May 08, 2003
That tears it: Bill O'Reilly is a useless prick
Fox's Bill O'Reilly just now finally proved to me he's an arrogant, know-nothing populist asshole: he just called the (libertarian) Reason Foundation "a left-leaning organization". This, after last night's treatment of radio talk show host Neil Boortz, convinces me that O'Reilly has no understanding of the term "constitutional republic".
Posted by Russell Whitaker at May 8, 2003 05:03 PM | TrackBackLibertaria is left of the right, just as it is right of the left.
I recently reached the conclusion that, insofar as political right and left have any coherent meaning, right stands for stability and left for equality; freedom is independent of both of these, so it's no wonder that both right and left get confused.
Posted by: Anton Sherwood on August 9, 2004 06:47 PMIn popular usage, left stands for omnipotent government with a Robin Hood Mission. It follows that right should be the opposite of that. If so, National Socialists were leftists just as international socialists like Trotsky were also leftists. As for populists, a glance at the 1972 book "A Populist Manifesto" by Jack Newfied and Jeff Greenfield puts them rather far to the left. O'Reilly is too skeptical of government to deserve that label, but his ranting about such matters as gasoline prices could become excuses forleftist policies.
By the same logic, libertarians are right. Exactly right.
Posted by: Alan Reynolds on October 5, 2005 11:20 AM