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May 6, 2005
NPR Shows Its Class
I've heard it argued (although not in these exact words) that the reason people like myself who have no use for NPR should be forced to pay for it anyway is because the common man just doesn't have enough class to know what's good for him.
If I were cynical, I would suspect that liberal elitists couldn't care less about what's good for me; they just want what's good for them — other people's money to finance projects that otherwise could not sustain themselves economically. But maybe they're assuming that if they force me to pay for it, I'll feel compelled to listen to it. Then, sooner or later, the wisdom of their limp-wristed Leninism will penetrate my thick skull, and I will shed my flag-waving capitalist ways for a life of higher consciousness.
But it won't happen during "Car Talk," one of the few NPR programs accessible to the sort of people who don't see the "nuance" in the events of 9/11. The hosts of the show, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, were in Washington Tuesday to schmooze with the bureaucrats responsible for taking money out of my paychecks and putting it into theirs.
"George Bush is a [unprintable vulgarity]," announced Tom Magliozzi, about three minutes into the interview, according to the Washington Post.
Class. It's what clods like me may never be able to appreciate. But that needn't prevent me from paying for it.
(Okay, I'll admit that if they played classical music on the local NPR station, I would listen to it. But they don't. It's just relentlessly leftist jabbering, all day long. That's all right, though; there's a commercial classical station.)
Posted by Van Helsing at May 6, 2005 7:21 AM
Comments
Sometimes I listen to NPR. I work shift work and travel late at night. On our own Aussie News Radio they relay NPR's All Things Considered late at night.
I actually enjoy it. I thought it was not as rabidly left as our own National Public Broadcaster the ABC. (of which News Radio is a branch).
Posted by: Patrick at May 6, 2005 9:52 PM
My recent ex-girlfriend only got her news from National Peoples' Radio and New Yorker...
Naturally, she saw the world unfiltered through the eyes of the likes of Seymour Hersch, and the dread MoDo...and saw nothing deficientin an outlook derived entirely from those sources.
This, not surprisingly, was the 35 year-old woman who, when confronted by an unpalatable reality, would shake her head from side to side and shout "NO NO NO NO NO NO!"
Posted by: LC TripleNeckSteel at May 7, 2005 1:16 AM
Patrick, I have to admit it's been a while since I've listened to All Things Considered, but some of the stuff they have on during the day on WNYC is out there in Ramsey Clark country. TNS's ex could listen all day and never stop bobbing her head in agreement.
Posted by: Van Helsing at May 7, 2005 10:36 AM
Taxpayers really shouldn't have to pay for any type of a political radio station. It's just not the way it should be. PBS is another good example of the same sort of thing.
But a lack of class by liberals is really just par for the course. The smug superiority just naturally has a way of coming through.
Posted by: Eyedoc at May 7, 2005 8:52 PM
Eye Doc has it exactly right. There's been some noise about Republicans trying to reverse the bias on NPR. But it's not a matter of the government reversing the bias; it's a matter of getting the government out of the business of forcing citizens to pay for propaganda like they do in Europe. Once NPR is private, they can have whatever bias people will voluntarily pay to listen to.
Posted by: Van Helsing at May 8, 2005 11:36 AM
I confess I still listen to a bit of Morning Edition every day... mostly so that I can thank God and Murdoch for FNC. NPR, like Amtrak, should be let loose to survive or die in the free market.
Posted by: The MaryHunter at May 11, 2005 10:09 PM
