The Answer: Stupid TSA Rules, Illegal Tiny Houses & Border Patrol Checkpoint Refusals

The question? What are Reason TV's three most popular videos on YouTube?

As part of our 2015 webathon, we're asking readers of Reason.com to give $250,000 in tax-deductible donations between now and December 8. We're published by the nonprofit Reason Foundation, all gifts are tax deductible, and your support is what allows to keep publishing award-winning libertarian news, commentary, and analysis. Click here for giving levels and more info.

Allow to give three specific examples of what your donations make possible. Below are Reason TV's three most-viewed videos on YouTube as of today.

Founded in 2007 with the help of Drew Carey (who came up with the idea and hosted our early videos, including our great Reason Saves Cleveland series), Reason TV stands alone in producing regular online documentaries, interviews, and viral vids celebrating "Free Minds and Free Markets." Each month over a million people watch our vids on YouTube and Facebook and our work is cited widely across the Internet and even in cases that end up before the Supreme Court.

Here are our top hits:

Originally released in December 2013, the saddest thing about this vid is that IT'S ALL TRUE. The TSA really did ban all this stuff.

Released in August 2014, this video keeps pulling around 60,000 new views a month. It's a great exploration of how zoning and other rules make housing more expensive than it has to be—and less creative too. Bonus impact: The titular hero of the piece told Washington City Paper, "I would never have identified as libertarian going into [the video]…It sort of makes you question, how much is my government helping me?"

Released on April 1, 2014, not only won't you believe this video, but you shouldn't (it's an April Fool's gag, after all). Yet it showcases the main goals of Reason TV (and Reason's journalism more generally): We want to reach new audiences, we want to spread libertarian ideas, and we want to have fun doing it.

I hope you have fun watching these vids.

If you like these videos, please think about supporting Reason during our webathon.

You'll get a write-off, some great swag, and the satisfaction of knowing you're helping to make the world a freer, fairer, and more interesting place.

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Comments

[Monty Crisco]

Actual NYT comment:
" The GOP has created an unholy alliance, a fusion of Tea Party gun rights activists with Christian Evangelists that has adopted a virulent disrespect for a woman's rights to seek healthcare on her own terms. These two extremist groups form the core of today's Republican Party. Until the Republican leadership speaks out forcefully condemning this madness we can expect more domestic terrorism against a woman's right to chose according to the law of the land."

LET's QUASH THE FIRST AMENDMENT!! WHO'S WITH ME??

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

There's no terrorist first amendment.

[ant1sthenes]

If the worst predictions about Europe play out over the next year or two, it's going to be hilarious to see Democrats continuing to pimp out the War on Women meme while women are actually brutalized in lands not too different from our own, with the material assistance of the local socialists.

[commodious spittoon]

And if self-awareness among progressives continues to hold at a level rivaling tapeworms, they will blandly deny anything is wrong while condemning all the Islamophobic reactionaries for bringing it up at all.

[Ms. Eleanor Lavish]

It is bizarro world when people are getting gunned down in Europe (Charlie Hebdo) for exercising free speech while college kids are demanding censorship. WTF?

[commodious spittoon]

Liberal idealism is too old and too white to survive in the post-tolerance era of mandatory pluralism. Which is why it's a hoot to hear campus lefties describe themselves as liberals, because they're not. They're illiberal shithead technocrat-wannabes.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

I call those types "Neo-Victorians". It really gets their goat.

[Zeb]

Europe has a lot of right-wing and nationalistic political undercurrents too. I suspect we start to see a lot more people moving in that direction if things get much worse. Which would also be pretty bad.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I've mostly stayed out of that argument. But lately, I haven't been able to restrain myself. I enjoy destroying people and leaving them speechless.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I'm sure crazy shooter dude really cares what the Republican leadership thinks. If they only said "don't murder people" more often, everything would be OK.

[Fist of Etiquette]

As part of our 2015 webathon, we're asking readers of Reason.com to give $250,000 in tax-deductible donations...

EACH? That's going to cut into my monocle budget.

[notJoe]

Just cut back on your Orphan Chow budget. The little beggars can forage in the forest on their way back from your monocle mine.

[F. Iron-Ass Stupidity, Jr.]

Just cut back on your Orphan Chow budget.

You feed them the brand name stuff?? Dude, just buy the Wal-Mart shit instead. My orphans love the extra gruelly version of "Lil Wage Slave".

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

You feed your orphans people food??? Mine get Ol' Roy.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It's a known fact that all libertarians have that kind of cash lying around. FACT.

[The Last American Hero]

Why do you think we live in mom's basement? It's all that free room and board that allows us to hoard the gold coins and turn that basement into Scrooge McDuck's vault.

[Rhywun]

Drew's too busy hawking capitalism over on CBS to show up around here any more I guess?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

He left for the money, stayed away for the commenters.

[Ms. Eleanor Lavish]

OT: Two unlikeable people share tense moment.

Rahm Emanuel blasts Politico's Mike Allen in tense moment. Just because it's funny.

[Rhywun]

Cuba... of course. Perhaps they'll hob-nob slum with the Deblasios.

[The Last American Hero]

Millennials think trailer park living is something that only dumbfuck-people of Walmart-rednecks do but if you put in some nice fixtures and call it a tiny house you are suddenly transformed into an ecologically responsible hipster.

Nevermind that in a tiny house, you literally shit where you eat.

[Rhywun]

My mom lived out her days in a double-wide that was a lot nicer than anywhere I grew up.

[DEG]

My parents picked up a double wide down South for their retirement. When they were ready, they dumped their house in Pennsylvania and moved into the double wide. The double wide was far, far nicer than the Pennsylvania house.

Later they replaced the double wide with a pre-fab house, which is even nicer than the double-wide.

[Zeb]

I'm pretty sure millennials live in trailer parks at about the same rate as any other cohort.

Tiny houses are great. For a single person without a lot of money or time to spend maintaining a house, it can be a fine option, without any hipster pretension. And they aren't "manufactured housing" (the polite word for trailer). The problem here is that people trying to build small dwellings on their own damn property are being forbidden to do so because of ridiculous, overbroad code requirements. And unless you have some real bad intestinal problems, it's not that hard to keep your shit in the toilet.

[Sevo]

Thanks, WoDs, but OTOH, what were you thinking?!

"Mexico: burned-out van belonged to missing Australians"
[...]
""Adam wanted to get to Guadalajara as soon as possible,"
http://www.sfgate.com/news/wor.....665495.php

Two surfer-dudes decide they're so cool, no one will bother them.