Views and Opinions
McCain was once a Democrat, but now supports conservative Republicans; he has said that "anything that is good for the Democratic Party is bad for America, and vice versa." He pointed to reading back issues of The Freeman, a libertarian magazine, through the mid-1990s, to explain his political conversion. McCain now identifies himself as a supporter of Austrian economic theory in the vein of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. He has come to believe that government imposition of broader social goals such as "social justice" cannot work out as a practical matter. He also calls himself "profoundly skeptical of radical notions of moral and political progress" in social issues, citing Edmund Burke as an influence.
McCain said in March 2010 that he disagreed with the invasion of Iraq and wanted to express his criticism publicly at the time, but he could not do so since his supervisors and colleagues at The Washington Times did not approve. He remarked that "Any way you look at it, war is a very bad thing," while adding "but losing a war is worse" .
Mediaite's Tommy Christopher once took McCain to task for appearing to excuse date rape when, in a blog post, McCain wrote about promiscuity among women: "Listen up, sweetheart: You buy the ticket, you take the ride." After indignation broke out among both liberal and conservative defenders of women, Christopher confronted McCain on-camera at the CPAC conference in March of 2011, seeking clarity. McCain conceded the point, explained why he had been skeptical of a widely publicized date-rape accusation (against Julian Assange) and repeated after Christopher: "No means no; stop means stop." Writing about this encounter, Christopher remarked that "McCain still holds many opinions that I find objectionable, but I also think that places the 'character' that is RS McCain into a context that simply reading him does not."
Read more about this topic: Robert Stacy Mc Cain
Famous quotes containing the words views and/or opinions:
“It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)