The Right Opinion
ABC Fired Stossel?
People keep forwarding me emails and blog posts saying ABC fired me. Internet forums claim I was fired because I aired a story about the downside of government-controlled health care. This is silly. It's not even logical. No one can broadcast anything on "20/20" without ABC's approval.
The truth is that my departure from ABC was by mutual consent.
I left to go to the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network because I want more time to report on free markets and economic liberty, the kind of reporting I do in this column. With two 24-hour news channels, Fox has more room for that.
Tomorrow, finally, my new Fox Business show begins! It will air every Thursday at 8 p.m. (and will repeat Fridays at 10 p.m. -- opposite "20/20" -- heh, heh, heh).
My first show will be on the "climate crisis." Or it might be on Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged." I've prepared both shows because I can't decide which I should do.
What do you think?
I'm partial to an "Atlas" show because I reread the novel recently and was stunned. It was as if Rand had seen the future. Writing half a century ago, she predicted today's explosion of big government in shockingly accurate detail.
The "Preservation of Livelihood Law." The "Equalization of Opportunity Law." The "Steel Unification Plan."
Don't these sound like laws passed by the current Congress?
All were creations of Rand's villain, Wesley Mouch, the evil bureaucrat who regulates business and eventually drives the productive people out of business. Who is today's Wesley Mouch? Barney Frank? Chris Dodd. Tim Geithner? I'll ask my TV audience to vote.
"Atlas" is still a big bestseller today. This year, it reached as high as NO. 15 on Amazon's bestseller list. Pretty amazing.
Clearly there's some magic in "Atlas Shrugged." The Library of Congress once asked readers which books made the biggest difference in their lives. "Atlas" came in second, after the Bible.
Yet elites and the MSM hate Ayn Rand. When "Atlas" first came out, The New York Times wrote that "the book is written out of hate."
Maybe that's why no "Atlas" movie has been made. Angelina Jolie once wanted to play heroine Dagny Taggart, but it never happened. Rand's books still sell millions of copies, yet college "women's studies" courses rarely mention her. One professor says her department head asked, "Why would you study that fascist?"
Why such antipathy?
Rand celebrates business and free markets. The elites don't like business. In every newsroom where I've worked, and at my college, Princeton, capitalism was derided as selfishness.
And lately, as a failure. On one website, someone wrote: "You'd think it was a joke, when the global economy was collapsing because of greed, that anyone might turn seriously to the purple prose of crypto-fascist (!) Ayn Rand and think it was the answer to anything."
Well, I, for one, think her prose answers much.
The embrace of freer markets has lifted more people out of the misery of poverty than any other system -- ever. The World Bank says that in just the last 30 years, half a billion people who once lived on less than $1.25 a day have moved out of poverty.
But now, Wesley Mouch -- I mean, Congress and the bureaucrats -- tell us they are going to "fix" capitalism, as if their previous "fixes" didn't hamstring the free market and create the problems they propose to solve.
Who are they kidding? Rand had it right. She learned it the hard way in Soviet Russia. What makes a country work is leaving people free -- free to take risks, to invent things -- and to keep the rewards of their work.
Critics say Ayn Rand promotes selfishness. I call it "enlightened self interest." When free people act in their own self-interest, society prospers.
So there's my first show, maybe.
On second thought, with Barack Obama heading to Copenhagen promising America will cut its greenhouse gasses by 83 percent (not 82, not 84 -- exactly 83), I may do my first show on global warming.
I'll decide tomorrow -- when I begin my new career.
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17 Comments
KBerman
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 12:54 PM
Looking forward to the new show!
Gary
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 3:46 PM
I will be waiting with bated breath! I have 'Atlas Shrugged', but haven't read it yet, so would look forward to seeing that.
MichaelSSEC
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 7:22 PM
Mr Stossel I wish you every success in your new career.Your analysis of Rand's insight is precisely right. She grew up in Soviet Russia under the blight and institutional dishonesty of Communism, and she saw what a failure that system was. She wrote about Capitalism and free markets and liberty -- yet Leftists insist on calling her a Fascist as though a single word she ever wrote was remotely Fascistic.What's especially amusing about that is the undeniable fact that Fascism was a Leftist system, yet they invariably speak about it as though they find it deplorable. Funny, when so much of what Fascism was closely resembles modern Liberalism. As Jonah Goldberg asks, "aside from the wars and genocide, what exactly is it about Fascism that Liberals don't like??" Government control over industry, control of news and media, control of educational systems, Marxist labor reforms, confiscatory tax rates, environmental zealotry, health and fitness zealotry, government health care, generous benefit packages for labor, etc. But then, Liberals MUST deride Rand because they MUST deride Capitalism and anyone who advocates it -- like yourself. You're right, Socialist fiddling with our free markets created nearly every problem we are dealing with today, so the Liberals' answer is....more Socialism. That's like your oncologist telling you the best thing for your lung cancer is....more smoking.America desperately needs more people like you, Mr Stossel. "Speak the truth without fear."
