On Murray Rothbard's 'inevitable law of nature' and its effect on journalism. by Dan Alba
(libertarian)
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
According to America's oldest and largest news organization, the role of the press in a free society is a matter of natural law.
Tom Curley, president and CEO of The Associated Press, explains:
[T]he government’s power is overwhelming. It’s [sic] agents are armed and authorized to use force if they have to. . . . But power will not restrain itself. Those entrusted with it have to be watched. That is not meant as a political statement or a character assessment. It’s just a basic law of nature. The powerful have to be watched, and we are the watchers. [1]
Curley tirelessly pushes for government accountability and the "people's right to know," invoking the Freedom of Information Act and the First Amendment. For this he should be commended. But, as he himself said, "power will not restrain itself." Merely knowingwhat the government is doing can not, alone, restrain the government.
Founder Thomas Jefferson agreed with Curley. Like any shrewd and honest observer of history, he trusted the press to "censor" the government, rather than foolishly trusting the government to restrain itself. Luckily for Curley et al., no FOIA request is needed to cite the most authoritative guide for that restraint.
Writes Ron Paul:
Though written constitutions "may be violated in moments of passion or delusion," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1802, "yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally the people." [2]
Although Jefferson does not say "the press" here, a free press is among "those who are watchful." Anyway, thus should be common sense: no group holds a greater monopoly on power than the national government; so, a free press performs a "watcher" role most effectively when it refers to the authoritative guidelines for the restraint of said power.
Such a press would not necessarily be making a "political statement" or "character assessment" but rather the highest ethical commitment to its self-imposed duty.
'Our Democracy ... Hallowed Be Thy Name'
Jefferson's fellow anti-federalists believed that the Constitution didn't go far enough in limiting the federal government. A more effective power-restraint was defined in the Constitution's predecessor: the Articles of Confederation. But lax as it may be, the Constitution is still the most authoritative guide to the restraint of the federal government's power. As such, Curley's "law of nature" would be best executed with constant, pertinent reference to the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Regrettably though, his peers and editors seem to be guided by another "law of nature" — one that promotes the violence of collectivism as the end-all way to freedom, equality, and so on.
Murray Rothbard explained that for a ruling regime to retain and expand its power, it needs the "support" of its subjects who, if shown an honest (indicting) account of the regime's actions, would just as soon do away with it. "This support," he noted, "need not be active enthusiasm; it may well be passive resignation as if to an inevitable law of nature." [3]
Meanwhile, press-ethics gurus exclaim that this is "our democracy," and that "we" must do this and do that to save it, preserve it, to strengthen it. [4]
This fervid dedication to democracy as a civic inevitablility prevents the effective execution of Curley's natural law of the power-restraining press. Whether knowingly, the press — a.k.a., the "voice for the voiceless" — perpetuates voicelessness when it exalts the very ways and means by which the government acquires and maintains unlawful power to commit aggression.
After all, it is by democratic ways that the government acquires the violent means.
When Congress continues funding aggressive and unconstitutional military wars and occupations, it is justified by democratic vote.
The bankster bailouts are politically immoral, economically destructive, and not allowed by the Constitution; yet they were made "legal" through democracy.
Ironically, public opinion polls consistently show heavy majorities of Americans being opposed to the bailouts and wars. Oops!
Too bad; democracy lends 545 self-aggrandizers the authority.
In any case, such military and economic aggression preserves the liberty, or improves the livelihood, of nobody except government-favored industry, the Pentagon & Co., bureaucrats, lobbyists, and those voting aye. If a journalist implies otherwise, then that journalist's vision of a free society is likely perverted by collectivist laws of nature to which the reporter refers as some ethical guide.
For, a truly free society is not one group and another having the same opportunity to lobby the government against each other, but rather each individual having the same freedom from government and other aggression. In this way, natural rights, as enshrined in the Constitution, are negative rights: they come to every individual from God — you are born with them — therefore they shall not be infringed.
But according to conventional wisdom, civil liberties are groups’ rights, and are "achieved" through government violence; meanwhile, individuals must "invoke" theirs. And when push comes to rare shove, politicians, conventional experts, and news editors will cite Supreme Court decisions and other "legal precedents" which are usually odds with the Constitution and Bill of Rights — asserting that it is lawful and moral because it is federal law or the latest federal-government interpretation of the the bounds of its own power. [5]
By a 5–4 vote, the national government decides whether the national government has acted lawfully. Isn't democracy grand?
Practical Roadblocks
Granted, journalists and politicians are poster children for government indoctrination. An innocuous and supreme central government is the model most Americans are taught through 12–20-year terms in government-run schools. The government, naturally, will promote itself to such captive (coerced) malleable minds.
Moreover, where there is government "action" (constitutional or not) there is job security for news outlets. How is this for a democratic poll: Ask AP's international staffers whether they would fear for their jobs in the wake of a 50% reduction in the United States' military and diplomatic global presence.
Although these realities would seem to hinder the watchdog, they should not excuse poor ethics. A press is not free that fails — or is afraid — to reference the authoritative restraints on the power it supposedly checks.
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1. Tom Curley, "The Hays Press-Enterprise Lecture," ap.org, May 7, 2004. Emphasis mine.
5. See, e.g., the latest AP report on the Chicago residents who are taking their gun-rights issue to the Supreme Court. Though the Tenth Amendment reinforces that the SCOTUS has no such jurisdiction — and though a Fourteenth Amendment clause, cited in the report, contradicts theTenth — the editor omits reference to the Tenth. Instead, as usual, observers are led to believe that the SCOTUS rightfully has unlimited authority over state and local affairs.
Dan Alba is a freelance writer living in the SW region of the USSA. Dan suggests that you support liberty-driven congressional candidates like Jake Towne and Rand Paul.
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