You'll Never Guess Which 2016 Candidate Penn Jillette Likes Best After Watching Their Awful Campaign Videos
Libertarian magician looks at political propaganda so you don't have to
In a fun piece for CNN.com, American hero Penn Jillette wades through the campaign-announcement videos of 2016 presidential candidates Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul, and Bernie Sanders, and judges his preferences purely on what he saw. You'll have to click through to see the perhaps-surprising winner; regardless of conclusion, I think a lot of libertarians will be nodding along to observations like:
"Heal, Inspire, Revive"? Not one of those words has anything to do with government. […]
… mentioned nothing about government […]
what's not to like? Everything else. Also not one word about ideas of government. […]
Not one of these candidates has stated any ideas whatsoever. I know you know that, but have you watched these? I don't want hope and a new direction from these people—I get that from my family and friends. I really don't care how great and inspiring these people are. I don't want great and inspiring, I want ideas that I can agree or disagree with.
It can be perpetually surprising for some of us naïve libertarians how detached modern political discourse usually is from the kinda-sorta important question of Just what are your practical and philosophical ideas about the size, scope, and proper role of government? Asking variants on that question is some of what we here can bring to the conversation.
Here's a Reason TV interview with Penn Jillette from 2011: