Once I thought that Bill O’Reilly was simply a pandering populist trying to draw in the whining multitudes who still think that we live in the days of serfdom and need Papa Bear to protect them from corporations, but now I’m changing my mind. Bill O’Reilly is the Left’s biggest secret, their James Bond, their under-the-radar double agent.
Think about it. Every other day he manages to toss in some snippet about “Wall Street thugs” who ruined the economy and caused this great recession. The answer to this problem? More government regulation! Someone has to protect the “folks” from those horrible rich fat cats. (Never mind the fact that the housing bubble and subsequent crash was engendered, encouraged, and made worse by government intervention in the market – how about some “oversight” on the government?)
Then we have O’Reilly’s constant bashing of the oil companies and his use of words like “profiteering.” He supported raising the debt ceiling “one more time” and believes that we need to raise more revenue for the government to spend, including an added national sales tax to pay for Medicare.
Honestly, this stuff is right out of the playbook of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi! But it’s all a disguise, right? After all, just ask O’Reilly: He’s all for the free market – except when he’s not.
But then, perhaps I’m taking it too far. He differs from the Left on several issues. Bill O’Reilly never encountered an infringement of liberty he didn’t like. He supported carte blanche the PATRIOT act and every other single violation of the Bill of Rights that the Bush administration implemented. He’s called for people to be kicked out of their homes for having swingers’ parties, wants his religious beliefs to be taught in schools, and blasted the free speech of the Woodsborough Baptist protestors for daring to have a view that he didn’t like.
Okay, so O’Reilly is not a Leftist or a big-government liberal. There’s another name that I think is more fitting, the term for someone who wants their social and economic vision pushed on to everyone else and is willing to use the government to do it: a statist.
