That's a hoot. I'm cheering the thousands of sources available to me now, alternatives to a news heirarchy that DID "monopolize information" for years.

Today I can write things that have the potential for a world-wide audience, when years ago if you didn't work for a news organization, your only hope of getting your stuff out to a reasonably wide audience was a mimeograph machine or the vain hope the paper would print your letter.

In case you haven't been paying attention, I'm the one who's on the side of decentralizing things, not creating or supporting monopolies.

^It's a strategy you see a lot of here on this board; when a debate arises on how much government regulation is necessary to monitor or control an economic or political process, the question is reframed so that there are only two alternatives, total government tyranny and control, or total freedom.^

This is not actually true, but I can see why you'd want it to be. I frame these discussions in terms of a vector between tyranny and liberty. Which way do we go along that vector to solve a problem? Have we gone too far in one direction already? Has it solved the problems? How many years can we go along the particular vector we are on before the extreme becomes a reality? Can we learn anything from nations that are further along that route right now? Are some nations going the other way? Why?

I consider it significant that "progressives" have never offered a solution for any major issue that does not travel further along the vector toward statism. Never. In all cases, the solutions involve more power and wealth tranferred to the government, and less individual choice and freedom.

^And of course, we all understand "freedom" is better than "tyranny". That distinction has already been determined for us, linguistically, not politically or philosophically.^

I'm not sure I understand this sentence. I hope it doesn't mean what it sounds like. Can you elaborate?