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Al Gore Gave Us the Internet. Now He Wants to Take It Away.
Review of Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason" (Book Excerpt)

Printable Version

by Jason Roth

A dozen other articles will be titled "Al Gore's Assault on Reason", so I opted for the old stand-by: an "Al Gore invented the Internet" joke. Interestingly, in the book excerpt published by Time, Al Gore barely even mentions the Internet until near the end. He pulls a mildly clever bait and switch in order to propose a complete government take-over of the Internet.

I encourage you to read the entire chapter. It's interesting to observe the mind of a huckster and dimestore philosopher with the aspirations of a dictator. Gore has already been fighting a war on industrial civilization. He's now opening up a new front against free speech. As can be expected from an aspiring dictator, his war against free speech will be fought under its exact opposite premise. He wants to control speech in order to keep it free.

Let's start looking at the chapter by observing the way he slithers his way into a point. What struck me was the fifth paragraph, when he writes:

"...for the first time in American history, the Executive Branch of our government has not only condoned but actively promoted the treatment of captives in wartime that clearly involves torture, thus overturning a prohibition established by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War."

Gore makes no attempt to explain or defend this comment. He states it as if it's a self-evident truth. This leads to only one conclusion: he is preaching to his choir. Why preach to the choir? To build up his emotional case. This is a tried and true technique of laying down a series of emotional, unproven but previously accepted beliefs, then quietly dropping the bomb. The goal is that no one will realize it's a bomb, because the drooling bastards are so goddamn exhausted from nodding their heads.

Let's jump immediately, as Al Gore does in the very next paragraph, to his definition of "reason".

"Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American democracy."

As corrupt a formulation of reason as this is, it also has the added benefit of being pitifully sloppy. According to Gore, "reason" (or at least "the power of reason") entails "debate" between citizens. But Gore goes beyond that. I don't think it is a coincidence that he includes a concept like governance in his package-deal definition. Reason itself, as formulated by Gore, is both a thought process and an action of a group. Tell that to a halfway respectable neurologist. Or the guy who invented fire.

It's worth emphasizing: Al Gore defines reason as an attribute of the group, not of the individual. Let that sink in.

Now, let's look at some of his further techniques as he builds up to his emotional crescendo. (I never thought I'd be saying Al Gore had an emotional anything, but you live and learn.)

"In 2001, I had hoped it was an aberration when polls showed that three-quarters of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on Sept. 11."

For Gore not to cite a specific poll and a specific question means he has no interest in appealing to anyone's reason. Anyone with a positive IQ who follows politics knows that the results of polls can vary drastically based on how questions are worded. The unnamed, multiple polls which Al Gore refers to may have asked "Do you believe Saddam Hussein was connected to the attacks of Sept. 11?", or they may have asked, "Do you believe that Saddam Hussein flew over the fucking island of Manhattan shooting Scud missiles out of his ass?" Each would imply a different degree of responsibility. But Al Gore clearly has no interest in the clarity of his communication.

Incidentally, later in the same paragraph, Al Gore himself uses the intentionally vague term "connected": "More than five years later, however, nearly half of the American public still believes Saddam was connected to the attack." Clear thinkers don't accept this kind of thinking.

But, now, here comes the part where the sophist stiff really unleashes his sophistry. Look at this interesting and unusual formulation of the first amendment:

"Thus they ["Our Founders"] not only protected freedom of assembly, they made a special point—in the First Amendment—of protecting the freedom of the printing press. And yet today, almost 45 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers. Reading itself is in decline."

Think of your own experiences thinking about and discussing the freedom of speech. How often has the phrase "freedom of the printing press" made an appearance? How often have you heard others use it? This is another moment when I asked myself: "Hmm, what is this guy up to?"

The answer is that Al Gore formulates the first amendment as "freedom of the printing press" in order to imply that the Constitution lacks text protecting non-printing presses; i.e., electronic presses. Later in the chapter, Al Gore generously volunteers to step in and be its protector.

But first, Gore takes a nice, long swipe at another electronic medium: television.

"According to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of 4 hours and 35 minutes every day—90 minutes more than the world average."

The name of the authority Gore is referring to can't be much longer than the word "authoritative", can it? Would it kill you to mention the study name, Al? For the record, "Nielsen Media" is one letter short of "authoritative", the company whose survey Gore might be referring to. (The study reports the same number of minutes per American TV viewer that Gore quotes.)

