Bull Sessions with Penn Jillette

Katherine Mangu-Ward | January 15, 2008

Libertarian fellow traveler Penn Jillette is making crazy/awesome Internet-only video rants. From the press release:

"Big badass [video site] Crackle has given me the chance to talk directly to you about anything I want, anytime I want. I mean anything. I mean any time. When something gets my goat, or I want to get someone else’s goat or other farm animal, I’ll flip on my camera and rave about it. Half-cocked, from inside my head, electronically to inside your head in minutes. No script, no thinking, so I might be wrong. I’m counting on you to keep me honest with videos right back to me,” said Jillette.

This should be good. Keep in mind that Jillette is the man who once said to reason in an interview about censorship:

"What about the Bible? Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around. If you're looking for violent rape imagery, the Bible's right there in your hotel room. If you just want to look up ways to screw people up, there it is, and you're justified because God told you to. You have Shakespeare and you have Sophocles--what are we going to do, lose Oedipus Rex if someone pokes an eye out?"

Via BoingBoing

Comments

highnumber|1.15.08 @ 6:45PM|#

Scooped you, Reason!

|1.15.08 @ 6:52PM|#

Yes, yes, yes. But what does Penn think of RON PAUL?!!!!1

jag|1.15.08 @ 6:55PM|#

This would be much better as a podcast than a video. I could do without looking at him.

Elemenope|1.15.08 @ 7:03PM|#

jag --

Yeah. That was the number one problem with Bullshit, too.

VM|1.15.08 @ 7:14PM|#

P&T are great fun.

Their talks at the Amazing Meetings are really cool. Randi.org

Paul|1.15.08 @ 7:16PM|#

Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around. If you're looking for violent rape imagery

If the Bible had been more titillating, I'd have been religious...

Elemenope|1.15.08 @ 7:22PM|#

Paul, have you ever even read the Song of Solomon?

What's excessively funny is listening to pastors explain desperately how it really isn't just about passionate sex.

Elemenope|1.15.08 @ 7:34PM|#

Elemenope: yeah, I have a beautiful old bible from the 1940s that contains a brief, one-line synopsis of what's happening at the top of each page. Every page in the Song of Solomon is supposed to be about "the mutual life of Christ and the church". LOL.

jag|1.15.08 @ 7:35PM|#

last comment was me, sorry.

Yahoo Answerer|1.15.08 @ 7:42PM|#

Bullshitt! is one show that will go down in history. It will be remembered as a show that was cutting edge in its time. And as a vehicle through which people can see our present culture.

Nutter|1.15.08 @ 7:44PM|#

Looks like Penn cranks out a lot more videos than Drew

|1.15.08 @ 7:53PM|#

Why "libertarian fellow traveler" rather than just plain "libertarian"?

shecky|1.15.08 @ 8:10PM|#

OK, I couldn't even make it all the way through any of those. Do any of those clips have a payoff?

Mad Max|1.15.08 @ 9:23PM|#

"Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around."

Lenin, Mao, Trotsky, Hitler, Stalin, Mengistu, Caucescu, Pol Pot, et. al. were sane, not "nuts," so don't think that I'm going to make any predictable cheap shots about Penn's blatant anti-Christian and anti-Jewish bigotry.

"If you're looking for violent rape imagery, the Bible's right there in your hotel room. If you just want to look up ways to screw people up, there it is, and you're justified because God told you to."

Tell me again why Ron Paul is not worthy of libertarian support? Oh, yes, because certain remarks in those newsletters were bigoted and offensive.

|1.15.08 @ 9:41PM|#

I'm with highnumber--miffed that Hit & Run would cite the socialists at Boing Boing over their fellow travelers at Urkobold. Harumph. We're the heirs of Monkey Tuesday, for Zod's sake!

Grumble.

|1.15.08 @ 10:21PM|#

Fat lesbian in drag, but the guy's funny.

|1.15.08 @ 10:23PM|#

Oh, and Mad Max? Testicles are worth growing.
Jeebus, not everyone here is salivating to see Christianity die the horrible death it deserves.

|1.15.08 @ 10:25PM|#

Mad Max,
Kinda have to agree with.

Bullshit should also be credited with trying to work naked chicks into as many episodes as possible.

Regards,
TDL

|1.15.08 @ 10:26PM|#

That first sentence should "Kinda have to agree with you."

Mad Max|1.15.08 @ 10:29PM|#

"Oh, and Mad Max? Testicles are worth growing.

"Jeebus, not everyone here is salivating to see Christianity die the horrible death it deserves."

This must be the slow class.

You see, I was wondering why *Reason* wasn't worried about the political fallout of being associated with this Gillette fellow.

