In one of the most chilling articles I have read in recent years my favorite curmudgeon, journalist Fred Reed, details a Federal judge’s seven requirements for a person to be considered a journalist, and therefore tolerated by the government. The level of circulation enjoyed by bloggers who are not under the government thumb has some government goons worried. Really, I’m thinking 10 years tops and people like Fred and myself will be arrested for posting unvetted articles online.

If you think about it from a tyrant’s point of view, the fact that many a blogger, who generally do not care if they make any money [which is the way print publishers are controlled by government], reaches more readers per month than many a small town newspaper has got to raise concerns among the surveillance-state elite. A guy like Fred gets more reads then he did when he slaved for a major print newspaper. That has got to be bad news in tyrannical circles. Merely a decade after the press was entirely put in the government pocket, our masters now have to contend with a guerilla army of opinion.

If you hate judges and other ivory tower types, you will love this article. It is Fred at his best.

This article was a May 31 2014 posting. The June article above it is the best piece of antiwar writing I have read in recent years.