I learned something the other night, on the new Fox Business show The Independents: Mr. John Stossel’s eponymous show is the highest-rated show on that same network.
It’s no shock. It’s my favorite show, there, too. And I know folks who have even upped their cable or satellite packages solely to view Stossel every week.
Call it a comfort, call it a relief, call it whatever, but it’s nice to know that one’s own political and rhetorical tastes are shared by a growing number of others.
One thing to like about Stossel is also a reason to like The Independents. The hostess, saucy Kennedy (of MTV fame), and her cadre of commentators, Matt Welch and Kmele Foster, aim to keep the debate civil. They said as much. And followed through. No yelling; a minimum of over-talk. Apparently the format of the show is to invite two guest commentators every episode (one from “the left” and one from “the right”), and on the debut episode we watched Fox contributors Basil Smikle and Jedediah Bila . . . the latter ostensibly a conservative, but who sounded just as libertarian as the show’s core committee.
Fox’s increasing independent-minded viewership — and, like the show’s creators, I’m using “independent” partly as a code word for “libertarian” — is being rewarded with more fare to their tastes.
Modern society needs an independent streak. We gain; Fox gains.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On December 10, 1884, Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was first published. This novel, narrated in the first person by the title character, is a dark comedy of the antebellum South and slavery, and has been considered by many American critics and writers to qualify as the “Great American Novel.”
On this date in 1901, the first Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded, to French Harmony School economist Frédéric Passy, co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and Henry Dunant the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Passy was an admirer of Cobden, and an active member in the French Liberal School of Political Economy that developed in the tradition of J.B. Say, Destutt de Tracy, Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer, and Frederic Bastiat. His published works include “De la Propriété Intellectuelle” (1859); “Leçons d’économie politique” (1860-61); “La Démocratie et l’Instruction” (1864); “L’Histoire du Travail” (1873); “Malthus et sa Doctrine” (1868); and “La Solidarité du Travail et du Capital” (1875).
On December 7, 1776, the Marquis de Lafayette arranged to enter the American military as a major general. On the same date in 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. 