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Home Front: Culture Wars
John McLaughlin: Freedom is 'Most Overrated' Political Concept
2010-01-05
How out-of-touch is the D.C. pundit class with the rest country? Look to John McLaughlin for the answer.

During part two of "The McLaughlin Group 2009 Year-End Awards," McLaughlin, who has hosted the program since 1982, declared the concept of freedom, at least from a political standpoint in the United States, is overrated.

"The most overrated is freedom," McLaughlin said. "When faced with economic uncertainty, people don't want freedom. When they can't see their economic future, they want the nanny state."
Not when they see the nanny state as the key agent obscuring their economic future.
McLaughlin's troubling view doesn't necessarily square with polling data and other anecdotal indicators. Even back at the height of economic uncertainty, only 30 percent of Americans supported the TARP bailout to save the financial system, according to a September 2008 Associated Press poll.
No doubt Mr. McLaughlin would explain that as conscious desires versus unconscious needs, the latter which he is clearly more qualified to tease out that are the pollsters.
And since then, the entire bailout culture introduced by former President George W. Bush and continued under the presidency of Barack Obama has faced the backlash of the tea party movement, inspired by CNBC's Rick Santelli voicing his opposition to a housing bailout.

Other members of "The McLaughlin Group" pointed to other "most overrated" factors that affect the economy. For MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan, it was global warming overrated. Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, providing the left-of-center voice on the panel, said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was overrated. Conservative talker Monica Crowley called the so-called "boy genius" Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner the most overrated. But U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief Mort Zuckerman took a shot at the leaders in the business community.

"The leaders of most of our major financial institutions in this country," Zuckerman said of the "Most Overrated."
I would be interested to know why it is that that these clever men and women think their choices are overrated, although I am not willing to spend an hour of my time listening to them explain. The nice thing about being able to read is that one can skip to the important bits.
Posted by:Fred

#11  The party would represent the state's interest as well as the party's. So we wouldn't have unfunded mandates on the states or a Department of Education or a nationalized health care system with Medicare costs shoved down the states' throats. The federal government would be controlled to some extent by the states. Now the states have been subsumed under the federal government such that they are little more than administrative districts. Do as Uncle tells you or your funds are cut off. Yeah, I'd trade a Lieberman to get back some state power.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2010-01-05 21:28  

#10  The universal direct election of Senators was as much to get around the utter corruption at the State level as it was about democracy. Machine pols who controlled the state governments controlled who those states sent to Washington. The Senate got what the controlling state party thought would represent their interests and damn anything else. You wouldn't have a Lieberman in the seat from Connecticut today under those conditions.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2010-01-05 20:01  

#9  Moose, the founders mostly disagreed. That is why they formed a republic with balanced monarchical, democratic and oligarchic features, most assuredly not a democracy which they feared. From their reading of Polybius they understood that “Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos”

The balanced mechanism the founders developed was eroded by the Progressives, particularly the 16th and 17th amendments, in the name of greater democracy. Having established the democracy that knows that the majority of the poor can steal from the minority of the wealthy we are now headed to the savage violence and chaos that will inevitably follow the bankruptcy of our citizens, states and nation.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2010-01-05 18:16  

#8  The McLaughlin Group is still on the air? Eleanor Clift is still alive, let alone employed?

Yet more proof that the world isn't fair.
Posted by: Mitch H.   2010-01-05 16:42  

#7  It seems that the broad support in opposition to governmental policies, expansion, and spending is a strong statement about loss of freedom.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-01-05 10:30  

#6  Braodhead6-
The male (I can barely say that) version is Allan Combs on Fox...he's the most pathetic wonk ever...also never an original thought with him.

BTW - I can't stand Eleanor Clift
Posted by: HammerHead   2010-01-05 10:15  

#5  Anonymoose, I agree mostly, but does North Korea really have a pretense of Democracy to those within the country or did they just name themselves that way to help manipulate useful idiots in the western world (like the PRC and DDR).
Posted by: rjschwarz   2010-01-05 10:09  

#4  The reason the democratic revolution has been so successful, since the US got the ball rolling way back when, is *not* freedom and liberty.

They are just necessary side effects of democracy. The real selling point, that is obvious around the world, from peasants to kings, is that democracy is more "efficient". It works better, for everyone, than the alternatives of monarchy, collectivism, theocracy, even technocracy.

It is such a potent idea, that even pure tyrannies like North Korea must pretend to be democratic, to adopt the labels of democracy, even if they are nothing of the sort.

Compared to this, the concepts of freedom and liberty are nebulous indeed. I like to cite how Germans "cling to" their precious high speed Autobahns, as a cherished freedom. But Americans in America see it as rather silly and even dangerous. Certainly it couldn't work here, because our vehicular maintenance doesn't come close to Germany's.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2010-01-05 08:58  

#3  FOX NEWS AM > GLENN BECK Show = THE "SOCIALIST TRANSFORMATIOJN OF AMERICA" IS GOING ON, right now as we speak???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2010-01-05 00:36  

#2  BTW - I can't stand Eleanor Clift - I don't think the woman ever had an original thought - 90% of the drivvel that comes out of her soup-cooler is nothing but dem talking points.
Posted by: Broadhead6   2010-01-05 00:17  

#1  I saw this on t.v. - the writer is distorting a bit - John McLaughlin was actually being sarcastic. He meant that a lot of people talk big about freedom until it comes to a truly free market and then they want the nanny state to step in to save them when things don't go peachy. He doesn't think "freedom" itself is truly overrated.
Posted by: Broadhead6   2010-01-05 00:15  

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