Listening to ESPN radio yesterday while stuck in local traffic,Tony Kornheiser argued that he was tired of local politicians announcing their broader domestic policy agenda, let alone their foreign policy position. Who cares what the mayor thinks about those issues? All we should be concerned about are the 3 S's: Schools, Safety, Services. We want quality schools, we want to walk our streets without worry, and we want our garbage picked up. Other than that, Kornheiser reasoned, and government need not be meddling in our lives.
On the same show Kornheiser attacked the populist rhetoric used to denounce "hedge-fund managers" who have made significant money over the past year. Kornheiser argued that these guys didn't get any TARP money and didn't ask to be bailed out, but instead worked hard to figure out how to make money for their clients and in doing so earned every penny they have gotten.
I realize that the probability that Kornheiser is John Stossel in sports clothing is very low, but his 5 minute rant did make my frustration due to insane local traffic temporarially go away.
Kornheiser is actually a big liberal but he recently had his own bout with the PC police. It looks like that experience may have smacked some reason back into his thinking.
Posted by: Craig Bardo | April 02, 2010 at 09:08 AM
Yes, Craig.
I was about to comment on that irony (being a liberal).
I dunno. This wouldn't be the first time a heard a self-proclaimed liberal sound like anything but a modern liberal in a moment of honest candor.
We have often read that cultural stances define partisan leanings rather than economic issues or political economy. Maybe it's true.
My personal...yet unscientific...opinion is that most partisan people are more libertarian/classical liberal when viewing their immediate life around them and then are driven to common labels of liberal/conservative on "the picture" at a federal/national level with more murky and muddled reasoning because they are detached from it all in their everyday life.
This idea is drawn on in Caplan's book "The Myth of the Rational Voter". I agree.
At the risk of projecting my own views through all other libertarians, I think libertarians are different than the 2 monolithic worldviews in America in that we carry that local micro-level view to a "big picture" level...on almost all issues.
Posted by: John V | April 03, 2010 at 11:54 AM
3 "S's?" I say forget schools and services, just keep us safe.
Let the free market provide schools and services.
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