Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie
Episode: If You Don't Like Socialism or the Establishment, Curtis Sliwa Wants Your Vote
Description: Curtis Sliwa became famous by stepping in where the government was falling short. As the New York mayoral candidate told Reason's Jesse Walker, the Guardian Angels—the anti-crime patrols that Sliwa launched in New York City in 1979—were born because "the government completely failed us….We filled the gap."
In the years since then, Sliwa has expanded the Guardian Angels to cities around the world, launched a multidecade career in talk radio, confessed that some of his organization's early crime-fighting exploits were hoaxes, and survived a very real assassination attempt allegedly ordered by the Gotti family. Now he's a...