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| John Stossel's conclusion | | Date Created: May 29, 2006, 12:21 PM |
 The following is the conclusion from John Stossel's new book, Myth Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel -- Why Everything You Know Is Wrong.
I have no relation to Amazon.com or to John Stossel (other than graduating four years apart from Princeton) and I highly recommend the rest of the book but I thought the conclusion was just what I wish I could say.
So here it is without permission:
"CONCLUSION
MYTH: John Stossel is a conservative.
TRUTH: I'm a libertarian.
PEOPLE CALL ME A CONSERVATIVE.
I understand why. The publisher of my last book called me the “Scourge of the Liberal Media" on the cover. Liberal writers call me "that conservative on ABC." Not that they actually know what the word means — to many in the mainstream media, "conservative" seems to mean anyone they don’t trust or don't like. They even call extreme leftists, like Soviet and Chinese communists, "hard-line conservatives."
In New York City, where I live, "conservative" is a terrible thing to be. Conservatives are reviled as stuffy, narrow-minded bullies who want to see an authoritarian government that will police the world, police your bedroom, and force everyone to become Fundamentalist Christians.
The stereotypes above are a smear on conservatism, but there is also some truth behind the smear. Many conservatives believe that American troops are very capable of "nation building." Some arc uncomfortable with people who fall outside social "norms." Many want the government to pass laws against behavior they consider immoral.
These are some of the reasons that in 1960, the philosopher F. A. Hayek wrote an essay entitled "Why I Am Not a Conservative." He said, "The conservative position rests on the belief that in any society there are recognizably superior persons whose inherited standards and values and position ought to be protected and who should have a greater influence on public affairs than others."
His words came to life as I watched "fiscally conservative Republicans" expand government even faster than Bill Clinton did. Suddenly, they didn't mind that government was growing, as long as it grew in the ways that they liked.
On the campaign trail, President Bush repeatedly said, "Prosperity must have a purpose," suggesting that it was government's job to figure out that purpose and fund it. But I don't want government telling me what the purpose of profit is; in a thousand different ways, private individuals and companies are better at figuring that out for themselves.
As I write this, Republicans are attacking oil companies for price "gouging," they’re trying to amend the Constitution to ban gays from marrying, and they just created a new Medicare entitlement. If that's conservatism todlay, then it holds little appeal for me.
The way that today’s liberals define themselves doesn’t hold much appeal for me either. The Democrats push destructive policies on behalf of unions, trial lawyers, and other special-interest groups that feed them money. Liberalism has come to mean spending more on everything — speech police, failed poverty programs that reward dependency, a bigger nanny state telling us we cannot eat fatty foods, workplace rules that stifle opportunity, and absurd environmental regulations.
I like the idea of personal freedom that is often put forward by the Democrats, but they never seem to connect that with personal responsibility.
The big government they seek is something I thought Democrats and other professed “friends of the little guy” whould fear. Once you say to government, “You must take care of me,” you invite the government to come in and tell you how to live, who to marry, what lyrics are permissible, and how you can have sex.
I want government to leave people alone. I think people should be free to do anything they want — as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. I may disagree with their choices, but I don’t think The State should take their choices away. If you want to put drugs in your body, burn a flag, or rent yourself out for sexual use, you should be free to do that. If people want to buy or sell a kidney, I say, let them. If a man wants to have sex with another man, that should be his choice.
These are not conservative ideas.
Yet conservatives are at least willing to talk about them. I am continually amazed at how generous conservatives are in debate. Even those who disagree with my ideas welcome me warmly at their conferences. The supposedly “narrow-minded” social conservatives politely hear me out. The liberals, by contrast, don’t want to talk at all.
When I wrote my last book, Give Me A Break, I assummed the high poobahs of the leftist media would be eager to debate my ideas, if only to demonstrate how foolish my arguments were, or to discredit the reporting of their misguided colleague who had gone “over to the dark side,” as one TV writer put it.
The conservatives were eager to have me; I got to discuss my ideas with dozen's of talk-radio hosts and the stars of the Fox News Channel. They made Give Me a Break a best-seller. But the liberal media CNN, NPR, and the New York Times — basically held their noses and ignored me, Where was the “open debate" the liberals always praise? Mostly on the conservative broadcasts. Few conservatives wanted to spend much time debating drug laws (Sean Hannity did), but at least they heard me out.
Liberals wouldn't.
There were a few exceptions: Robert Redford, of all people, flew me out to his Sundance book festival. Alan Colmcs grilled me on his radio program, Larry King eventually had me on; it was only his weekend show, but he said he'd have me back on a weekday. I'm still waiting.
I thought I'd have a shot at a fair debate with Al Franken because we’re acquaintances; our kids went to school together. No such luck. He invited me to his studio, but he ranted so much about what he claimed was a "lie" on page 305 that I could barely explain why he was missing the point.
There wasn't much openness in the "open-minded" liberal media. I found it talking to conservatives.
But that doesn't make me one of them.
So if I'm not a liberal and not a conservative, what can I call myself? The word that comes closest is "libertarian."
It's not a great word. People don't know what it means, or think it means "libertine." Hayek thought the word "libertarian" was too "manufactured" and wished he had a "word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution." Me too. Those ideas, embodied in the writings of John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Adam Smith, are all what was once called "liberalism." It's why many libertarians refer to themselves as "classical liberals." But most people don't know what "classical liberal" means either. What are my other choices? "Volunteerist?" "Consensualist?" "Live-and -let -live-ist?"
I want the word "liberal" back! Today's liberals stole it and perverted it. They've changed it into a philosophy that advocates health police, high taxes, and speech codes and despises the creative liberalism of free markets. "liberal" doesn't mean liberal anymore.
In the eighteenth century, libertarianism, or liberalism, was a reacion against monarchy, the aristocracy, and established religion. The limits on state power embodied in the Declaration and the Constitution offered a liberal alternative to the dictatorship of the central planners. It affirmed that we had “inalienable rights”.
The Founders’ vision of limited government encouraged Americans to voluntarily join with others to help their communities and themselves. It led us to create a nation that is prosperous, free, and peaceful. We have done it not because we were compelled, but because we were free to do so.
I believe that the best thing about America is free people exercising the unalienable rights that the Founding Fathers affirmed: having families, forming communities, and working together — mostly without government.
It’s a very old, very liberal idea. "
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