Further Proof NPR Caters to Extreme Left

Further Proof NPR Caters to Extreme Left

By Warner Todd Huston (Bio | Archive)
March 9, 2008 - 20:05 ET

Jennifer Harper, Washington Times reporter and friend of Newsbusters, gives us a revealing look at how far left our taxpayer funded National Public Radio network has gotten itself these days. Even when they try to go a little toward the conservative side of the debate, they get lambasted by their audience, angered that they had the temerity to air conservative views. Of course, the only reason they would get such a rude reception from their own audience is because they have garnered only a far left listenership as a result of their far left programming. After all, if they had a balanced listenership they wouldn't get deluged by angry emails when they aired conservative content.

Apparently, at the end of February, the NPR program "Morning Edition" took the unusual move of airing four consecutive days of interviews with conservative thinkers in a segment they dubbed "Conversations with Conservatives."

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The roster consisted of the Rev. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform; talk-radio host Glenn Beck; and David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

Each of these conservatives had their own focus, religion, taxes, and the like. But, as Harper discovered, "NPR listeners were not especially pleased in the aftermath of the broadcast segments."

According to NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard, more than 60 angry e-mails and phone calls arrived at the network, calling the programming "shameful" and a "lovefest with radical, right-wing nuts." There were only a few, she said, that praised the series as "refreshing" and "articulate," among other things.

For his part, program host Steve Inskeep admitted he made a portion of his audience mad.

"We did annoy our listeners, but if we do our job right, we function as a personal intelligence agency for them. Hopefully, they hear allies and enemies and everybody in between. We have to learn from a wide range of people," he said.

So, are we supposed to celebrate how brave NPR is for this decision to give us the "other side"?

And, who can doubt that he meant "opposition research" as opposed to learning from a "wide range of people"? After all, his audience only cares about conservative opinion as far as it alerts them to the opinion of the enemy and not because it will "help" them "learn" anything useful with which they can make a balanced decision of their own.

And here is the main point. The NPR audience would not have gotten so exercised against this scant few hours that NPR devoted to a conservative viewpoint if that audience hadn't become assured by past programming that they wouldn't be accosted by those views inimical to leftist group think.

NPR may have seemed surprised by the negative response to their foray to the right, but no one who has heard the constantly left leaning content of NPR should be. After all, when one creates an audience based on programming that is just so, one should not be surprised when programming that deviates from that past record upsets the regulars.

Imagine, if you will, that a stadium full of baseball fans were to take their seats only to find that a football game had begun? There might be a few disgruntled fans in the stands at that rate.

So, NPR shouldn’t be so surprised when their audience settles in for their daily, left-wing indoctrination programming and lo and behold an eeeevil conservative’s opinions are wafting out of the radio to assault those shocked listeners’ delicate eardrums.

No wonder they got mad!

But just remember this last thing. The taxes of ALL of America’s citizens is paying for this left-wing indoctrination, not just that tax money from those left-wing Americans who support NPR.

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This is just a microcosm of

March 9, 2008 - 20:14 ET by ThisnThat

This is just a microcosm of what happens in all the other left-wing institutions today. The MSM? No way a conservative viewpoint will be written. College? No conservatives need apply. Black and urban neighborhoods across the country? Just look at their 90% + voting record for left-wing democrats. It's more than NPR. Socialists and other radicals are building an army. Watch out.

___________________________________

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If it is in English, thank a Soldier. - My barber

And in New York

March 11, 2008 - 06:50 ET by BobAnthony

It's even worse especially with the 50,000 watt voice of socialism, death to America and terrorist and cop killer loving radio station--99.5 WBAI, owned by Pacifica.

I've said this before and will say again--I was force fed all this leftist garbage while in college at UCONN-I-STAN...all the while I was ironically working for an NPR station (WEDW 88.5) Stamford, the result of an internship from said school. My other intern choice was WICC radio in Bridgeport--should've gone with WICC!

I mention cop killer, because I had to write a report in "class" favorable to Wesley Cook, AKA the friend of all left-leaning F-list celebrities and America haters alike--MUMIA ABU-JAMAL! Today I know better as someone who now has sympathy to the family of the cop he killed...Danny Faulkner of Philly.

