NRB Challenges the Orthodoxy of Entitlement on NPR

David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog ^ | April 13, 2011 | Walter Hudson

[Walter Scott Hudson]

Who says public radio is boring? We spiced it up Monday by injecting the radical concept of blind justice into a debate over the federal budget deal.

Called upon to bring the Tea Party perspective to a roundtable discussion on NPR affiliate KCRW's To the Point, I joined host Warren Olney, Mother Jones' David Corn, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin and others. The panel was asked to consider who came out of the budget deal a winner.

The exchange began with politics-as-usual. Rubin and Corn agreed that House Speaker John Boehner had emerged as the political victor, though they parted on whether that was a good thing. I brought a different take.

Walter Hudson: I can tell you who I think didn't win. I don't think the American people won. I don't think posterity won. I don't think the taxpayer won. And the reason why isn't so much because of the particular outcome. Jennifer Rubin makes a fair point, that this may have been the best outcome we could have hoped for in terms of political possibility. However, I think an opportunity was wasted by the Republicans to move the conversation in another direction.

Mr. Corn points out that the Democrats have accepted, to a certain extent, some of the narrative the Republicans are offering. I don't think that narrative goes far enough. I think we need to start talking about the fundamental role of government, and the basic morality behind taking money from people who have it to give it to people who don't, as if that were some sort of moral imperative. I think that's the reverse of reality. I think that we cannot continue to operate on that assumption, which is now a given...

[Viking2002]

Kudos to you for suffering through a session with the insufferable David Corn. I'd rather get a manicure with a wood planer, myself.

"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away, for his name is Obama."