Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes" fame used to respond to claims that he was too liberal with his own self serving definition of liberal. "If liberal means ... then yes, I'm a liberal." And it made him seem like such a wonderful human being. But he conveniently neglected to include any of the negatives that necessarily accompany liberalism, negatives that more often hurt than help.
So what is "rightwing?" Newmarksdoor provides a link to a delightful interview with historian and documentarian Niall Ferguson who provides this wonderful description of "Rightwing." See.
"Ask me not are you rightwing, but ask me are you a committed believer in individual freedom, the values of the enlightenment? Then, yeah, if being rightwing means believing Adam Smith was right, both in the Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments, then I'm rightwing. If being rightwing is thinking that Karl Marx's doctrine was a catastrophe for humanity, then I'm rightwing. If you think that it's rightwing to say that the welfare state has trapped 10-20% of the population of western Europe in a dependency culture, an abyss of social failure, then I'm rightwing."
Mike Wallace could have learned a thing or two from that guy.
Coming up: What is a wingnut?
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