Tokenism. NPR is practicing tokenism with conservatives

March 9, 2008 - 20:19 ET by c5then

This way when they innevitable argument about government funnded propaganda comes up, they can point to segments like the above and say, "see, we are ballanced and not biased at all".

The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic. Let's get it back! Alan Keyes '08.

Right-wing? Mis-labeling?

March 9, 2008 - 20:23 ET by Mica the Magnificent

Conservative talk on NPR? I certainly feel sorry for the listener.

Imagine going to the store, buying a Celine Dion c.d. - coming home, unwrapping it, placing it in your c.d. player and discovering the c.d. was mis-labeled:

Yo! Uhhhhh! Yo n***er! You gotta kill the motherf***en principal for justice, Yo! Ya know what I'm sayin'?

Shocking, to say the least.

When I heard a conservative speak on my nice NPR radio station, I almost upchucked my Citracel and blew a hole in my depends. --- Typical NPR listener

Their delicate eardrums

March 9, 2008 - 20:27 ET by bigtimer

Their delicate eardrums indeed WTH...

I had my belly full long ago of our tax payers $$$ funding the enemy within, I thought something was going to be done about NPR, PBS and ilk when Gingrich took the House, well, I was wrong, and the battle keeps getting bigger....not going away anytime soon either.

....and then these exact critters have the guts to bitch about Rush and the like...the audicity.

NPR

March 9, 2008 - 21:04 ET by soosan

my dearly beloved, a rather bright lady, swears that what is played on NPR is fair and balanced. No amount of conversation will ever persuade her otherwise. Go figure.... I've stopped trying to convince her. It's like the UFO people, the Bush stole the election people, and the global warming people, the pro choice people, the anti gun people, and the women never get paid equally to men people - they ain't gonna change. Who said never let facts get in the way of a good argument?

Ah, the tolerant, educated,

March 9, 2008 - 22:05 ET by stratman

Ah, the tolerant, educated, nuanced Liberal Hominid - Homo democraticus.

(NO, this is NOT a slur against homosexuals for the cretins that might think otherwise.)

NPR in Cleveland, Ohio is swirling the toilet currently. Not only do they push their domestic Liberal swill with impunity , they have taken to importing foreign Liberal/Socialist drek. I have enjoyed from time to time the British imports but the Canadian drivel in the evenings is vomitus ('shite' for those that rally round the good and gracious Queen of England). I feel violated after listening to all the touchy-feely bleatings.

The more NPR leans Left the more I discover AM radio.

RRAM Tough!

only 60?

March 9, 2008 - 22:12 ET by dans0622

There were only 60 of these angry e-mails/phone calls? That doesn't seem like any general outrage or even anything worth mentioning. But, then again, maybe that's the majority of the audience.

It should be noted...

March 9, 2008 - 22:36 ET by Warner Todd Huston

That 60 messages is quite a bit. Most of the time, one can expect 1% or less feedback on anything that gets out there. (Including advertising, by the way.)

So, if they got 60 angry ones and only a few positive ones, that says that their audience mostly didn't like it.

Let me give you a for instance. Right here on newsbusters, one of my pieces can get say 6,000 views. But only 10 comments that are on topic. And, remember, those comments are from the people who bother to register here. Many of those comments will be off topic and just banter between the denizens of the board.

When I publish wider on the internet, I can get up to 50 thousand hits on a story yet only get 5 or 6 emails about it even though it appears on dozens of websites.

What I am saying is that only a tiny percentage of people bother to write a news source or editorialist with their point of view on the article they have read.

So, 60 nasty emails is actually a lot more than you might think.

Only 60?

March 10, 2008 - 11:11 ET by oregon_jiim

I know 60 sounds like a small number, but that is actually 100% of their listeners.

"an endorsement of communism is an endorsement of slavery"

First of all, what's the

March 9, 2008 - 23:03 ET by jdhawk

First of all, what's the difference between a commercial radio program and NPR? They both have commercials. Listen to NPR sometime. NPR has commericals from for profit companies just as much if not more than from commercial radio programming. The only difference is that an NPR employee reads the product/company information; it is devoid of Madison Avenue jingles, songs, catchy phrases, etc.

Second, so what! NPR puts out about an hour or so of programming for four days. That is a ratio of 4 hours divided by (365 days in a year X 24 hours = 8544 possible programming hours) = 0004 percent of the time.

And, then, they have the audacity to rant that 60 e-mails and phone calls were busting their chops because of it. Who is kidding who? There are thousands of NPR stations across the country and "Morning Edition" is heard by millions of listeners. This means that the number of listeners that didn't like the programming is about equal to the percentage of total programming time that NPR devotes to conservative viewpoints. In other words, diddley on both counts.

It appears that the NRP producers and "journalists" are much more liberal than the audience that listens to them, but they refuse to look at that or deny it is so.

Meantime, our representatives, even when conservatives held the majority in Congress, refuse to do anything about this shameful situation.

So NPR labels one of its

March 9, 2008 - 23:31 ET by TE

So NPR labels one of its programs "Conversations with Conservatives"? Let me guess: NPR has never labeled one its programs "Conversations with Liberals." I suspect NPR considers its routine conversations with liberals to be "straight news" and therefore such conversations do not require any political label.

Somewhere, up there, Bill

March 9, 2008 - 23:53 ET by kevcad

Somewhere, up there, Bill Buckley is alternately laughing and crying from seeing civilized debate being devalued and denuded.

Start each day with a smile, then get it over with. - W.C. Fields

About 10 years ago

March 10, 2008 - 00:16 ET by desertdweller

I'd listen to NPR on the morning drive to work. But after enough of that left leaning drivel, and I now don't remember how to find an NPR station on the dial.

Why would the left need Air America when they have NPR? NPR even makes the left feel like they <i>own</i> the radio network with NPR's constant hammering for donations.

Conservative or liberal,

March 10, 2008 - 00:32 ET by Atomic Crusader

Conservative or liberal, right or left, I say cut off all taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS.

NPR receives approximately

March 10, 2008 - 01:03 ET by cleverpig

NPR receives approximately 2% of it's budget from government grants. A little more if you count that some of their funding comes from fees paid by member stations, and some of the funding for those member stations comes from state grants. But it isn't exactly a large taxpayer burden! Most of the funding for these shows comes from corporate underwriting and dues pledged by happy liberals who like their programs. Like me :)

Feel free to complain about their liberal bias, but I'd be surprised if you've ever been asked to pay more than a few dimes a year to support programming you don't agree with. Lately I pay a lot more than that to support a whole host of government programs I vehemently oppose!

Its not a matter of how

March 10, 2008 - 01:46 ET by Conservative Voice

Its not a matter of how much or how little. Its a matter of morality. You yourself said they could survive without the revenue from the government, so why should the government pay them? Why is it that you liberals cry foul when the government favors an evil rich corporation, but not see the hypocrisy of paying PBS?

Is government suppose to be equal unto all? So why is it that we have allowed government grow so big that is has the power to steal from one group of people and give that filtered money ( because government has to be paid ) to another group of people?

And why is it that you liberals, who use to be champions for freedom, love a large intrusive government?

Funny, I ask the same question of the right

March 10, 2008 - 02:43 ET by sarcasmo

When it comes to their beloved, bloated & censorious FCC. I keep offering the idea of getting rid of taxpayer handouts to NPR/PBS AND the FCC (or at least the FCC's hypocrite-censorship arm) but so far, no takers...
JMR

A corruption-story the TV media will-not cover.

it would be interesting

March 10, 2008 - 02:52 ET by Conservative Voice

it would be interesting sarc if there were no FCC would every channel be the playboy channel, or use language that would make even the crudest rap star blush? Or would it be the same as it is today?

btw sar, did you get a chance to look at Wayne Allyn Root?

There's no way to say for-sure

March 10, 2008 - 03:15 ET by sarcasmo

What a truly free market would do, but I wonder if standards of decency -- however it's defined -- would have eroded as fast as they have over my lifetime *without* a bloated, political agency like the FCC? I doubt it. I think history shows that wars are what tend to erode standards of decency, even though they rarely get blame for it. That might be another reason to be a traditionalist/constitutionalist when it comes to actually declaring them.

In a truly-free system, I think there'd be demand for raunchy and demand for intellectual/non-raunchy in ratios either about the same as or a bit less raunchy than what we currently see on XM and Sirius. Oh, and another thing...That merger that's never happening practically defines crook-lobbyists of the left and right. By now, the endless political delay deserves to be investigated (with an eye towards eventual criminal prosecution...) IMO. Since the criminality looks bipartisan, I doubt the government's going to do a good job if they try, but it would be nice if ABC sicced Stossel on that story.

I've looked at Mr. Root. He's interesting, but the media will ignore the LP this time just like they always have. I like gambling (well, poker -- I'm not good at sports bets!) and I absolutely hate internet regulation, so Root probably sounds as good to me as he sounds bad to others here. The prospective candidate the media might like most (in order to again stupidly-caricature the LP as "all stoners" because some smoke weed) is Steve Kubby, since weed's been keeping him alive for about a decade or so to the shock of all his docs, but I don't think he's got a chance. I think the one they'd have the most difficulty ignoring is Bob Barr, but if he's the LP's nominee I'm sure they'd find a way to keep him the hell out of any/all "debates."

I've faced it. I tried for smaller government and I failed, as "conservatives" here celebrated what we got instead.
JMR

A corruption-story the TV media will-not cover.

I met...

March 10, 2008 - 06:38 ET by Warner Todd Huston

I met Mr. Root last year and heard him speak. He is a great, motivational speaker. He gave a rip-roaring speech. I liked him quite a lot.

Unfortunately, you are right that the media will ignore him and the LP.

And some of that ignoring is probably legitimate.

March 10, 2008 - 08:59 ET by sarcasmo

At least as long as the current ballot laws prevail. But some of it is also due to obvious but almost never mentioned antilibertarian media bias. Whether or not a dedicated group like NB or MM exists to expose said bias, it's there. I know -- my ox is the one being gored.
JMR

A corruption-story the TV media will-not cover.

It's more...

March 10, 2008 - 09:25 ET by Warner Todd Huston

It seems to me that there is more than a mere bias against libertarianism in the media. It is an outright blackout on any coverage at all.

That's why I need

March 10, 2008 - 09:43 ET by sarcasmo

To win Florida's "Lotto." ;)

Until then, I'm forced to do what little I can where I can. Do you agree that they'd have difficulty totally ignoring Bob Barr if the LP somehow chose him? I guess if forced to briefly cover Barr, they'd probably try to caricature him with that ancient accidental discharge. But who knows? I'm also interested in what the Constitution party folks do. Thank God for C-SPAN.
JMR

A corruption-story the TV media will-not cover.

NPR (and PBS, I assume)

March 10, 2008 - 23:45 ET by cleverpig

NPR (and PBS, I assume) applies for government grants, as do many non-profits and other organizations providing a public service.

I don't dispute your right to complain about the content being skewed to the left, but they are obtaining money from the government in the same way that many organizations with both conservative and liberal leanings get government assistance. It is hardly stealing money from conservatives and giving it to liberals! And I don't think it is hypocritical.

As for why liberals like big government, that's a very large, very off topic question :)

Just because everyone is

March 11, 2008 - 01:06 ET by Conservative Voice

Just because everyone is doing it, doesn't make it right. And government isn't just stealing from conservatives, they are stealing from everyone. Wealth distribution is not what the founding fathers had in mind.

So.. what is it about the

March 10, 2008 - 05:51 ET by Jack Bauer

So.. what is it about the word PUBLIC that liberals and leftists don't understand?

Mmmm, let's see the OED definition..

Public adjective Of or concerning the people as a whole

There you have it.

It's just your average lefty ignorance rearing its ugly head once again.

They clearly think the word "public" means "private"... as in for leftists, commie, liberal people only.

Conservatives need not apply.

Vote 4 change. Vote 4 anything. See Jack & Mr Shy's first campaign ad for the ONLY viable 3rd party candidate.

Some conservatives

March 10, 2008 - 05:59 ET by sarcasmo

Might be less focused on obtaining government jobs and more focused on 100%-defunding them. I've seen what happens when "conservatives" get these jobs, and it's no prettier than what happens when lefties get 'em. Want to exercise conservative control over programming content? Go get hired by (or buy) a TV/radio station. Don't like a certain station/broadcaster? Go boycott 'em WITHOUT ANY OF MY TAXE$.
JMR

A corruption-story the TV media will-not cover.

But as National PUBLIC

March 10, 2008 - 06:09 ET by Jack Bauer

But as National PUBLIC Radio actually exists, and is not a theoretic construct one can either want or not want to see spring into existence, I am passing comment, and not wind, on a reality.

It seems to me that the question as to whether it should exist in i's current form is a different one. But as it does exist and is likely to continue to exist, it is worth pointing out to liberals that the word "public" encompasses everyone. And not just them.

It's like the old gag about the Englishman asking, "how do I get to Dublin." to which the Irishman replies "Well if I was you I wouldn't start from here."

Vote 4 change. Vote 4 anything. See Jack & Mr Shy's first campaign ad for the ONLY viable 3rd party candidate.

All these "PUBLIC" institutions

March 10, 2008 - 06:34 ET by sarcasmo

Whether it's broadcasting, education, or whatever...

They all seem to directly conflict with conservative values by their very nature. Putting "conservatives" (hell, just humans!) in positions of control in such circumstances can only have bad long term effects, IMO.
JMR

A corruption-story the TV media will-not cover.

I agree. But while it

March 10, 2008 - 06:48 ET by Jack Bauer

I agree. But while it exists, conservatives should demand it performs its public function for all the people, not just some of the people.

Merely pointing that out to outraged liberals is hardly supporting the idea of tax-funded broadcasting. I totally disagreee with that regressive, reactionary idea.

Hey.. over here in jolly old England, I have to resentfully shell out almost $300 a year to the BBC. By law. Whether I watch it or not. I tend not.

So.. as they say.. tell me about it.

Vote 4 change. Vote 4 anything. See Jack & Mr Shy's first campaign ad for the ONLY viable 3rd party candidate.

So.. what is it about the

March 10, 2008 - 07:16 ET by motherbelt

So.. what is it about the word PUBLIC that liberals and leftists don't understand? -Jack Bauer

Well, Jack, you have to understand....to the liberals who run it, "public" simply means funded by the taxpayers.

You know, like everything owned by the government in the Soviet Union was called "the People's.....whatever" LOL

Same principle.

mb -- so they really should

March 10, 2008 - 07:21 ET by Jack Bauer

mb -- so they really should be renamed

the Peoples' Broadcasting Service and National Peoples' Radio?

Because as we know, anything with the word People in it, has nothing at all to do with actual people.

Vote 4 change. Vote 4 anything. See Jack & Mr Shy's first campaign ad for the ONLY viable 3rd party candidate.

Because as we know,

March 10, 2008 - 08:20 ET by motherbelt

Because as we know, anything with the word People in it, has nothing at all to do with actual people.

Bingo!!

Don't know if it's selective reading

March 10, 2008 - 06:37 ET by theduck6

but I just looked up that NPR gets about 2% of it's funding from "bidding on government contracts" (?) and about a third from outright grants from Uncle Sam. A third from endowments and a third from fees and membership. Kinda shoots a hole in your small contribution from the Feds, doesn't it? Why does a liberal agenda only survive when it's subsidized? Maybe because you get to ask questions when it's on radio and you have to support your arguments? Maybe? unless you have a reliable revenue stream from the taxpayer.

"Imagine, if you will, that

March 10, 2008 - 07:50 ET by Killgrave

"Imagine, if you will, that a stadium full of baseball fans were to take their seats only to find that a football game had begun? There might be a few disgruntled fans in the stands at that rate."

I think you're just being polite. A more apt analogy:

Imagine, if you will, a parking lot full of Prii and a stadium full of latte-sippers were to take their seats, expecting a Cirque du Sole, only to find that a football game had begun? There might be a few hurt feelings and damp hankies in the stands at that rate.

Saw this remark

March 10, 2008 - 08:46 ET by pagar

"I think history shows that wars are what tend to erode standards of decency,"

it puzzled me for a minute, but then I remembered how John Kerry made defeat for the American military acceptable for mainstream America during the Vietnam War. How John Kerry make fragging officers seem like a patriotic duty with his lies: "They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off
ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human
genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of
Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and
generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the
normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which
is done by the applied bombing power of this country." <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/913184/posts">Article</a>

Now, we see the same people leading demonstrations against US military recruiting stations, parading around with signs "We support the troops who kill their officers etc. We see national leaders like Sen Rockefeller rushing to Syria to give them a heads up in Jan 2002 that America was planning to attack Saddam. We see Senate Majority Leader Reid saying "We cannot Win. We see a former Democrat Vice President candidate kicked from the Democrat Party for the crime of saying America can win in Iraq.

