Penn Jillette: Bullshit Libertarian
Soviet Onion recently posted an interview of Penn Jillette in the Forums of the Libertarian Left:
Jillette’s opinion can be briefly summarized.
Real libertarians worship the US Constitution, a document that was written by a conspiracy of reactionaries and recognized as useless by libertarians in the mid-nineteenth century.
Only a savage would ever break a window. The only respectable way to fight oppression is with think tanks underwritten by wealthy capitalists and with marketing gimmicks. It’s a good thing private companies make the tear gas those Libertarian(tm)-Approved government cops are using. Otherwise imagine how many more banks and police cars would have broken windows.
I’m a libertarian because I don’t want someone ruling me personally. Who cares about anyone else?
Laugh at statements that radically condemn the status quo. Do not address their substance.
Tacitly approve anarcho-capitalism by reassuring the establishment that it stands for privatizing oppression.
Reinforce statist distinction between ineffective “peaceful” protestors and offensive “bad” protestors.
Keep your Illusions to yourself Penn. I hope the fat line between you and reality thins out.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
*facepalm*
March 26th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Ouch! Here we are back on the windows, where’s Kinsella? I’ve got to admit though, I really like Penn. I never considered him that much of a constitutional fetishist. Then again I also really like Arrested Development, so I guess in some Enron accounting scheme it all balances out.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Maybe I should have added that this isn’t a matter of something “going mainstream” and thereby becoming uncool. The fact is that once a radical ideology is contorted to serve the status quo, it ceases to stand for change, and therefore will cease to cause any changes, becoming irrelevant to anyone seeking a change as big as the greatest possible respect for individual rights.
And the really offensive thing about this interview is not that Penn holds incorrect beliefs, but that he applies them to libertarians in general. I just thought of the interview’s mention of nuts infiltrating the libertarian movement. Who are these nuts they’re speaking of? The radicals whose positions once defined the word libertarian?
March 27th, 2009 at 8:43 am
The violence some engage in does depress me – it just reinforces the view that anarchists are violent window smashers and nothing more…
It also lends a veneer of legitimacy (in the eyes of most people) to police brutality.
Protest peacefully, with or without police permission. Don’t damage property, but occupy it if its unjustly acquired.
Most importantly make anarchy respectable (not by watering it down but by showing how it can work without violence).
March 27th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Illusions and delusions… I suppose that’s a symptom of a lack of consistency.