I like the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be to hear. It is very distressing to watch your friends and family members slowly lose their grip on reality based on their consumption of unreliable and often fictional media. It's a formula for disaster, and we are living it. I agree with you 100%. :)
Let’s be clear: Manufacturing Consent wasn’t a warning. It was a blueprint; we’ve lived in its footnotes for 40 years. Chomsky and Herman told us exactly how media conglomerates, corporate advertisers, and state interests would collude to launder propaganda through "respectable" channels. What they didn’t fully anticipate was the algorithm. The megaphone became a mirror, feeding each of us a bespoke hallucination until consensus was shattered, fact-checkers were framed as agents, and truth became just one influencer’s opinion.
Now, enter Stewartson’s Amendment Zero — a demand for the Freedom of Reality, the right to inhabit a shared world governed by observable truth rather than precision-engineered delusion. It's not just philosophical; it’s survival logic.
Here’s the real kicker: the First Amendment protects the right to speak, but we never enshrined the right to know. That’s the fatal gap that allowed disinformation to metastasize unchecked while billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk monetized mass psychosis.
This didn’t start with Trump. He’s just the most obvious symptom of a reality-distorting virus that’s been cultivated since Reagan suffocated the Fairness Doctrine and let corporate broadcasters whisper whatever they wanted into America’s ear.
We’re not just uninformed; we’re misinformed by design.
We don’t need digital literacy campaigns. We need a firewall between public cognition and private manipulation. Because when “the People” are fed falsehoods with the same cadence and confidence as gospel, democracy becomes a rigged game of make-believe, and fascists always write the script.
So yes, we need a Zeroth Amendment.
A right to unfiltered, uninterfered-with truth.
A right to make judgments based on reality, not weaponized fantasy.
Until then, every election is a lie dressed in red, white, and bullshit.
Continuing… We are living in a time when so many people want to *escape* from reality. Drugs, “reality TV”, even constant social media. Is it possible or even desirable to craft laws that allow government to “ensure the truth and nothing but the truth”?
That’s starting to sound a lot like “1984” and “Farenheit 451”.
I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of this, but I fail to see the practicality or how it could be implemented while retaining freedom of thought and expression. I’m also not sure the founders with some possible exceptions, wanted the people to live in unaltered reality. Even some who were at least privately infidels, even probably atheist/materialist still believed it was better for the masses to have supernatural beliefs that supposedly encourage moral behavior in them. And, of course, today’s billionaire elites would love for the hoi polloi to believe that it was in their best interest to grin and bear their wage slavery in hopes of an eternal reward in the end. Again, I wholeheartedly agree with you premise and I certainly think it worthwhile to try and find ways to curb the weaponization of (dis)information, but it sure looks like a sticky wicket in a free society. Unfortunately it seems the fascists are all too keen to exploit this feature/bug. I wish I had something more positive to add.
Hi Jim, Is there a way to print out your articles? I want to write my own summary and have print outs of yours to make copies in case they’re removed from the internet.
I set up a book club to start with “On Tyrrany” & want to discuss your work. Lmk.
The only way I’ve found (viewing Substack articles on an iPhone) to copy text is to take a screenshot. Then, open that photo on the phone and select the “text” icon. It will grab the text (now editable) which you can then paste into a Note or an email, etc.
I am in 100% agreement with you, Jim.
I like the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be to hear. It is very distressing to watch your friends and family members slowly lose their grip on reality based on their consumption of unreliable and often fictional media. It's a formula for disaster, and we are living it. I agree with you 100%. :)
Let’s be clear: Manufacturing Consent wasn’t a warning. It was a blueprint; we’ve lived in its footnotes for 40 years. Chomsky and Herman told us exactly how media conglomerates, corporate advertisers, and state interests would collude to launder propaganda through "respectable" channels. What they didn’t fully anticipate was the algorithm. The megaphone became a mirror, feeding each of us a bespoke hallucination until consensus was shattered, fact-checkers were framed as agents, and truth became just one influencer’s opinion.
Now, enter Stewartson’s Amendment Zero — a demand for the Freedom of Reality, the right to inhabit a shared world governed by observable truth rather than precision-engineered delusion. It's not just philosophical; it’s survival logic.
Here’s the real kicker: the First Amendment protects the right to speak, but we never enshrined the right to know. That’s the fatal gap that allowed disinformation to metastasize unchecked while billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk monetized mass psychosis.
This didn’t start with Trump. He’s just the most obvious symptom of a reality-distorting virus that’s been cultivated since Reagan suffocated the Fairness Doctrine and let corporate broadcasters whisper whatever they wanted into America’s ear.
We’re not just uninformed; we’re misinformed by design.
We don’t need digital literacy campaigns. We need a firewall between public cognition and private manipulation. Because when “the People” are fed falsehoods with the same cadence and confidence as gospel, democracy becomes a rigged game of make-believe, and fascists always write the script.
So yes, we need a Zeroth Amendment.
A right to unfiltered, uninterfered-with truth.
A right to make judgments based on reality, not weaponized fantasy.
Until then, every election is a lie dressed in red, white, and bullshit.
Continuing… We are living in a time when so many people want to *escape* from reality. Drugs, “reality TV”, even constant social media. Is it possible or even desirable to craft laws that allow government to “ensure the truth and nothing but the truth”?
That’s starting to sound a lot like “1984” and “Farenheit 451”.
What do you all think?
Amendment Zero. An interesting starting point for a critical discussion. What should a new American Constitution look like?
Nailed it (again), Jim!!
I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of this, but I fail to see the practicality or how it could be implemented while retaining freedom of thought and expression. I’m also not sure the founders with some possible exceptions, wanted the people to live in unaltered reality. Even some who were at least privately infidels, even probably atheist/materialist still believed it was better for the masses to have supernatural beliefs that supposedly encourage moral behavior in them. And, of course, today’s billionaire elites would love for the hoi polloi to believe that it was in their best interest to grin and bear their wage slavery in hopes of an eternal reward in the end. Again, I wholeheartedly agree with you premise and I certainly think it worthwhile to try and find ways to curb the weaponization of (dis)information, but it sure looks like a sticky wicket in a free society. Unfortunately it seems the fascists are all too keen to exploit this feature/bug. I wish I had something more positive to add.
Well said!
Hi Jim, Is there a way to print out your articles? I want to write my own summary and have print outs of yours to make copies in case they’re removed from the internet.
I set up a book club to start with “On Tyrrany” & want to discuss your work. Lmk.
Thanks for what you do!
Jennifer
The only way I’ve found (viewing Substack articles on an iPhone) to copy text is to take a screenshot. Then, open that photo on the phone and select the “text” icon. It will grab the text (now editable) which you can then paste into a Note or an email, etc.
But…that’s a hard road to capture a long article.