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
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