20/20 reporter discusses new book with 'Prince'

Last night John Stossel '69, co-anchor of ABC's 20/20, spoke at the U-Store about his new book "Give Me a Break."

'Prince' senior writer Natasha Degen sat down with Stossel afterwards to discuss his experiences at the University and personal philosophy.

'Prince': In your book, you described coming into your philosophy as an individual process. Is this entirely true, or have certain books and figures influenced you?

Stossel: Well, it's ironic that the person who influenced me the most was a Princetonian. When I struggling with these ideas, I was reading the liberal press, which was in love with the welfare state, and it didn't really make sense to me. And the conservative press seemed to want to bring police into our bedrooms. Then I discovered something called Reason Magazine, based out of Los Angeles, which just made sense. Suddenly there were these people who grappled with these ideas before me who understood them better than I did and had a real intellectual foundation for it. My favorite writer there was the editor — a woman named Virginia Postrel — who I assumed was some 60 year old lady writing brilliant stuff. But she turned out to be about 10 years behind me at Princeton [Postrel was a member of the class of 1982] . . . Ayn Rand and a book by Charles Murray called "In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government" have also influenced me.

P: What do you want the book's take home message to be?

S: Freedom works. Limited government and individual freedom have helped more people than government and lawyers ever will. P: Much of your work — whether confronting corporate criminals, exposing fraud, questioning common views — seems to have a combative flavor to it. Do you think that this helps convince people of your point of view?

S: I don't know — I just can't help myself. I think it makes it more interesting and I think we learn from confrontation. I was angry at the consumer cheaters and I'm angry at the lawyer parasites, but I'm just smarter about going about it.

P: You were in the class of 1969 at Princeton. Could you tell us about your memories and experiences?

S: I had fun at Tower Club playing poker and I didn't like Princeton much because it wasn't coed. I had an unhealthy attitude towards women — chasing after them, following them around the bookcases at the library. We could bring down dates for weekends and then it was trying to pack too much into one short period of time. It was unhealthy. So I'm glad that I helped agitate for coeducation. I don't give Princeton any money because I think that it already has an absurd endowment.

P: Do you have any advice for Princeton students?

S: Every lawyer I think sucks about $60,000 to $80,000 a year out of the economy so I would encourage people to go into science, medicine or business, but not law. We have too many lawyers already . . . Law is forced, and government is forced. We should keep the forced sector small and the free sector big.