Fundamentals of Anglophonic Common Law

[Steve Kinney]

On 5/23/19 1:41 AM, Ryan Carboni wrote:

> The government is made of institutions. The press is an institution.

Institution:  A facility where people are locked up for their own good
and the safety of society at large.

Institutionalized:  Confined in an institution, or, a personality
rendered dependent and passive-aggressive by prolonged confinement in an
institution.

> The government makes the law, but it doesn't do so in a commonly
> acknowledged fashion, it does so by prejudicing the result, if the law
> is weak in an area. This is how new laws are passed, this is how old
> laws are reinterpreted.
> 
> Usually the press frames a situation as a moral issue, and either juries
> would see it as such, or legislators would.

The press serves two markets at once:  Their audience and their patrons.
 To acquire and keep audiences, press outlets report "news" as a series
of engaging dramas, in a context that encourages readers to identify
with players in the stories presented.  To acquire and keep patrons
(advertisers or grant writers), press outlets must frame their stories
in a context that supports the utility, desirability and/or practical
necessity of the products, services, etc. offered by their patrons.

The State serves one market:  The wealthy and powerful.  This service
consists  of codifying and enforcing the "rights" of absentee landlords,
providing arbitration processes for settling disputes among their
patrons, and providing armed enforcement services to maintain an
environment favorable to commerce.

The Press and the State answer to the same masters, and they serve
mutually supportive roles.  Where apparent conflicts between the News
Media and the Government do not present as empty posturing, they reflect
policy disputes among a country's rulers.  Press criticisms of the State
do not rise to the level of questioning the "legitimacy" of State
institutions and authority - at most the press presents symbolic and/or
self-defeating models of rebellion.

> Perhaps the average Trump supporter doesn't understand why they support
> Trump, nor does the average Democrat, but one thing is clear, if the
> allegations against Trump are true, they would vote out the entire
> government. There is a certain ridiculousness to it all. The press is
> publishing leaks on tangentially related items to the Trump
> investigation, the Trump investigation seems political motivated because
> they haven't charged anyone with what Republicans would see as valid
> crimes, but even if it was focused.... Hyperbole like "hack the
> election", "Alfa bank data laundering", if true, would be incredible.
> 
> This seems to be a systematic mishandling and inability to actually
> prosecute competently. If the honest truth was released, people would
> see it for what it is, not even a circus, but a clownshow.

We can call the massive inertia of a collective delusion controlling
hundreds of millions of people from cradle to grave a "clown show" if we
want to pretend that we are above all that.  This Olympian viewpoint,
compliant with indoctrination by State, Media and Academic institutions,
presents as an example of "institutionalization."  But as a matter of
blunt fact, a civilization built on a foundation on murder and
intimidation, hell bent on destroying the planetary ecosystem that makes
its own existence possible presents very few laughs.  Rather the opposite.

The mocking laughter some indulge in seems to indicate internal
pressures that might, if not diverted to fuel a perception of personal
superiority, lead to actually rebellious activities.  That would not do.
 All properly institutionalized individuals know their place in the
status hierarchy and rebel only when and as they are told.  Like any
other animals habituated to their cages these folks may complain loudly,
but pretend they do not even notice open doors and gates - what lies
beyond represents the Unknown or even... horror of horrors... anarchy.

:o/






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