More courtesy of Mediaite:
Bill Maher ended his show tonight by railing against a political movement he has aligned himself with in the past: libertarianism. He slammed the current wave of libertarians, among them Paul Ryan and Rand Paul, for having a “creepy obsession” with free markets, Ayn Rand, and government staying out of the way. He made it clear that he has not abandoned the libertarianism altogether, saying, “I didn’t go nuts, this movement did.”
Maher complained that the current crop of libertarians are “ruining libertarianism,” saying there’s a difference between holding that political philosophy and being a “selfish prick.” Maher admitted that he has expressed support in the past for a lot of what libertarians have to say, but along the way he noticed it evolved into a “creepy obsession with free market capitalism.”
Maher specifically brought up libertarian worship of Ayn Rand, whom he argued only sounds good when you’re a teenager but actually lacks any real substance. He declared that libertarians like Ryan and Paul who subscribe to this line of thinking are “intellectually stuck in their teenage years.”
There are a few issues that Maher and I certainly do not see eye to eye on, and one of those was the fact that he embraced of Libertarianism, which to me was always a movement that gave selfish people an excuse to be assholes.
Nice to see that Maher is finally seeing the light as well.
P.S. If HBO act like assholes again and and block the YouTube video, just go to the Mediaite link and watch it there. It definitely worth your time.
I completely agree (and have since I first heard of it) with your assessment of libertarianism. I would also add the word "arrogant" in the description along with the term "totally clueless".
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link! Paul Ryan will never live that "weight lifting" photo op down, and Bill took full advantage of it in his punchline.
ReplyDeleteI concur, the irony this past election was that the GOP went over the ledge of berserk, that Ron Paul almost appeared to be a viable candidate!
I read P.J. O'Rourke's terrific piece on the bible of economics (Wealth of Nations).
ReplyDeleteAt first his explanation of free markets and all, which Adam Smith credits as the only sane form of commerce and government, made sense to me, if only because it seemed so SIMPLE.
But now I see it more as SIMPLISTIC! That is what went wrong with the libertarian movement...they refused to factor in how every person is a tiny bit different. And that some people are downright EVIL, so cannot be trusted to play in the sandbox nicely with the rest of us.
While its a shame to have to apply restrictions and rules to free trade, we can see the obvious outcome of having too few rules, today (with our obscenely lopsided wealth distribution...500 Americans owning 60% of the entire WORLD's wealth, is not a good thing, but a recipe for financial disaster.)
Although Smith's 800 page book is so revered, no one seems to have actually READ it: the author did 50 pages or so on why BANKS cannot be trusted...and that we should regulate the holy shit out of them.
Ugh. They are NOT NOT NOT real libertarians. I get annoyed when people call these knuckle draggers libertarians. (I'm not one but I have a soft spot for them because I knew some in college.) Libertarianism is about limited government, you cannot be a libertarian and be in favor of government regulations of a woman's body. You can't be a libertarian and think its okay for the government to decide whether to keep someone on life support. And you sure as fuck can't be a libertarian and vote to impeach a president for getting a bj, like Ron Paul did. These people aren't libertarians -- they're neo-Neanderthals, as someone at HuffPo or Slate called them.
ReplyDeleteIt is a childish ideology because it is based on a view of the world that is black and white, which is how a child sees the world.
If I didn't have a firmer grasp on libertarianism than Bill Maher has, I wouldn't try to explain it, unless I was trying to be a comedian or something.
ReplyDeleteI would like listening or watching Maher a lot more if he didn't have audiences that were screened to linger on every little thing he says or does.
ReplyDeleteLIbertarians have always been nothing more than frauds.
ReplyDeleteThe larger problem with Bill Maher is his continual affinity towards lending credibility to idiots by inviting them onto his show and giving them a venue to spew their idiocy.
Bill Maher shouldn't ever invite someone such as Abby Huntsman or Stephen Moore to spout their nonsense. That he does invite such idiots onto his show imparts a terrible misdeed on the public.
Those idiots should be marginalized and shunned, not given a national television audience megaphone.