Without mentioning a single exposed nipple, Gore continues to lay the foundation for censorship. He goes on to express his feigned queasiness about his 1984 Senatorial campaign's use of TV commercials to manipulate the polls by an accurately predicted 8.5%.

"I authorized the plan and was astonished when three weeks later my lead had increased by exactly 8.5%. Though pleased, of course, for my own campaign, I had a sense of foreboding for what this revealed about our democracy. Clearly, at least to some degree, the "consent of the governed" was becoming a commodity to be purchased by the highest bidder. To the extent that money and the clever use of electronic mass media could be used to manipulate the outcome of elections, the role of reason began to diminish."

Be still my heart, the big phony had a "sense of foreboding". Al Gore: the man, the myth, the moral giant who can walk with the people. He's willing to advance his political career with help from campaign staff who "manipulate the outcome of elections", yet he is able to draw the moral conclusion that "the 'consent of the governed' was becoming a commodity to be purchased by the highest bidder". Come on, Al. Have your fucking moral cake or eat it. One or the other.

While experiencing his sense of foreboding, Gore completely ignores content: the content of both the messages of his campaign commercials and the content of the viewers' minds. "The role of reason" is not any less important or relevant just because cultural trends can be predicted.

Gore makes it clear that he has had his eye on television for some time: "As a college student, I wrote my senior thesis on the impact of television on the balance of power among the three branches of government." He drives the point home with classic politico terminology: "The potential for manipulating mass opinions and feelings initially discovered by commercial advertisers is now being even more aggressively exploited by a new generation of media Machiavellis."

And now the seeds of emotional build-up masquerading as logical premises begin to sprout:

"And what if an individual citizen or group of citizens wants to enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But too often they are not allowed to do even that."

The big, bad, evil TV conglomerates have rolled out their duct tape and are busy keeping everyone's mouths shut. I guess he wants you to feel sorry for some asshole whose publicity agent couldn't get him on this week's episode of Meet the Press. I get it, Al. The average Joe's lack of access to television deprives them of their "democratic rights" (to manipulate the system, presumably). Come on, Al, MoveOn.org to the part about increasing government regulation.

It's ironic, in that same paragraph, that Gore chooses MoveOn.org as his example of anti-free speech victimhood. Isn't this the group everybody credits as having such incredible, grassroots success? (I guess it's still considered a "grassroots success" even when George Soros pays for the manure.)

It's not until the third from last paragraph when Al Gore starts firing the heavy insinuations: "Fortunately, the Internet has the potential to revitalize the role played by the people in our constitutional framework."

But wait for it, here comes Al Gore to the Internet's rescue:

"[The Internet is] a platform, in other words, for reason. But the Internet must be developed and protected, in the same way we develop and protect markets—through the establishment of fair rules of engagement and the exercise of the rule of law. The same ferocity that our Founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the Internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic."

So, now we have it. Prohibiting the abridgment of the freedom of the press isn't good enough for Gore. It isn't good at all. The Internet must be regulated to remain free. But, the Founding Fathers didn't opt for "fair rules of engagement" in old-fashioned "printing press speech", so what gives Gore the right to impose them on Internet speech?

Throughout the chapter, one might assume that Gore is harping on television because his goal is to demand a federal take-over of that industry. (I don't doubt it's on his list.) Instead, his real goal is to position television as the dead medium. That is, dead for political speech. And here's the heart of it. Gore uses the public's lack of monetary access to television as his excuse for regulating speech on the Internet.

Essentially, Gore asks: "You don't want to be prevented from using the Internet in the same way you're prevented from getting on TV, do you?" His choir responds: "No way, Al! Can you do anything about that?" "Why sure," Gore responds, "The solution is to regulate the Internet now, before it becomes regulated." Dr. Gore wants to put leeches on your body and drain your blood, because your blood is about to get infected and it's the most thorough way to prevent an infection.

The Internet needs no extra "ferocity that our Founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press". The first amendment is perfectly capable of protecting the Internet on its own:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Ayn Rand called the above type of exercise "philosophical detection". I think it's time to update the formulation to "philosophical CSI". The philosophical remains from Al Gore's writing has a remarkable resemblance to a crime scene.

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