6d ago

Penn Jillette is No Longer A Libertarian

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Penn Gilette has always seemed to be driven by a level of honesty and compassion and valued the freedom to choose where to direct that compassion. I think earlier on he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it's become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don't want to be called Repuiblicans.
I mean in the early 2000s he was calling bullshit on the hysteria over the vaccine autism link saying the alternative of kids dying to preventable diseases is so much worse. He even gave the tenuous link a benefit of the doubt and accepted that even if they did cause autism,t he alternative is so much worse.
- There aren't many people who are willing to evaluate their entire political decisions and come to the conclusion that they were wrong. Even fewer who will admit it publicly. Even fewer still who will accept responsibility and then do something about it.
  Of the people I have respectfully disagreed with, the fact that he's come around is a huge testament to his willingness to be humbled and corrected.
  
  There aren't many people who are willing to evaluate their entire political decisions and come to the conclusion that they were wrong
  I doubt that his ideology actually changed much, but instead he just realized that the Libertarian Party didn't actually match it like they claimed to do.
  
  The New Hampshire libertarians went full tea party and dragged the rest down with them. I never expected to see anti LGBT rhetoric from a party that enshrined gay rights in their charter way back in 1972, at a time when the Democrats and Republicans were holding hands and chanting "God hates fags" in unison
  
  Yeah I remember when libertarians were "I want a good old fashioned mom and mom Marijuana farm where they defend it with machine guns if they so choose". And back then my beef with them was climate change requires everyone to work in tandem and is an existential threat. These days, libertarians are Republicans who know to be ashamed to call themselves that
  
  I never thought they were a viable option for taking one of the two main party slots, but I thought they had some good things to say and their voice should be heard. Now they're just part of the far right noise machine.
  DAE DEI IS BAD????
  No, LPNH, no I don't.
  
  They're not even real NH people-- after the internet was invented all these freaks found each other across the country and made a pact to move to NH. Then there were enough of them to implement all the absolute stupidest of libertarian ideals in one place (not that I have much hope for even the best of their ideals to succeed).
  They essentially astroturfed a party and made NH look like shit. Which is why this sweaty mutant is talking about toaster licenses.
  
  Was that when a bunch of libertarians flooded a town as new residents, dismantled the municipal government and ended up being overrun by bears because they didn't lock up their garbage cans after dismantling the requirements to lock up garbage cans?
  
  The bear town was definitely one problem
  https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
- he viewed other libertarians as having the same level of honest compassion as he does but over time it’s become more and more clear that libertarians are overwhelmingly selfish rich white guys who don’t want to be called Repuiblicans
  I had a similar progression myself when I was in my teens, maybe even early 20s.
  The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I'll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it's just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview. It took me a while to realize how common it is for self-identifying libertarians to lack any capacity for nuance. The natural extreme of "libertarianism" is just anarchy and feudalism.
  In a sane world, I might still call myself a libertarian. In a sane world, that might mean letting people live their own damn lives, not throwing them to the wolves (or more literally, bears ) and dismantling the government entirely.
  I'm all for minding my own business, but I also acknowledge that maintaining a functional society is everybody's business (as much as I occasionally wish I could opt out and go live in a cave).
  
  One problem with libertarianism and the other selfish philosophies is that humanity absolutely cannot survive at all without a massive amount of cooperation.
  Assholes who think they can do it on their own are completely delusional.
  If you eliminate everything from your life that required the cooperation of another human being, it's likely you're naked, starving, and freezing to death.
  "Oh, I can hunt for food.'
  Really? With just your bare hands? Maybe your naked ass will get lucky and nail a squirrel with a rock, but what are you going to do when a mountain lion decides you're the squirrel?
  Even if you manage to make some rock tools and weapons, you didn't figure that out on your own. Someone told you about it.
  Knowledge is the biggest advantage humans have going for them. Without sharing knowledge that others discovered, most people wouldn't last long enough to matter.
  
  Too damn right. Community is what makes humans strong. Eventually from those communities we form institutions which build nations, which may even build empires and coalitions.
  A human alone is just potential food for something else.
  
  The core political belief I hold is that so long as you are not directly harming someone else, you should be free to do that. That said, I have a lot built up on that.
  I do not extend it to corporations or government. I believe that regulation is undoubtedly necessary for a functioning society.
  And with laws, nuance is in everything. Nothing is ever so black and white to have a zero tolerance policy.
  
  The perverse ideas that money is speech and corporations are people can make a lot of simple common-sense statements suddenly completely insane.
  I support free speech. Money is not speech.
  I support personal freedom. Corporations are not people.
  
  Why limit it to direct harm? There's tons of easily avoidable ways to indirectly cause harm. The most obvious to me are about our natural world: taking anything in an unsustainable way deprives others of opportunity, up to and including their ability to feed themself. Reckless hunting or fishing, poisoning water with agriculture runoff, introducing invasive species for personal gain or through negligence, even just cutting down all the trees around you can have loads of consequences with the impact to animal habitat and increased soil erosion.
  
  Indirect becomes nebulous. At what degree of indirect harm do we set that limit. Almost every action we do may cause indirect harm to others. It might be better phrases as "physically" harms someone. I don't want to get into someone doing something to themselves like taking drugs and restrict it solely on the basis that it will hurt their family and friends to see what happens to them.
  I use it as the core base of my beliefs, but that doesn't mean I don't think that freedom divests them of any responsibility for their indirect actions. It's the default position until something convinces me why it should be restricted or outlawed.
  I also limit it to individuals working alone. Once they work in groups and organize the damage that can be done is different. Or doing it for commercial reasons. I believe private businesses can only exist under strict regulation.
  
  My indirect harm litmus test would fall along the lines of like an OSHA style philosophy of regulation, for example for any kind of ledges we generally require rigid hand railings. If someone got hurt falling off a ledge at my workplace sure I didn't do anything to cause it, but I'd still be on the hook for their injury because I didn't take the required steps to reasonably prevent unnecessary injury.
  
  The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I'll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it's just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview
  The problem is obviously that nobody lives in isolation. Everyone takes actions which impact other people.
  If there are going to be laws, then the government needs a police force and a judiciary that are big enough to enforce those laws. If there are going to be companies, the government has to be bigger than the biggest company, otherwise it won't be able to effectively enforce anything. The bigger the biggest company gets, the bigger the government has to be in order to be able to enforce the laws. But, big government is antithetical to the libertarian philosophy. If you want to limit the size of the government but still want government to be able to enforce laws, you need to limit the size of companies. But that's a regulation, and government regulations are antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.
  Arguing for the idea that the government should generally let people mind their own business as long as nobody is getting hurt, or that consenting adults are knowingly and willingly consenting to being hurt, that's fine. Same with the idea that regulations shouldn't be overly burdensome. There's always going to have to be a line drawn somewhere, but it's fine if you tend to want that line to be drawn in a way that allows for more freedom vs. more babysitting by the government.
  The ridiculous bit is when libertarians try to argue that some extreme form of libertarianism is possible. Anarchy is certainly possible, but it isn't something that most people, even libertarians, think is a great plan.
  
  The extreme forms of Libertarianism or Anarchy are only possible if everyone engages in good faith. They have no built-in protections against bad actors. Someone wants to divert a river for any reason? Sucks to be downstream.
  
  Anarchism can. Anarchism is not the stupid "no rules" thing the media portrays. It's a lack of hierarchy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have government, rules, and protections. In fact, I think any Anarchist would agree they're required or else people can be exploited and lose their freedom, or things like your example can happen. We should just do it in a more cooperative form, not with a ruling class making the rules for us peasants.
  
  How can rules be enforced without a heirarchy of privilege? What stops someone from saying "I don't consent to being told what to do"?
  
  To use a real world example of anarchism in action, shopping carts in a parking lot. I'm doubtful anyone has said "you have to return your shopping cart to a cart return" but the generally people do return their shopping carts. There's also people in vests that come around and clean up the parking lot of loose shopping carts. Sometimes people might offer to pass off a cart they just finished using to someone else, or maybe even snag and extra errant cart on their way to cart return. There's no heirarchy, no authority on high dictating the rules, just people doing their thing and generally following the rules but there is someone who is paid to make sure things get cleaned up when the inevitability of stupidity happens.
  
  People can cooperate without the need for a hierarchy. They can agree that some actions are bad and to punish people without an elite doing so.
  If you want to learn more, there are tons of resources. Here's a few:
  https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-r-what-is-anarchism
  https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full
  https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/index.html
  
  You don't need an "elite" for there to be a heirarchy. I know what anarchism is I just disagree that it's an effective ideology for post-industrial humanity. The world is too complex, our choices have too many consequences, for individuals to make good decisions without ceding some responsibility of knowledge to specialists. This means regulatory bodies, lobbyists, and ideally a democratic means of appointing people to these bodies without being at the short-sighted whims of whoever is suddenly mad that they aren't allowed to fill in a bunch of marshes to build a commune.
  I don't think heirarchy intrinsically means class divide, which is the part I see as important. Full disclosure: I most identify with authoritarian-leftism with sympathies to anarchism as a utopian ideal. My education in ecology taught me that people are not to be trusted without strong regulatory agencies, as much as I'd like to believe that individuals generally want to do right.
  
  You don't need an "elite" for there to be a heirarchy.
  Yeah, someone has to be. That's what a hierarchy is. Someone is above others and has control. That's basically the definition.
  The world is too complex, our choices have too many consequences, for individuals to make good decisions without ceding some responsibility of knowledge to specialists. This means regulatory bodies, lobbyists, and ideally a democratic means of appointing people to these bodies without being at the short-sighted whims of whoever is suddenly mad that they aren't allowed to fill in a bunch of marshes to build a commune.
  This does not rule out Anarchism.
  To go back to this:
  I know what anarchism is...
  I'm not so sure. It can be a vast number of things. It does not mean no rules, no government, no regulations, or whatever else. In fact, I would argue those are essential to some degree or it'd be gone in an instant.
  
  Government is heirarchy, it is the step of organization beyond a cooperative where people are making decisions in lieu of the whole. An elected representative has de facto authority. If someone can opt out of being governed in this way then there are no rules, just suggestions.
  
  Government is heirarchy
  It is not. It can be, but it is not a fundamental aspect of it.
  An elected representative has de facto authority. If someone can opt out of being governed in this way then there are no rules, just suggestions.
  Sure. Not in opposition to Anarchism.
  I recommend you visit the links above. You should be able to find the answers to your issues. For this case, this addresses some of it:
  https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-seca211
  
  You might consider Anarchism ironically. It's leftist libertarian basically, and is not "no government." It's about removing hierarchy, which destroys freedoms of people.
  I used to call myself a Libertarian too, and I eventually ended up on Anarchism.
  
  Thanks for the link. I'm not up on the latest in anarchist philosophy. The last meaningful work I read on the topic was probably In Defense of Anarchism by Robert Paul Wolff.
- The libertarian party used to be considerably different as well. It certainly became something different entirely around 2012-2016.
  
  All the Koch sucking the party did.
- Yeah, I don't have any problem with libertarianism in theory. Pro-civil liberties, anti-racism, anti-war, pro-choice, pro-guns, free markets, etc. I disagree with the value of some of it, but I can see why someone might thoughtfully and sincerely come to that sort of rationale. I've never really had a problem with Penn's (and Teller's) views because of that.
  But the reality is that the majority of modern libertarians are just narcissist capitalists that do not like rules or laws that restrict them from doing anything they want. That or, way worse, they're Ayn Rand ideologues who genuinely believe that self-service is a moral imperative, charity is immoral, poverty is personal failure, human life is measured in productivity, and the sick, poor, or malformed should be left to whatever fate the market gives them. Those types are some of the worst people on the planet. They see a wealthy capitalist as inherently a leader and role model and think he should be unconstrained from accumulating more wealth without concern for society, employees, or individual rights. We're living in the light version of their ideal, and it gets closer to that ideal every day.
- Agreed. If right-libertarianism could work at all, they'd need to be on the frontlines of boycotting companies that do bad things.
  They claim that the government doesn't need to force desegregated lunch counters; people would stop eating there until that place either changed or went out of business. Alright. Are they going to be the first ones to stand up and boycott companies that do anything like that? Because from what I saw, they were the first ones to say "they technically have a right to do that" and then do nothing. Almost like letting them get away with it was the actual point.
  Gilette seems to have caught on to this trick at some point.
  
  I feel the same with Unions and the broader Right. Like the whole point of Unions is they're the "free market" equivalent of government regulation. If you're pro free market but anti-union, then you're not actually pro free market, you're just pro exploitation.
  
  Absolutely. It's no coincidence that anti-union sentiment is common among right-libertarians.
  
  They don't just think companies have the right to do that. They also think companies have a right to create restrictions that prevent you from doing anything. If you go to a protest you may be fired, for example. It creates a situation where the ruling class can prevent dissent because you need food, water, and shelter at minimum, and they can take that away if you are a dissident.
  
  Commenting just to keep this particular comment in my history to write about later. I think it’s a backbone for a labor bill rights as well as a form of ranked choice voting
- When I was younger I called myself a libertarian. This was progression from a somewhat conservative family, with my ideal that people should be left to do what they want as long as it doesn't harm others. I eventually progressed towards a leftist mindset and now consider myself an anarchist. Same idea, except libertarians mostly want no protections and are pro-hierachy, which leads to a lack of freedom not more freedom. If companies are free to do what they want they will use their position to remove the freedom of workers to make choices freely, for example.
  I still hold most of the same ideals as I did then, as I'm sure Penn Jillette probably does too. I just have a better view of the consequences of the policies that they push for.
  
  Edit: reread this and it comes off as accuaation. Im not accuijng you, just typed the thing in second person.
  Often l have found that libertarians aren't so much pro hierarchy, so much as blind to the role they play in the existing heirarchy.
  It seems common to not turn a critical eye to yourself to see where you actually fit into the scene of things, and missing that you are in fact doing harm yo others by being ignorant of the impact of your actions is super on brand.
  Libertarianism always felt like 2/3s of the way there, where the only remaining domino is to recognize "wealth is a thing I have because of circumstance... If someone else had this wealth, what would they do with it, and if they had Elon Musk billions what would that look like?"

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