How was John Kerry treated for his efforts to make defeat for America acceptable. The Democrats named him their candidate for President of the US in 2004. Fifty million plus American voters agreed with John Kerry, due IMO, in large part to leftist propaganda mills like NPR. John Kerry and his supporters along with NPR, the NYTs etc, with their conduct during the Vietnam War and the current war against terror, have not simply eroded the standards of decency for America. They have destroyed them.

Article= http://www.freerepub...

I wasn't just talking about wars in our lifetimes.

March 10, 2008 - 08:55 ET by sarcasmo

Look at the Civil War and rates of VD (not to mention drug addiction) afterwards vs before, or look at the after-effects of both World Wars. Morals naturally go down in wartime because Randolph Bourne was & is right. "War is the health of the state."
JMR

A corruption-story the TV media will-not cover.

So, "Conversations with Conservatives" vexed...

March 10, 2008 - 09:06 ET by Thalpy

So, "Conversations with Conservatives" vexed a few NPR regulars? So, what? If many of them had their way, only the Left would be heard.

Grover Norquist, consumate shill for Arabia, was among those interviewed. This provides a good indication of the level of understanding these people have about conservatism. Norquist is a lobbyist with only slightly more ties to the Arab world than Jimmy Carter. His presence in and around the White House may well be the main reason that President Bush continues to call Islam the religion of peace.

So NPR labels one of its

March 10, 2008 - 09:45 ET by dcbatlle

So NPR labels one of its programs "Conversations with Conservatives"?
Let me guess: NPR has never labeled one its programs "Conversations
with Liberals." I suspect NPR considers its routine conversations with
liberals to be "straight news" and therefore such conversations do not
require any political label.

BINGO. We have a winner.

Did we really need more

March 10, 2008 - 10:39 ET by RickTaLife

Did we really need more proof that NPR caters to the left? lol. I thought that was common knowledge nowadays. :-P

NPR = Really Old Hippies

March 10, 2008 - 11:32 ET by V the K

Isn't the average age of an NPR listener something like 87? Most of them are old enough to have known Lenin personally. Many probably did.

Even worse...

March 10, 2008 - 11:37 ET by Warner Todd Huston

... even worse, many of them WISHED they'd known Lenin.

What Far Left?

March 10, 2008 - 12:02 ET by Agrarian-Decentralist

Despite the penchant of people like Mr. Huston to throw around the "far left" label, there really aren't many people or institutions in this country that deserve the appellation. Any reasonable definition of "far left" would point to socialists and communists---and we just don't have a lot of folks in this country running around singing the Internationale or insisting that we turn all the factories over to "people."

Face it, Mr. Huston---NPR is popular with cultured, educated listeners who have moderate to liberal political views. You may be right to say that NPR should do more to appeal to conservatives or present more conservative viewpoints, but you don't advance your case by falsely characterizing it as a bastion of a largely mythcal American "far left."

far out

March 10, 2008 - 12:20 ET by Agnostic

The label of Far-Left in this case is probably one of relativeness to the author of this article. However, if one was to statistically look at the situation a case could be made that NPR is far left. For example:
100 programs
50 programs that are not political in nature
20 programs that are geared toward appealing to a moderate to extreme position on the left
25 programs that appeal to moderates on both sides
5 programs that are geared to right

These are in no way factual but you could see that while a great majority of the programming is reasonably neutral that the overall perception to an observing conservative would be one a predominately left network.

I am sorry A-D the "far

March 10, 2008 - 12:38 ET by ahusser

I am sorry A-D the "far left" isn't mythical. You should know, you are part of it. You can believe all you want that your views are "centrist" and we, the great unwashed ill-educated masses, are "far right" if you wish. If you would like we can substitute the word Socialist for far left. The espousing of Socialist views among the elite and so called intelligentsia is widespread and one of the reasons why this website exists. In other words your side has "cultured, educated listeners" so I guess we on the other side are the great unwashed uneducated and uncultured (gauche?). Here are some of the ism's the left espouses: Collectivism, Statism, defeatism, totalitarianism, elitism (the cultured and educated?) ad infinitum. Further that we as a nation and people are too stupid to run our own lives, that the government and the elites should be our Mommy and give us all we need and tell us what to do and what to believe. I don't want what the left is offering. I reject if and the beliefs behind these socialist (or collectivist) political ideas.