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This video has been out for awhile, but I thought it'd be worth posting due to the upcoming elections and the aggressive political arguments that come along with that. I think his commentary puts things in perspective pretty well, and I definitely agree that I'd like to hear the word "wrong" more and the word "evil" way way less. During the political season, the term becomes cheapened to a laughable degree. Obama is evil, Romney is evil, and so on....give me a break!

So what do you think? Is mistrust of the government a beautiful thing? Is Penn wrong? Is Obama actually evil? Is George W. Bush actually evil? Would you rather have a government that "gets things done" or is clunky and slow? I definitely think there's a lot of room for discussion here. Anyway, here's the video:

I think a call for transparency and vigilance is more productive, and in the end is really what PG is calling for. We need to keep an eye out and not assume that those in power are just doing what we want.

Mistrust, to often it seems to many today, means believing that the government planned 9/11, or some other foolishness like that.

This is ridiculous.

Here's a quick exercise: whenever you hear a libertarian or conservative talk about government replace the word government with democracy. If what they're saying no longer makes sense it is because it never made sense to begin with.

Yes, government needs to be more reflective and reactive to the body politic. The answer isn't to lessen government, but to instead make it more democratic.

Without democratic governance how else can we affect change or protect ourselves from other entities that would seek to destroy our freedoms?

It's sad that libertarians, such as Penn Jillette, have managed to redefine liberty to something so narrow. Corporate interests do a lot more to restrict our day to day freedoms and liberties than the government, and without an active democratic government we would be in a much worse place.

But, yeah, until you show me a libertarian that believes climate change is real and has an actual solution I will never take them seriously. Until then I'll just continue to mock them for saying they care about things like racial equality, but refusing to do anything to actually make those things real.

He's basically advocating for the Gilded Age. These are not serious thinkers.

TheHammer wrote:
This is ridiculous.

Here's a quick exercise: whenever you hear a libertarian or conservative talk about government replace the word government with democracy. If what they're saying no longer makes sense it is because it never made sense to begin with.

Yes, government needs to be more reflective and reactive to the body politic. The answer isn't to lessen government, but to instead make it more democratic.

Without democratic governance how else can we affect change or protect ourselves from other entities that would seek to destroy our freedoms?

It's sad that libertarians, such as Penn Jillette, have managed to redefine liberty to something so narrow. Corporate interests do a lot more to restrict our day to day freedoms and liberties than the government, and without an active democratic government we would be in a much worse place.

But, yeah, until you show me a libertarian that believes climate change is real and has an actual solution I will never take them seriously. Until then I'll just continue to mock them for saying they care about things like racial equality, but refusing to do anything to actually make those things real.

He's basically advocating for the Gilded Age. These are not serious thinkers.

Right... more government is the answer!

Why don't you just say it... we need more socialism... amirite?

TheHammer wrote:

It's sad that libertarians, such as Penn Jillette, have managed to redefine liberty to something so narrow.

Patrick Henry did it first.

But, as to Jillette, I'm always baffled when people discuss trust in the way that he does, as an emotional concept. Rallying behind X does not entail trust in X any more than giving my friend a birthday present entails trust in my friend.

Before I went back into academic, I spent four years working as an inspector for HM Customs & Excise, where I was responsible for investigating individuals and corporations for everything from VAT fraud to evasion of import duties. And you know what? 95% of the cases I investigated, including those selected at random, revealed "fortuitous" mistakes, evasion or outright fraud.

So... how much less do you think your government trusts you?

 dogma wrote:

TheHammer wrote:

It's sad that libertarians, such as Penn Jillette, have managed to redefine liberty to something so narrow.

Patrick Henry did it first.

And with a sexy cool feather pen!

 whembly wrote:

TheHammer wrote:
This is ridiculous.

Here's a quick exercise: whenever you hear a libertarian or conservative talk about government replace the word government with democracy. If what they're saying no longer makes sense it is because it never made sense to begin with.

Yes, government needs to be more reflective and reactive to the body politic. The answer isn't to lessen government, but to instead make it more democratic.

Without democratic governance how else can we affect change or protect ourselves from other entities that would seek to destroy our freedoms?

It's sad that libertarians, such as Penn Jillette, have managed to redefine liberty to something so narrow. Corporate interests do a lot more to restrict our day to day freedoms and liberties than the government, and without an active democratic government we would be in a much worse place.

