• orbitz@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    If you’ve ever watched his show Bullshit! You’d see many libertarian views with arguments which don’t hold up to scrutiny. I recall listening to a podcast (I want to say midish 2000, 2007ish?) where he said that the good ideals were rich people supporting the social services (food banks etc) and that would be good. Which we all know don’t hold up. That said, I do still enjoy his Bullshit! series (also that more recent one Fool Us is fun), him and Teller are very entertaining, though not who I’d quote for supporting ideals to give a better support to said argument. That said I believe Hitchens was on his episode about religion and he seems like a better person to use for said argument.

    • fidodo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A lot of people who were in the libertarian atheist crowd saw the light, at least partially after trump was elected. Seems like Penn change his tune a bit too according to Wikipedia:

      In 2020, Jillette distanced himself from aspects of libertarianism, particularly surrounding COVID-19. In an interview with Big Think, he stated, “[A] lot of the illusions that I held dear, rugged individualism, individual freedoms, are coming back to bite us in the ass.” He went on to elaborate, “[I]t seems like getting rid of the gatekeepers gave us Trump as president, and in the same breath, in the same wind, gave us not wearing masks, and maybe gave us a huge unpleasant amount of overt racism.”[53]

      In the 2020 United States presidential election, Jillette endorsed Andrew Yang in the Democratic primary.[54] In an op-ed for CNN after that year’s general election, he stated that he “used to identify as Libertarian”, but voted for Joe Biden.[55]

      I think a lot of that crowd outgrows it as they get older, and realize how impractical it is, but if you get rich while in that phase it seems to make you stick to it as you become out of touch with reality. It’s easy to believe in libertarian principals when you’re rich and privileged.

    • hOrni@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I might not be understanding You correctly, but are You saying that “The ritch should support the poor” is a bad idea?

      • orbitz@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I’m saying that they believe that the rich would willingly give the money to support the poor rather than have government tax people and create programs. The Libertarian way. At least that was what he was saying on the old podcast. I realize I didn’t explain it well, but the whole Libertarian view that they don’t like taxes was meant to be implied. The clash being if they don’t like taxes how would their paying directly match what is done now?