John Stossel on Being a Good Citizen
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Is John Stossel duplicitous or misunderstood? Has he “grown” in his philosophies or is a charlatan? Hypocrite or sadly misunderstood?
I have now spent some time reading about Mr Stossel’s background. At first, I thought John Stossel just “didn’t get it”, but it seems clear that he just decided he “couldn’t sell it” for as much money.
John Stossel was once a self proclaimed consumer advocate at one time. He now claims to have had an epiphany that has led him to the conclusion that being a consumer advocate somehow is contradicted by his new belief in “personal responsibility”. From reading what I have about Mr Stossel, I would estimate that the epiphany involved his realization that he could sell his services to the “money changers” and make a great deal better living. So, he abandoned “the people” and has now found a lucrative home selling for Corporate America.
Not surprisingly, John Stossel “says” he is a big tort reform advocate, too.
In a cute little background puff piece written in the New York Magazine, Vanita Salisbury sets forth an “interview” with John Stossel. There a number of interesting nuggets in the interview that I think give clear insight into just who John Stossel is…or at least who he likes to pretend to be.
So, when John Stossel says things like that the thing he hates most about living in New York City is “smug, ignorant, and arrogant Upper West Side Lefties”, what he really means is he can afford to live on the upper west side by kissing up to “smug, ignorant, and arrogant righties with selfish agendas.”
When he says it’s irresponsible to give money to panhandlers and that he only gives to groups who “have a track record showing that they really help”; could it be that he gives to groups because it is tax deductible?
And when he says that the Wall Street crash had little effect on him financially because he “hedged by investing in a gold fund”, doesn’t that sound a little out of touch with us regular Americans?
When John Stoessel says that one of his “mortal enemies are personal-injury lawyers, does he mean only when they are not his lawyer? Because, after all, this is the same John Stossel who was hit on camera by wrestler, Dave Schultz; well, hit might be a bit strong – maybe slapped hard. Stossel then ran out, hired one of his “mortal enemies” and collected a reported +$400,000 from the wrestler and his employer.
Stossel was with ABC when he was the “consumer advocate” and went to Fox when he morphed into the corporate speak expert. He also was allowed to keep the +$20,000 per appearance speaking fee he receives, but ABC made him donate it to charity.
Stossel is a huge advocate of tort reform. He says he is also an advocate of “personal responsibility”. Since the Supreme Court, at least for purposes of campaign contributions, says that corporations are now individuals, maybe John will come around. Maybe he will now feel okay about requiring responsibility from his corporate America benefactors since they are now individuals, too.
So, when a corporation makes another exploding car, a drug that causes horrible health complications or a device that hurts more people than it helps; maybe John Stoessel will require those individual corporations to show responsibility. Maybe he will temper his tort reform tirades with a little of what he felt when he was slapped by a wrestler.
Who knows, maybe John Stossel will actually find it in his heart to give a couple bucks to the next homeless person he comes across. Maybe he will even invite some of those “smug, ignorant, and arrogant Upper West Side Lefties” out to dinner with some of his smug, arrogant, vacuous, righty buds.