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View Full Version : Penn Jillette: What shocked me about the campaign videos



Chris
06-03-2015, 08:55 PM
Interesting read. I sort of agree with Jillette. In What shocked me about the campaign videos, he looks at Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul, and finally Bernie Sanders:


Bernie Sanders: I'm a capitalist. I'm for trying to solve every problem with more freedom and not more government. I'm for more freedom even if more freedom causes problems. I think the Koch brothers have a right to free speech. I like what the Kochs did to help gay rights. A Koch-funded hospital might have saved my buddy's life, and certainly helped him walk again.

I disagree with KoBros a lot, but probably less with them than I disagree with Bernie Sanders -- it's hard to measure. It's like comparing Vermont apples and billions of barrels of oil. Bernie is kind of a socialist and I'm kinda not. He's for big government, and I'm not. He thinks central planning can solve problems and I think even if central planning could solve problems, I'm against it.

It's the freedom thing. I'm a New Englander, a Western Masshole from right near New Hampshire and Vermont, and I'm much more of a New Hampshire, free-state guy than a People's Republic of Vermont guy.

All that being said -- if I had nothing to go on other than these announcements, Bernie would have my vote wrapped up. I'm shocked by that. I've always just dismissed him as not my kind of nut. But checking my heart, it seems I'd rather have ideas that I disagree with then no ideas at all. He doesn't look like he's selling peanut butter or douche. He doesn't sound like he's selling a Marvel comics movie. He seems like he wants to talk about how we should govern ourselves and he knows we can disagree without being evil.

If these candidates are my only choices (and they are not!), I would vote for Bernie if for no other reason than he didn't offer me hope, and he didn't make me feel that if I voted for him, I would win something. He made me feel like we should talk about government....