But, yeah, until you show me a libertarian that believes climate change is real and has an actual solution I will never take them seriously. Until then I'll just continue to mock them for saying they care about things like racial equality, but refusing to do anything to actually make those things real.

He's basically advocating for the Gilded Age. These are not serious thinkers.

Right... more government is the answer!

Why don't you just say it... we need more socialism... amirite?

Yes, yes you do. Your move.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Yes, yes you do. Your move.

Absolutely, especially at the federal level

In our democracy "Government" is people. Is it okay to mistrust people? Yes, it is. I get a hundred spam emails a day and more than 1 marketting phone call a week from people that I should not trust.

In my opinion, we have gotten to a point where a Representative "represents" so many people that he doesn't represent them anymore. 200 years ago, a Representative had, on average, less than 40k people in his district, now the average is over 700,000 people. How can one person successfully represent 700,000 people? How do you get 700,000 people to even vote for you? (Money and a very vague message, is the answer)

We need to move toward more Representatives, who all represent less people. Voter turnout is around 25% of the voting age population, so representing ~40,000 people means about 30,000 adults, 20,000 who are registered voters, less than 10,000 who will actually vote. You have a pretty good chance of meeting / talking to a large portion of 10,000 people during an election campaign with meet-n-greets, debates, etc.

More people would trust their Representative, if they had shaken hands with him, talked with him, heard his views face-to-face. With a Representative for every 40k people, you have a chance of meeting a significant percentage of your constituency. With a Representative for every 700k, you do not have a chance, 1% is 70,000 people.

I am all for a small and as Penn says "insignificant" government. The less it is involved in my life the better.

I love hearing that they can not get anything done. Too often it seems to me, they are "getting stuff done" by passing silly meaningless laws and such, just to make it look like they are actually doing something, to try and justify thier job.

This is common in Government sectors. Sector A has a budget of say $100, and near the end of the year, they have only spent $50, so they hurry up and spend $52 on staples and post it notes. This lets the budget office know "hey we need to give these people more money, and they do. It's a very non elaborate way of gaming the system, and pretty much every office in the Government does it. Constantly trying to justify thier existence and employment.

No, people are generally not evil, though I may disagree with them. Though as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Penn sums that up very well. We all really want the same thing, we just have different ideas of how to get there.

I am under no delusions that I would want very little government in my life. I want police, roads, firemen, teachers, health care, etc. Sure it's possible to live without them, but I don't WANT to.

THe price of this is that I need to participate via writing to my congressmen and senator. Sure they probably put my letters in a little box and set it on fire for me being moderate to their extremist right wing ultraconservative (This is Texas after all), but hey, gotta participate.

 whembly wrote:

TheHammer wrote:
This is ridiculous.

Here's a quick exercise: whenever you hear a libertarian or conservative talk about government replace the word government with democracy. If what they're saying no longer makes sense it is because it never made sense to begin with.

Yes, government needs to be more reflective and reactive to the body politic. The answer isn't to lessen government, but to instead make it more democratic.

Without democratic governance how else can we affect change or protect ourselves from other entities that would seek to destroy our freedoms?

It's sad that libertarians, such as Penn Jillette, have managed to redefine liberty to something so narrow. Corporate interests do a lot more to restrict our day to day freedoms and liberties than the government, and without an active democratic government we would be in a much worse place.

But, yeah, until you show me a libertarian that believes climate change is real and has an actual solution I will never take them seriously. Until then I'll just continue to mock them for saying they care about things like racial equality, but refusing to do anything to actually make those things real.

He's basically advocating for the Gilded Age. These are not serious thinkers.

Right... more government is the answer!

Why don't you just say it... we need more socialism... amirite?

Why is more government a bad thing?

 Melissia wrote:
I am under no delusions that I would want very little government in my life. I want police, roads, firemen, teachers, health care, etc. Sure it's possible to live without them, but I don't WANT to.

Frankly, you are operating under a delusion if you believe that law and order, emergency services, universal education and public health can be provided without quite a lot of government, actually, to say nothing of national defence, international relations, mass transit and scientific research, none of which I expect you to disapprove of, but all of which lie principally within the state sphere.

 English Assassin wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I am under no delusions that I would want very little government in my life. I want police, roads, firemen, teachers, health care, etc. Sure it's possible to live without them, but I don't WANT to.

Frankly, you are operating under a delusion if you believe that law and order, emergency services, universal education and public health can be provided without quite a lot of government, actually, to say nothing of national defence, international relations, mass transit and scientific research, none of which I expect you to disapprove of, but all of which lie principally within the state sphere.

Either I'm misunderstanding Melissia post something fierce, or you are basically agreeing with her.

I think this is where people start to get off track on what it means to have less government in your life. Yes infrastructure for sewage, and fighting fires is great, that is not really intrusive and is rather helpful.

However, when you force an entire neighborhood off septic and to each pay on average $10,000 for putting a sewer line in, even thouth all the properties are large and spaced enough to have septic, and the neighborhood clearly said "no" to the sewer. Then you have a problem.

This year I cut down a tree in my front yard, on my property. It was a 3 story apple tree, incredibly over grown. If I had been living in the city next door to me, this activity would have been illegal. To cut down the same tree in said town, I would have had to call the city, pay a fee to file for a permit, wait for some city forester to come look at it and give the ok. Then I would have also had to promise under penalty of a fine to plant at least 1 new tree in my yard. Only after all that could I have cut down the tree.

These are examples of government intrusion into peoples lives. This is the kind of insanity that we are talking about. This all comes about when the governments are getting stuff done, that they have the time and ability to come up with this nonsense.

That kind of insanity has nothing to do with federal government.

PhantomViper wrote:

 English Assassin wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I am under no delusions that I would want very little government in my life. I want police, roads, firemen, teachers, health care, etc. Sure it's possible to live without them, but I don't WANT to.

Frankly, you are operating under a delusion if you believe that law and order, emergency services, universal education and public health can be provided without quite a lot of government, actually, to say nothing of national defence, international relations, mass transit and scientific research, none of which I expect you to disapprove of, but all of which lie principally within the state sphere.

Either I'm misunderstanding Melissia post something fierce, or you are basically agreeing with her.

One of misunderstood Melissia's post... and it wasn't you. Err, I blame her unclear phrasing...

What the hell was unclear about that?

 LoneLictor wrote:

Spoiler:

 whembly wrote:

TheHammer wrote:
This is ridiculous.

Here's a quick exercise: whenever you hear a libertarian or conservative talk about government replace the word government with democracy. If what they're saying no longer makes sense it is because it never made sense to begin with.

Yes, government needs to be more reflective and reactive to the body politic. The answer isn't to lessen government, but to instead make it more democratic.

Without democratic governance how else can we affect change or protect ourselves from other entities that would seek to destroy our freedoms?

It's sad that libertarians, such as Penn Jillette, have managed to redefine liberty to something so narrow. Corporate interests do a lot more to restrict our day to day freedoms and liberties than the government, and without an active democratic government we would be in a much worse place.

But, yeah, until you show me a libertarian that believes climate change is real and has an actual solution I will never take them seriously. Until then I'll just continue to mock them for saying they care about things like racial equality, but refusing to do anything to actually make those things real.

He's basically advocating for the Gilded Age. These are not serious thinkers.

Right... more government is the answer!

Why don't you just say it... we need more socialism... amirite?

Why is more government a bad thing?

My point is that "more" isn't always "better".

I think at least we need a "recalibration" of goverment (meaning, not necessarily cut everything down, but honest appraisal/review to determine if government is the right answer).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
What the hell was unclear about that?

Pretty clear to me!

 Melissia wrote:
What the hell was unclear about that?

Looking at it now, I am obliged to admit, nothing, yet somehow I misunderstood it anyway.

Less is also not always better, Whembly. I certainly agree that our government needs to be more efficient ,but that doesn't necessarily indicate it needs to be smaller.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 English Assassin wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
What the hell was unclear about that?

Looking at it now, I am obliged to admit, nothing.

Eh, it happens to everyone. Including me sometimes.

I always felt a government's job was one of maintenance, where part of my money goes to building roads, hospitals, school, and support groups. It's up to everyday people and charity groups to try and change the world, only coming to the government when this change is agreed upon and needs implementing.

I mostly agree with what's said, but sometimes the government does need to step in sometimes and force people to act or behave a certain way.

Someone famous once said:

Never attribute to mailce that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.

So yeah, not evil, just stupid. The government, that is. Corporations generally err towards greed and laziness, the results of which can be so close to evil as to be indescernible, so I'm not going to cut them much slack.

He certainly seems to be against healthcare reform. Demanding an ineffectual government is a foolish thing to demand because it creates failing and ineffectual systems, many of which can not be created through private means (such as a functioning healthcare systems or food health standards.)

Penn does the same thing every other Libertarian does, he assumes that a government is the only thing that removes freedoms. Any social or economic group that is organized and has power over your life is a government. A democratic government is the safest way to create a power structure that reflects the popular will of the people, rather than the will of the few (as with corporatism or monarchical power). He's also much more generous towards political parties and their inherent altruism than he should be.

 Melissia wrote:
Less is also not always better, Whembly. I certainly agree that our government needs to be more efficient ,but that doesn't necessarily indicate it needs to be smaller.

I agree with that also...

I just think as a society, it's all to easy to say "let the government do it", when we should really stop and think about it...

When *I* say smaller... I mean by 16Trillion $$$ smaller... what's left is still fething huge.

As my greatest hero of the all "Ash: Shop smart... shop S*mart!"

There's a lot of unthinking "let the private industry do it" going around as well.

Some things are, quite simply, uniquely unsuited for private industry. The health care industry is proving to be one of those things.

Sadly, Obama tried to compromise with the Republicans, and so we ended up with the ACA instead of something better.

Personally, I wish we'd just kill off the 'buzz-word' culture that surrounds discussion on topics such as these. Yes, I know many people (particularly our American cousins - no offence) find them useful as a form of intellectual short-hand, but they really, really don't help people to understand complex issues. And why should they? That's not what they're for. They are for people who already understand the concepts being discussed. Unfortunately, stupid people also find them very easy to parrot, as it avoids the need for a more detailed discussion (and therefore, examination) of their views, which basically boil down to 'I am afraid' or 'I am enjoying the thrill of victory'.

That's how you end up with:

'I feel highly skeptical about the honesty of the tiny elite of people within western society that control the majority of wealth, and worry about the influence they exert over our policy makers. I feel that, perhaps, those in government do not exclusively have our best interests at heart.

becoming

WE! ARE! THE 99%!!!

It's also why people toss around meaningless terms like 'Big Government', when what they really want is greater personal liberty. Sadly, they've been sold the lie that says you can only have greater personal liberty if you trade it for less public services, even vital ones such as food standards bodies. Now, I'm a Conservative. That does not mean I believe that the entire machinery of the state should be dismantled - such beliefs are not fundamental to being conservative. Anyone who says other wise is a fething liar. Yes, I feel that the NHS does impinge upon our personal liberty to a certain degree. Yes, it costs far too much. No, there isn't enough choice. Because we should always be seeking to advance our personal freedom within reasonable parameters, the NHS should be reformed in order to address these issues.

That doesn't mean I want to tear it down and destroy it.

 Albatross wrote:
Personally, I wish we'd just kill off the 'buzz-word' culture that surrounds discussion on topics such as these. Yes, I know many people (particularly our American cousins - no offence) find them useful as a form of intellectual short-hand, but they really, really don't help people to understand complex issues. And why should they? That's not what they're for. They are for people who already understand the concepts being discussed. Unfortunately, stupid people also find them very easy to parrot, as it avoids the need for a more detailed discussion (and therefore, examination) of their views, which basically boil down to 'I am afraid' or 'I am enjoying the thrill of victory'.

That's how you end up with:

'I feel highly skeptical about the honesty of the tiny elite of people within western society that control the majority of wealth, and worry about the influence they exert over our policy makers. I feel that, perhaps, those in government do not exclusively have our best interests at heart.

becoming

WE! ARE! THE 99%!!!


It's also why people toss around meaningless terms like 'Big Government', when what they really want is greater personal liberty. Sadly, they've been sold the lie that says you can only have greater personal liberty if you trade it for less public services, even vital ones such as food standards bodies. Now, I'm a Conservative. That does not mean I believe that the entire machinery of the state should be dismantled - such beliefs are not fundamental to being conservative. Anyone who says other wise is a fething liar. Yes, I feel that the NHS does impinge upon our personal liberty to a certain degree. Yes, it costs far too much. No, there isn't enough choice. Because we should always be seeking to advance our personal freedom within reasonable parameters, the NHS should be reformed in order to address these issues.

That doesn't mean I want to tear it down and destroy it.

:clapping:
Word...

whembly wrote:Why don't you just say it... we need more socialism... amirite?

I would say so, yes.