of conservatives who insisted that the Founding Fathers had established a republic, but the constant jeers from the Leftist Mainstream have apparently forced them to drop this affectation.  

We live by our opinions.  While other people’s opinions are called illusions, if they pose no threat to our interests, and prejudices if they do, we call our own opinions “truth” or fundamental principles, if we are fools; if we are more cautious we prefer to speak of theories and hypotheses