Applying the Ron Paul precedent, one would think that *Reason* is deeply concerned about the libertarian movement being discredited through association with bigotry. In Paul's case, it seems to be bigotry at one remove, in that the good doctor hung out with the wrong crowd. Gillette, in contrast, is himself the wrong crowd.

Mad Max|1.15.08 @ 10:30PM|#

"That first sentence should 'Kinda have to agree with you.'"

Whew!

Mike Laursen|1.15.08 @ 10:43PM|#

I like the pop up with the "Flag this video as inappropriate" link. I'll be disappointed if they don't all get marked inappropriate.

Mike Laursen|1.15.08 @ 10:45PM|#

Bullshit should also be credited with trying to work naked chicks into as many episodes as possible.

I'm pathetic. You think of naked chicks, and I think, "Where's Michael Goudeaux?"

|1.15.08 @ 11:08PM|#

Mad Max,
there's a difference between, "Ron Paul, you believe in a hokum-pokum Christianity, but I think most of your other ideas advocate the cause of liberty"

vs.

"I hate niggers."

Francois Tremblay|1.15.08 @ 11:10PM|#

Being anti-Christian is not bigoted, it's perfectly rational.

Mad Max|1.15.08 @ 11:37PM|#

The racist sections of the Paul newsletters seemed to suggest that black people are uniquely predisposed to commit crimes, go on welfare, etc. To the extent that this disregarded law-abiding, hard-working black people, while downplaying welfare dependancy and crime among non-blacks, then it's racist.

Gillette suggests that traditionalist Christians and Jews are uniquely predisposed to crime and immorality. To the extent that Gillete disregards traditionalist Christians and Jews whose beliefs lead them to help people rather than hurt them, and to the extent that he ignores the crimes of those who *reject* the Bible, then he's a bigot.

Brandybuck|1.15.08 @ 11:46PM|#

You see, I was wondering why *Reason* wasn't worried about the political fallout of being associated with this Gillette fellow.

It must be that they consider Penn to be one of their own, a cosmotarian. No, he's not inside the beltway, but being a resident of Sin City may give him the required cachet of libertinism.

Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|1.16.08 @ 8:20AM|#

Gillette suggests that traditionalist Christians and Jews are uniquely predisposed to crime and immorality. To the extent that Gillete disregards traditionalist Christians and Jews whose beliefs lead them to help people rather than hurt them, and to the extent that he ignores the crimes of those who *reject* the Bible, then he's a bigot.

Max,

Read the full article. That's not what he's saying at all. The article was about censorship, and Penn Jillette was pointing out that Janet Reno and others shouldn't be agitating for censorship of (for instance) Beavis and Butthead for violence (or 2 Live Crew for sex) when there was plenty of accepted sex and violence in many other socially accepted art-forms and religious texts. He's saying don't censor Beavis, don't censor 2 Live Crew, don't censor the Bible and don't censor Shakespeare.

Even the quote doesn't suggest what you say it does. He makes no claim that Christians and Jews are uniquely predisposed to violence, but that, what was it, "every nut who kills people" were likely predisposed to Christianity or Judaism. That's certainly a factually incorrect statement, but the implication proceeds in the other direction than yours.

|1.16.08 @ 9:24AM|#

Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around.

is just an oblique way to say, "Correlation does not necessarily equal causation."

Elemenope|1.16.08 @ 9:30AM|#

Gillette suggests that traditionalist Christians and Jews are uniquely predisposed to crime and immorality. To the extent that Gillete disregards traditionalist Christians and Jews whose beliefs lead them to help people rather than hurt them...

While we're on the topic, does anyone have the stats handy for violent prison inmates, % Christian and % atheist vs. their respective proportions in the general population?

I have a sneaking suspicion the Jesus Juice crowd might have some egg on their face for that one..

T|1.16.08 @ 9:42AM|#

Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around.

is just an oblique way to say, "Correlation does not necessarily equal causation."

I would venture to say it's difficult, but not impossible, to find a household in America without a bible. But I could be wrong.

VM|1.16.08 @ 10:34AM|#

"I have a sneaking suspicion the Jesus Juice crowd might have some egg aborted chickens on their face for that one.."

how'z that?

|1.16.08 @ 11:12AM|#

Being anti-Christian is not bigoted, it's perfectly rational.

BZZZT! I'm sorry, you fail at Brain.

But actually, guys, Jillette's real point was not that religion is whacky, but that exposure to violent imagery (which can for example be found aplenty in the Bible, which is a pretty ubiquitous book) does not force one to act in a violent manner.

PS: I keep looking at that pic of Jillette and thinking, "Damn, I know that woman from somewhere."

|1.16.08 @ 2:36PM|#

Stevo,

Apropos of your comment, Cracked.com just did a bit on "The Top 25 Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians".