Penn Jillette: Mistrust of Government Is a Beautiful Thing | Big Think

Penn Jillette: Mistrust of Government Is a Beautiful Thing

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The magician explains his libertarian beliefs and why President Obama should be "questioned and beat up."

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PENN JILLETTE:

Penn Jillette is a cultural phenomenon as a solo personality and as half of the world-famous Emmy Award­-winning magic duo Penn & Teller. His solo exposure is enormous: from Howard Stern to Glenn Beck to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, MTV Cribs, and Chelsea Lately and hosted the NBC game show Identity. As part of Penn & Teller, he has appeared more than twenty times on David Letterman, as well as on several other TV shows, from The Simpsons and Friends to Top Chef and The View. He co-hosts the controversial series Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, which has been nominated for sixteen Emmy Awards. He is currently co host of the Discovery Channel's Penn & Teller Tell a Lie and the author of God, No! and Presto!

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Why is it important to mistrust the government?

Penn Jillette: I believe that our country, uniquely for the time, was founded on mistrust for the government, which is such a heady and beautiful idea. The idea that we have all the rights in the world. We have complete and utter freedom and we give up very specific freedoms in order to have a government that will protect the other freedoms.

Such a profound idea and so deep, and so wonderful. And I think that it was so weird to see all the people who said that dissent was part of their job during the Bush Administration turn around and say that we were all supposed to rally behind Obama. I mean, I disagreed with Bush and Obama tremendously... and on the exact same issues. And the only issue that really matters to me is wars and killing people overseas. I'm against them... and I was against them when Bush was doing it and now that Obama is doing it more I'm against it too. And I think that it's part of the joy and the wonder and the brilliance of the ideas of the United States of America that whoever is in power is questioned and beat up.

I was asked... and I'm going on the Joy Behar Show later today and you get questions ahead of time, unlike here. They lay stuff on you ahead of time. And it was Obama said he wants to figure out whose ass to kick and that before he was busted for being not emotional enough—too cold. And now he's being busted for being too straight. How can he win? And my answer is: he's not supposed to win. He's the President. They're supposed to be millions of people disagreeing with him on everything and busting him on everything.

That's the way the country is supposed to work, and that's not something to bemoan the fact that the government can't rally everybody to work together. That's to be celebrated. The government being is hamstring and as closed off and as clumsy as possible is exactly what we want. The last thing we want is a government that can get things done. A government that can get things done all they will get done is taking away freedoms. Its been shown over and over again. We want a clunky, sloppy, slow-moving, small, insignificant, weak government there all the time. And that's a government we can love and protect.

Question: What is the biggest misconception people have about libertarians?

Penn Jillette: Well it's the same misconception that everybody seems to have about everyone else and it's the same misconception libertarians have about liberals or conservatives have and that is we sometimes tend to forget that everybody is trying for the best. Everyone's goals are the same with very small differences. I mean, the goal of a socialist and the goal of a libertarian are exactly the same. The goals are happiness and security and freedom and you balance those.

But I think the biggest misconception that I find about libertarians is that there's a lack of compassion and I think that there is as much compassion on libertarians as there is among liberals. It's not what the problems are, it's how to solve them. Everybody wants clean, safe, energy. Some people think nuclear is the way...

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