Journalist Schmernalist

The Epoch Times has an article about Steve Baker, journalist arrested for some trumped up somethingorother related to the Jan 6 not-an-insurrection. Steve Baker, on the Jan. 6 Front Lines and in the DOJ’s Crosshairs | The Epoch Times

Worth a read, but here I don’t want to go deep into Mr. Baker’s case or why he was arrested.  None of that. It is all too disturbingly tyrannical an abuse of process. Not much to be said, really. The whole thing is un-American, evil, shameful and what else? There is, however, one point from the article I want to key in on. What is the definition of ‘journalist?’  This to me is a big deal, a big red herring, and all of us should get that linguistic nonsense straight in our collective American mind. The Constitution is pretty clear.  One of the enumerated freedoms is freedom of the press.  But the ‘press’ is a machine, a technology, in the same manner as the ‘arms’ to which we have an enumerated right to bear.  The freedom wasn’t assigned to any group or category of people. It is a freedom all of us have. There should be absolutely no category of people with some enhanced right to observe, record or report on the activities of our government. Here and there the practicalities of space and time might excuse a limitation on access. We can understand some reasonable management of access to certain events and people.  But not because the individuals seeking the access are more or less ‘journalists.’  There is no such constitutional category.  We should consider ‘journalist’ a legal non-thing.  We are all journalists, constitutionally-speaking. The abuse of Mr. Baker should not revolve around some false category of rights-holder. He had a right to be where he was, or to any extent he didn’t, it was the most minor of access infractions. The contemptibles at the DOJ didn’t arrest him for that, did they? They arrested him because he exercised the freedom of opinion, broadcast and publication that we all have. They abuse all of us along with Mr. Baker. We need to find out and not forget the specific names of the individuals who ordered his arrest. When it becomes physically possible, those individuals need to be investigated and prosecuted for abuse of process and violation of rights.