Jim
Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:54 AM
Best wishes at Fox.The thing that upsets me and others is the way in which the news is reported. Everyone in the business calls them a "story" and the truth is that each channel, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and others tell the same news but slant it so they can try to attract the greatest number of views. This in turn is used to set the advertising rates for companies to sell their products.I just have one request:Please don't sensationalize or just report one side of the story. it would be honestly refreshing to know that what has been reported is factual, truthful and fair. So, for what it is worth, I want to know the complete story, not the side that sells the advertising.
Sandra
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:40 AM
I was wondering when you were going to move over to Fox--a much better fit for you, I think. I remember listening to your reports for 20/20, and thinking, "I like this guy, but he's playing with fire! ABC's going to can him for that report." I look forward to tuning in to your new show on Fox News.
Mel
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:51 AM
Why doesn't anyone cover gangstalking in the news? That might boost ratings. Tons of info about it on the internet but yet it is never mentioned on news anywhere. Ever wonder how these victims are taking out their frustrations?
Jim Throneburg
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 1:23 PM
"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson
Owl Creek Observer
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 1:49 PM
Mr. Stossel, you have been one of the very few reasonable voices on the networks and I am delighted that you are now focusing more of your energies on the most important issues in America today.Congratulations on your move.
krklek from Iowa
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 1:55 PM
John, whatever show you do, I'm sure it will be the right choice.BUT, now that you're free from BIG BROTHER (Obama's news channels - ABC, CBS & NBC), I wonder if you'd let us know how many OTHER BIG JOURNALISTS really feel the same as you on Obama and his socialists attitudes, or are they REALLY just as dumb and blind as they appear to be????!!!!!??????
Durga
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 2:08 PM
Atlas Shrugged, please!
ONTIME
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 2:38 PM
I am a follower of Mr. Stossel and I like his logic. I have just read his comment in the Patriot Post and he mentions he has just read Aynn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.....I think I read this book many years ago when I was in my twenties and was shocked by the revelation that men would be so stupid and greedy to ruin a Republic with a corruption of government and the abandonment of moral principal...I wonder what has taken Mr. Stossel so long to get around to reading this on the money speculation?I am now involved in regaining the loss of what we were warned we could lose because of the use of victimization.
Eric Shaw
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 3:49 PM
Libertarians are often thought of as anarchist. We are not. We are not against all laws, just the creation of the ones that are trying to "fix" something earlier laws "broke". The libertarian solution is obviously, revoke the first law and a second becomes unnecessary. The next congressman I support will support no new legislation. Must Washington be so "productive"? Perhaps if we paid them less, maybe?
Barbara Grant
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 3:58 PM
Amazing. I thought I was the only one who believed Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged should be required reading for every high school student in the Us of A. I recently repurchased Atlas Shrugged (having given my 1960's copy to my granddaughter)both in book form and on disc, so I can listen to it while driving. I am looking forward to seeing Mr. Stossel's program concerning the similarity between the fiction of 1939 and today's truth. WHO AND WHERE IS TODAY'S JOHN GALT?
Bob Davidson
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 5:58 PM
I appreciate the fact that you have chosen to stand up for your own journalistic independance. I wish more would do the same rather than go forward in lock step. Your efforts are refreshing I look forward to your opinions in hope they will open the eye of the public clearing the current literairy smoke screen.
H. D. Schmidt
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 9:00 PM
It the fact of life that America never ever became a truly Capitalistic economy with free market, as evidenced by the Labor Unions. Whatever free market economy there was all along it only ended up sort what a fetilizer is to plants otherwise the present true National Debt would not now be way over 100 trillion dollars. Yes, according to Richard W. Fisher, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas Texas the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare now amount to 99.2 trillion dollars. Yes, all one hears from politicians is that the National Debt is no more than 11.3 trillion, which is the greatest lie ever. All the above mess was already in existence before Obama became President, and yet most conservative commentators keep blaming Obama, which is also, nothing but a big fat lie. For the recordI voted for Ron Paul, simply because is was the only candidate that truly defended free market economy. In closing this: Socialism/Communism plus Imperialism is to America, what in real life termites are to a wooden structure, and in neither case the inhabitants not al all aware of such silent destructive force. Yes, as a legal immigrant, now going on 54 years having spend my younger years under a despotic regime I know the difference, while most born Americans do not, sadly, I may add! Yes, the Founding Fathers are weeping their heats out in their graves seeing in action at home and abroad. This true National Debt now has fully a life of its own, like sanwball rolling dowin a steep hill and nonstoppable, period. "Teh principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, in the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale". By Thomas Jefferson. "No pecuniary consideration is more urgent than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious or an economy of time more valuable: By George Washington. Don't anybody tell me that these men of past are not weeping their graves, in a figure of speech. Conservatives you are as guilty as the liberals! I rest my case for now!