Budget cuts have so reduced an Oregon county sheriff's department that armed vigilantes have formed to take up the slack. Think George Zimmerman on steroids. Not surprisingly, FoxNews.com has some glowing words.
From the article by FoxNews.com's Stephanie McNeal, surely on her way to a promotion:
When budget woes reduced the sheriff's department in one rural Oregon county to a bare-bones force, residents decided to take matters into their own hands -- creating armed patrol groups in defiance of local officials.
Their decision has raised safety concerns with the county government, which would prefer residents instead hike their own taxes to fund the hiring of trained deputies. But despite the risks, the move stands as a unique, some would say innovative, response to one of the country's most severe local budget crunches.
...
(The) community watch group, looking to fill in the law enforcement cracks, now meets once a month to discuss crime and teach its approximately 100 members about personal safety. The group also has a trained “response team,” which consists of 12 people who will respond to the scene of a reported non-life-threatening situation if called.
Although McNeal notes that the group believes "there is no substitute for well-trained law enforcement," and she quotes a county commissioner as saying that neighborhood watch groups "fail a little in the reality side," she also wrote that, according to the group's organizer, "they feel they have no other choice but to protect their community." That's her paraphrase, not a quote.
Actually, there is another choice, which is to pass a tax levy to make up for a budget shortfall caused by the loss of federal timber subsidies. To be fair, McNeal does give space to the county commissioner to explain why more funding is "the only real solution."
But in the Fox wonderland of no government and guns for all, amateur militias are presented as a perfectly reasonable, "some would say innovate" alternative.
I have given you specific examples where Fox News has demonstrated its bias and its intentions. Please provide examples of where CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and local news stations functioned specifically and deliberately as propaganda machines.
I’ll even give you one – in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times ran coverage by Judith Miller that promoted US intervention. This coverage has since been completely debunked, but it definitely served to enhance George W. Bush’s fraudulent case for war against Iraq. I’m not sure that this is the propaganda you’re thinking of, but it certainly had a disastrous effect. I have a feeling you’re thinking that the media propagandizes in the other direction, and the history simply doesn’t bear out that idea. There are plenty of right wing pundits who would like to convince people of this, but their opinion simply isn’t buttressed by reality.
This website is filled past the brim with example after example of precisely the bias and fact manipulation you are claiming is not as much of an issue elsewhere.
Even if we were to completely ignore the pundit shows on Fox News, which comprise most of their viewership numbers, we would still be left with multiple, multiple examples of blatant right wing spin. Bret Baier’s show regularly has a panel, in which Charles Krauthammer will drive a discussion about how dire things are for Democrats and for President Obama. On the evening when President Obama was re-elected, Krauthammer took time during the election coverage to attack the President for his campaign, and Bill O’Reilly took a minute to say that this was all due to people wanting to get free stuff.
Throughout 2012, Fox News was replete with predictions of impending doom for President Obama and a landslide for candidate Mitt Romney. Polls showing the reverse were discounted on pretty much all of the Fox News programs and anchors regularly expressed their belief that President Obama simply couldn’t win. Dick Morris and Karl Rove were given multiple platforms and spotlit while they offered “analysis” of how these assertions were true. Of course, this all turned out to be right wing desperation in the face of the actual facts, which had always shown Romney losing in precisely the way it happened.
During pretty much any major news story, Fox News has repeatedly applied a right wing spin to whatever the story is. If it’s Trayvon Martin being shot to death by George Zimmerman, Fox News plays up any material that paints Martin as a dangerous threat and Zimmerman as a guy who had no choice but to shoot Martin. That, in the face of the factual evidence showing that Zimmerman initiated the confrontation and had a demonstrable history of violence. If it’s any potential scandal involving a GOP Presidency, whether it be the Valerie Plame affair, the firing of the attorneys, the WMD scam that led gullible people to agree to invade Iraq, or the total collapse of the economy during the W. Bush years, Fox News downplays any wrongdoing and refuses to cover the matter as an actual news story. Instead, they’ll spin whatever facts they can to try to rewrite the history or blame someone else, anyone else. If it’s any potential scandal involving a Democrat President, then Fox News comes in guns-a-blazing. We’ve already have at least six “major” scandals in the Obama Administration, if you were to listen to Fox News, and every time, Fox News anchors have spun the situation to demand impeachment. That, in the face of the reality that the situations are nothing like the earth-shattering matters that Fox News has purported them to be. In multiple, demonstrable cases like Fast & Furious and Benghazi and the IRS, Fox News has completely misrepresented the facts. In cases like the ACA, Fox News has worked to scare people away from signing up for the exchanges, using completely debunked talking points to do so.
We should also keep in mind that Fox News was never intended to be an unbiased news channel. It was designed by Roger Ailes as a right wing alternative to mainstream news outlets like CNN and the regular networks. Bias was in the plan from the very beginning.
I agree that anyone watching any media channel should take what is presented with skepticism. But the notion that Fox News is somehow LESS biased doesn’t hold water when it’s held up to the light of day.
Only someone in hyperreality who’s seen “The Punisher” way too many times to be consistent with good mental health would think vigilantism is awesome, because every other depiction of it shows how it makes things worse. Even Batman (the Nolan movies in particular) show how it creates worse problems by not properly assessing who needs targeted when.
And trust me… Real life vigilantes don’t even get in the ballpark of what they do stop being worth that.
I would respond that some would call this approach frightening. There’s a reason we don’t have gangs of armed vigilantes acting as our policemen. We have an established public police force, which we can regulate. A group of guys running around with guns, without any public accountability, should terrify any sane person, don’t you think?
