A free press is essential to a democratic republic.  Our Founders knew this in their marrow.  Unfortunately, as recent events have proven, we no longer have one.  Bizarrely, those in the mainstream media have muzzled themselves, locked their minds and souls in a prison of their own making, and relinquished their integrity for power and the affirmation of their peers.  They will not hold their own feet to the fire.  They won't speak truth to themselves. They may not even realize what it is any longer.

Today, the "Fourth Estate" literally wouldn't report it if they came across information proving that Joe Biden was a Russian stooge, though they've spent years trying to find evidence that President Trump might be.  (Biden is, apparently, a stooge for China.)  In light of their breathtakingly universal — and steadfast — refusal to report on the shocking Hunter Biden laptop revelations and the multiple, credible instances of graft and payola in which Joe Biden himself was almost certainly involved, mainstream media outlets have revealed themselves to be nothing more than members of an authoritarian, shockingly close-minded leftist cult.  I am left with no doubt that if conclusive proof surfaced that Joe Biden recently raped an underage girl at a Church of Satan gathering while texting Vladimir Putin asking for a substantial campaign contribution, not one single legacy media outlet would report it.

How times have changed.  America's reverence for a free press can be traced all the way back to Cato's Letters, a collection of essays criticizing the British political system that were written by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, under the pseudonym Cato, and published between 1720 and 1723.  (Cato was a Roman soldier, senator, historian, and outspoken critic of corruption in the late Roman Republic.  He was a man of moral integrity, immune to bribes and graft.)  Those letters offered a vigorous defense of freedom of speech and conscience.  

The Founders wanted to codify these principles.  And they did.  After America declared independence and (eventually) ratified the Constitution, it also adopted the Bill of Rights.  This was done to make absolutely certain there would be no mistaking what rights its citizens possessed.  The Bill of Rights (for those of you voting for the Harris-Biden ticket) comprised the first ten amendments to the Constitution.  The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech and freedom of the press, and it was adopted on December 15, 1791.  For well over 220 years, the press, in general, with notable exceptions, has interpreted its freedom mandate as an obligation to inform the republic's citizens without significant bias, wherever a worthy story might lead.

No longer.  It is now unreservedly engaged in an attempt to systematically dismantle America as it was founded.  Think that is an exaggeration?  It is not.  That is why it is wholeheartedly cheering on those who want to do away with the Electoral College and pack the court.  It's why those in the mainstream media — ironically — seem to disdain the First Amendment and want to repeal the Second Amendment.  And why they support those who have literally dismantled and destroyed statues and monuments...and those who distort our history.  It is also why they no longer act as a free press would, but as utterly shameless champions of a one-party socialist state.  They have excused or supported those engaged in ritualistic orgies of speech suppression on college campuses, even while proclaiming that "Democracy Dies in Darkness."  They have made a mockery of their own slogans.  And themselves.  They utilize their visceral hatred of President Trump and his tendency to exaggerate as an excuse to flat out lie.  They claim those to the right of center have violent tendencies, even as they excuse the looting, pillaging and physical assaults committed by the so-called progressives who they deem to be their constituents.  And they lie about their lying. (As in, "we are the truth."  Sound familiar, New York Times?)  And Big Tech aids and abets them, while cravenly genuflecting toward China, in the hopes of raking in cash.

Thomas Jefferson said: "I have sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny over the minds of man."

Today's "journalists" say: "We have sworn eternal hostility to the minds of those who dare to disagree with us."  So they try to stifle dissent, ban the truth, and cancel reality.  Tragically, they are, in a very real sense, a clear and present danger to the republic.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain.