A free press and whistleblowers are essential to democracy. Without a free press & whistleblowers democracy cannot function.
The scariest part of what you said is not that it's true, it's that you're being down voted for saying it.
The scariest part of what you said is not that it's true, it's that you're being down voted for saying it.
> "A free press and whistleblowers are essential to democracy. Without a free press & whistleblowers democracy cannot function."
are applause lights that contribute nothing of substance to this conversation.
Pick a bunch of random people-- hell, even random politicians-- and ask them if a free press is essential to democracy. I guarantee you 100% of them will say yes, and probably 100% of them actually believe it and aren't just cynical liars. This suggests that the causes of this muzzling are deeper than people simply not realizing how important a free press is, and that the solutions are more complex than repeating two-sentence mantras that everyone already agrees with.
"Everyone" is a colloquialism meaning "most reasonable people" in this case.
The reality is that there aren't a lot of places where there's anything close to an absolute freedom of speech or the press. America really sticks out as an anomaly there, by having it written into the constitution. If it were really a strong part of a nation's culture, you'd think this wouldn't be so unusual, but it is, and in fact other western nations have laws completely contrary to this to some degree. Just look at the UK, where the truth is not an absolute defense against libel.
What does ignoring the (debatable[1]) bulk of a post - arguing that democracies should support whistleblowers, rather than persecuting them - and simply downvoting because of a repeated platitude, contribute to the conversation?
[1] Unless you think "everyone" believes Manning, Snowden and Assange should be freed/supported.