Jefferson believed in a free press while having nothing but contempt for journalists and newspapers, which is basically the correct view. He also told them “shut up” but in more eloquent ways:
🔹“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle…I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.”
🔹“A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of Newspaper lies, serves like headlands to correct our course. indeed my scepticism as to every thing I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.”
🔹“From 40. years experience of the wretched guesswork of the newspapers of what is not done in open day light, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, & almost never worth notice.”
https://www.monticello.org/the-art-of-citizenship/the-vitality-of-a-free-press/quotes/
Just incredible. After posting a meme blaming Charlie Kirk for his own murder, they post another a few hours later applauding Democrats for their civility.
Also, if you look at the Occupy Democrats timeline, their posts “denouncing political violence” were variations on “no one should be shot…BUT here’s a quote from Kirk showing he’s a terrible person.” Or sometimes they’d leave the first part out altogether and just attack him. There are no posts denouncing violence without qualifiers trying to gin up their base.
