Amazing article coming from the Editorial Director of CBS News. Pretty good.'We Know What's Best For You' - CBS News: "The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne this week. Dionne was arguing with a fellow liberal who wrote what the Democrats need to do is destroy today's 'radical individualism' and replace it with 'a politics of a 'common good.' That's fine, Dionne said, but we need to hear 'more about self-interest, rightly understood.'
That phrase made me cringe. It still does.
'Self-interest, rightly understood' is a fancy-pants way of saying, 'I know what is in your interest better than you do.' It is, in my view, a politically stupid and morally diseased position. Democrats, by temperament, are slightly more susceptible to it than Republicans.
I do not mean to condemn Dionne for a phrase. But I will. It reminded me of something written on the very first page of a book that lots of Democrats think is absolutely brilliant, 'What's the Matter with Kansas' by Thomas Frank.
In the third paragraph of his book, Frank writes: 'People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about.'
That, too, is a fancy-pants way of saying: 'I know what is in your interest better than you do.' "
