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Yet if the press—which would become our consensus media—was, as fourth estate, a newcomer to the estates of the realm, the last of the estates is younger still.

Our fifth estate being armed enforcement.

Where, in historical past, a capacity for the enactment of violence might variously—though in different measure and with different expediency—be organized by any of the estates of a realm, and subsequently such capacity would come to be monopolized by the sovereign, same has since metastasized.