The Aristocrats & A Proposal

I first learned of The Aristocrats [movie] through Radley Balko's post here. He has a link to the production notes within that same post. After skimming through the notes, I came across the Q&A section with Penn Jillette. Let me just say it's a delight to read his answers. He is a libertarian through and through, and he seems to always manage to find ways of infusing his passion for freedom into his work. Whether it's making the hit series Bullshit on Showtime, or now this, I believe he's helped increase the potential for libertarian ideas to come into fruition. Please read on after the quotes below, as I have some ideas to throw around. Without further ado, I give you some highlights...

Q: The film deals with decency and censorship. In fact, in ‘The Aristocrats’ the joke is so called because they were the class originally leading the call to censor public works and speech in the name of decency. Do you invite discussions of the film that include commentary about the current activities of the FCC? Were you trying to make such commentary in making the film?

PENN: Everyone in this movie is in love with language and comedy. It’s not a political statement, it’s a celebration. Everything in this movie would bother the FCC, people who don’t love language and people having fun will hate this movie. That’s fine. We don’t want them to come. Michael Moore seems to want everyone to see his movies, he seems to think they’re important. This movie is a celebration of life, humanity, language and freedom. And freedom includes the freedom to not watch other people having fun if you’re not. I don’t want anyone to see this movie who doesn’t enjoy being offended. I don’t want to surprise anyone. This movie is too fun to be forced on people. People will bitch about this movie and hate it, but I hope they enjoy that too. I have lots of fun complaining about things I don’t like. It’s part of our service. The idea of freedom of speech is just great. It was created to protect freedom of speech for the serious discussion of ideas, but a perquisite of that, is people can talk really dirty and say offensive stuff if it makes them laugh. This movie is more about the pursuit of happiness than it is about freedom of speech. It’s mostly people laughing and there’s nothing more beautiful in the world no matter how ugly what they’re laughing at is. And there will never be a stronger political statement than this movie. The pursuit of happiness is freedom; it’s the only reason to live.

Q: In the section of the film that deals with Gilbert Gottfried’s telling of the joke at the Friar’s Roast of Hugh Heffner just 3 weeks after September 11, several people comment on the fact that his telling of the joke and the audience’s reaction felt cathartic. Do you think that extreme vulgarity and crude humor can have redeeming social value? Under what circumstances, if so?

PENN: Yes, always. It reminds us we’re human and that we’re alive. As I said, I don’t care very much what people are laughing at, I love to see them laugh. Yup, after the real horror on September 11th, it’s more important than ever to remember that shock that doesn’t matter is fun. If we’re not going to laugh our asses off, then who cares if we get them blown off?

PAUL: There is a sufficient argument for its redeeming social value when anyone can find this joke shocking, as tens of thousands of human beings are being killed around the world for any excuse anyone can concoct to make that fact ok. At its very least, the ridiculous ongoing rhetoric about ‘bad’ words is a f**kin’ reality check. “Vulgar” and “crude” are pretty subjective words. I’m sure my idea of them is very different from yours, whoever you are reading this. Which is as it should be. When we stub our toes, we curse before we can stop ourselves. There’s a reason for that. Let’s not confuse social conventions and politeness with any kind of truth. Those are simply a construct to help us all get along. I think there’s an organic need to take a sh*t in the punchbowl once in a while.

With Cato's recent event talking about Libertarianism in Contemporary Pop Culture, The Aristocrats, and another movie I'll talk about in my next blog entry...my hopes for significant change in our political climate have only increased.

All of this as of late has inspired me to do some political brainstorming. While the Advocates for Self Government have merely identified "libertarian celebrities", I'm thinking we should be doing much more than just listing friends of freedom. We need to reach out to those that are actively a part of our popular culture and those that can reach mass audiences. I’m not shooting for the stars just yet obviously, but what about just starting with comedians for instance.

I think we’re definitely seeing more “mainstream” comedians now than ever. Despite this though, I believe it’s the one form of entertainment that’s more or less stayed true to its underlying objective. Make people laugh, and don’t take life too seriously. That seems pretty libertarian to me. That’s one of the reasons why we hate current politics so much isn’t it? If all we were to do as a society is to believe all the negative depressing crap mainstream media throws at us, we’d constantly stay indoors. If all we were to do as a society is to accept, hook-line-and-sinker, everything that comes out of the mouths of our politicians, we would all be at their subjective mercy.

However true that some of that mentality still pervades a good portion of society, there's an untapped market we've just begun to embrace. Let’s stem the tide of this seemingly endless growth of government. Let’s invoke a healthy dose of reason and bluntness into the mix. Let’s bring out those people that naturally have faith in freedom because they see it work everyday, and let’s make the Libertarian Party the party they flock to.

Just so that you know I’m not talking out of my ass, I will be contacting Doug Stanhope via email soon to throw some ideas his way. Whether he’ll respond or not is another question, but at least I will know that I tried something. Just imagine, a Freedom Fest including those that we also actually see on TV (Stanhope, Joe Rogan, Penn Jillette, etc., etc.)

Note - I’m not naïve to think that all comedians are libertarians. Of course comedians can fill all parts of the political spectrum. You have to start somewhere though right? Let me know in the comments section if what I envision is worth pursuing, or if I’m in over my friggin’ head.

Billboard Contest - Part Deux

Alright, here's the final copy for my second submission. If anyone wants to take a crack at cleaning it up even further, I can give you the PSD files.


Update: This was the rough copy for my second submission in the Hammer of Truth contest. I threw his ass in the gym to get him a little more diesel. You gotta be strong to hold the government on your back no?

Too Much Respect for Authority?

I came across this article on TechCentralStation a little while ago titled, Can a People Have Too Much Respect for the Law?

Can a people have too much respect for the law?

This might appear to be a strange question to ask. Americans, after all, seem to believe that it is impossible to have too much respect for the law. Yet a visitor to our shores in 1867 -- and an English barrister at that -- disagreed with this proposition.

The visitor was William Hepworth Dixon...

[...]

Yet there was one aspect of our national character that disagreed with him. Our "deference to the Law, and to every one who wears the semblance of lawful authority, is so complete…as to occasion a traveler some annoyance and more surprise," Dixon wrote. "Every dog in office is obeyed with such unquestioning meekness, that every dog in office is tempted to become a cur."

[...]

Dixon singled out the Justices of the Supreme Court, noting with apparent dismay that they are "treated with a degree of respect akin to that which is paid to an archbishop in Madrid and to a cardinal in Rome." Then he concludes with an admonition:

More than once I have ventured to tell my friends, that this habit of deferring to law and lawful authority, good in itself, has gone with them into extremes, and would lead them, should they let it, into the frame of mind for yielding to the usurpation of any bold despot who may assail their liberties, like Caesar, in the name of law and order.

[...]

This same contempt for the law, however, is not shared by the average American, who displays in 2005 the same exaggerated respect for the law that Dixon observed in 1867. In particular, the general populace continues to adhere to the view that those who have been entrusted with the task of interpreting the law -- especially those sitting on the highest court of our land -- must be deferred to, no matter how absurd or capricious their rulings may appear when approached from the perspective of sheer logic.

People need to be more skeptical of authority now more than ever. It's a healthy and necessary component that needs to be at the heart of every political conversation.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. - Thomas Jefferson

Too much respect for our military?:
I care for the safety of our military as much as the next person, but I just can’t get on board with the whole “Support Our Troops” bumper sticker mantra. I tend to think that the people who brandish this trendy little bumper sticker are also in favor of the war in Iraq itself, but I obviously can’t say for sure. I just don’t see how anyone holding a generally complex opinion about the war or someone in favor of a non-interventionist foreign policy would feel comfortable slapping one of these puppies on.

With that said, I recommend watching this Cato event The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. There’s a good portion of America who still romanticize the soldier.

Doug Stanhope has a funny little bit he does on “Hero Pussy”. You can listen to a portion of it on Amazon’s site. Scroll to Track 11 on this page.

Too much respect given to police?:
While it’s really bad laws that should be condemned, and the legislative bodies that pass them, I think police officers serve their own role by giving legitimacy to the bureaucracy of it all as they enforce said bad laws.

I have a lot more respect for those officers that, although they too enforce bad law, also speak out publicly against them when they’re not in uniform. Unfortunately, these are far and few in between.

Lack of accountability, excessive power, combined with an overabundant police force is a dangerous combination.

I’d like to give more credit to the men in uniform, but their job is no more dangerous than a firefighter or a high rise construction worker. You gain your respect from the community by helping keep the peace. Keep stepping on toes and extending your bounds, regardless of following the law of the land, and there will be some sort of backlash.

*Note to LP members doing outreach* Tax Day Protest’s are fine, but why wait for one day out of the year to recruit libertarians, when standing outside your county courthouse after a night of traffic court could generate dozens each week. Let’s capitalize on those that have been shafted by the system. And I'm not denouncing traffic laws just to be clear. I'm talking about those walking out of court feeling that justice wasn't served, that their fines were exorbitant, or that safety...other than their own didn't factor into the violation.

Foolish Consistency

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. ("Self-Reliance", 1841)

"The Party of Principle"…the Libertarian Party's own small and simple tagline. Concise, appealing, AND...ambiguous. Yes, I know...it's a slogan and not meant to express anything in detail. But when asking a libertarian (and there are many different flavors) to specifically list and define those principles, I believe you'd get a whole host of different responses. So let me briefly spell out some of the major ones for clarification.

Principles the libertarian purists recognize:
1. The non-initiation of force
2. All taxation is theft and is consequently wrong
3. Unfettered open immigration

Principles I believe should fall under the LP’s slogan:
1. Limited government
- A reduction in the size and scope of government at all levels, incrementally.
- Strongly advocate the benefits and necessity of a pluralistic society.
2. Non-interventionist foreign policy
3. Relatively open immigration but with some sort of border control – Read Badnarik’s position on this.

The first set listed constitutes a world of black and white. It is a foolish consistency as Emerson puts it. One can simply be consistently in favor of maximizing both personal and economic liberties and still be considered principled in the libertarian movement. The pressure that has been exerted on newcomers in the past (and present) to adhere to a very narrow set of principles, especially those that seem to be more in line with those of an anarchist…have only had the effect of keeping this party on the fringe.

Read Lew Rockwell's attempt here at what amounts to basically a "rallying of the troops", for the sake of preserving the reputation the LP currently holds. Tim West pulls out some quotables from his piece here and Thomas Knapp takes his article to task with some criticisms of his own.

Hurricanes for you SUV owners!

Hurricane season is here again in FL, sweeeet. I missed all of the ones from last year as I was still in NJ waiting for my house to be built. Dennis totally missed my neck of the woods, but hopefully we'll see Emily pay us a visit so I can hit up one of my brother-n-law's hurricane parties. Yeah I know...I probably should be bitching and complaining, creating TO-DO lists, and tracking the storms every hour like everyone else. But my preparedness is a given. I'm more concerned with having a good time enjoying all of Mother Nature’s glory.

From Planet Moron comes a funny little post concerning global warming. With the 4 major hurricanes from last year, combined with the first couple this year, climatologists advocating a global-warming alarmist agenda seem ready to blow a load.

The sky is warming, the sky is warming

[...]

First, it’s important to understand that no matter what the data, it proves that global warming not only exists but is caused by human activity, and not only caused by human activity but caused by you and your SUV.

Increased Atlantic hurricane activity is the most recent topic of controversy. Hurricane experts believe it is all part of well understood long-term cycles. As Chris Landsea of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, “The folks in the field are unanimous in saying that global warming doesn’t have an appreciable impact on hurricanes today and that changes in the future look to be really tiny,”

Climatologists involved in global warming advocacy disagree based on one of the fundamental pillars of scientific thought: The preconceived notion. Since their models say that every time you fire up your leaf blower a tropical depression forms off the African continent then it must be so.

[...]

Elsewhere global warming advocates point to “record high” temperatures in the North Atlantic. Since records go back over 50 years, which we believe was the time when dinosaurs last roamed the earth, we can take this as a climatologically significant data point.

What isn’t significant? Well, there is the fact that a similar warming trend was recorded in the 1960s (this was prior to the SUV era when our primitive ancestors drove around in four-wheeled vehicles they called “cars”) and the below-average temperatures being recorded in the Labrador current. These are known as “anomalies.” Scientists don’t like anomalies as they call into question the premise on which all their funding is based.

Hey, you try to get a grant to study the “impending global threat of things pretty much staying the way they are."

Cato has plenty of studies, op-eds, and books on this country's global warming hysteria. Patrick Michaels work on this subject is definitely worth a look as well.

Late Night Ramblings - Vol. 1

I just finished brainstorming not too long ago, as one does when one hits the cheeba. Actually it's more like cheapa. Forgive me while I ramble some more before I hit the hay and wake up to best friggin' day of the week.

Tack on another piece of flair for Stephen Gordon as he creates a survey that is supposed to help us better understand where libertarians are coming from. I'm interested in seeing what conclusions will be drawn from the eventual statistics. I know one thing's for sure and what this will confirm. There are many clearly identifiable factions of liberty groups, some being divisive, within the liberty movement. If the liberty movement is to make any particular headway, and if the LP is the vehicle that drives us there, the LP will have to figure out quickly how it can create a sense of unity among the factions. Not in agreement necessarily, as that's why many of them are unique enough to merit their own agenda...but to generate a consensus among the groups that it benefits them, to support the Libertarian Party rather than sitting by idly as has been the case. To do this, we have to be more practical in the way we approach our politics. The in-fighting that has been going on as of late at the LP blog has to stop. It's healthy to hash out our points, but unless we back off a little to keep conversation civil...I'm afraid we'll have another Cato incident. Until we realize that there are bigger fish to fry than ourselves, we'll be lost.

All I'm saying I guess, is to give the people an option of embracing more liberty. I know it's been said often among this pragmatic group, but the libertarian macho flashing has got to go. Michael Cloud coined that term, and he's no moderate! Don't corner yourself into your own strictly defined view of liberty and libertarianism. Let liberty take its course.

I learned that "The Declaration of Independence took EFFECTIVELY 13 years to actually implement" from one of Tim West's post's on the LP blog. Yet there's clamor about the new Iraq exit plan put out by the LP because it wasn't calling for an immediate withdrawal of our troops. How careless of you, it saddens me. You hold back this party for your own selfish and warped political safe-haven. You quote, selectively, certain intellectuals in the freedom movement and use it out of context, or as a defense for some major & complex political issue.

We found a party that respects and holds up our individuality in celebration. We found a philosophy that confirms our deepest beliefs of human nature and the proper role of government. The era of Enlightenment produced amazing thinkers whose words live through us to this day. Let's move forward already and pay those people respect by giving substance to their words.

So to this I say to all the factions that create the larger whole, let's stop the pettiness...and kick some government ass already!

Google Earth & Google Video

If you've ever used Microsoft's MapPoint before, Google Earth is 5x better and 10x cooler. The download page has been on and off again just because of the high demand. I would suggest saving it to your HD when it is available just in case you want to give it to someone else (10mb file).

I also tried out Google Video but I think that's even more into the preliminary stages. The search yields plenty of results but none of the video I've wanted to see has been playable (archived).

Batman begins: Quote of the day

Bruce Wayne: People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy, but I can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man of flesh and blood I can be ignored, be destroyed, but as a symbol... as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting.

I was looking for this quote in the Batman Begins script, but they must have just added it to the dialogue in the movie during filming. FYI, David Boaz comments on the movie in this article.

So what can we do to bring people out of their apathy? Is Gotham America too far gone?

Uproar from LP hardliners

As I read the Libertarian Party's exit plan, I knew it wouldn't sit well with some members. Particularly those who wish to keep the LP as an ideologically pure, no compromise, fringe party. But I didn't care. It's what made me finally join the LP after 9 years. I posted this below on the LP blog in response to some of the expected uproar.

Libertarians, I believe almost unilaterally, understand that democracy and freedom cannot be hoisted on the backs of another country. That's why MOST of us are against the war in Iraq, among other important reasons. If that type of change is to occur in a country it has to come from within, and it will come at the pace of each individual. When enough individuals stand up, systematic change will occur, but it STILL takes time.

Yet the LP hardliners continue to throw out the, “it’s all or nothing” attitude when it comes to the often times difficult task, of trying to win the hearts and minds of the people in our OWN country. They fail to see that they’re precisely doing the same thing they so adamantly oppose. We cannot hoist freedoms on the backs of Americans who are unwilling. If more freedoms are to come to this country, it's going to come in incremental steps and successes that vindicate the idea that more freedom is desirable.

MPP, Insitute for Justice, Independent Institute, CATO, Reason, etc, ...all are fighting their own small little battles in their own way. They are respectable organizations that have earned their reputations by proposing common sense solutions to win back freedom and America's faith in freedom. Why can't the LP follow the same model?