The Hill has heard you send a copy of Hustler to every lawmaker’s office each month. Why?
It really started out as a joke about 30 years ago. I decided I was going to send all members of Congress and the Supreme Court and the executive branch a complimentary subscription to Hustler, just so they could keep up on current events. That’s sort of a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. What came out of it was something phenomenal that we had never really dreamed of. You could cancel your subscriptions. Here they get over 400 and some subscriptions, and only about 20 percent of the [recipients] canceled their subscriptions. And so we thought that was hilarious. We got a big majority of both houses.
What made you first start sending the magazine to Capitol Hill?
Moses freed the Jews, Lincoln freed the slaves, and I just wanted to free all the neurotics. I’ve always said that my attitude from the beginning is if we made a little bit more of an effort to understand the medium we communicate with more than anything else, which is sex, then everybody would get along a lot better. We’ve always pushed that attitude, but you’ve got a lot of uptight rednecks in Congress, and they push back.
You’ve been affiliated with both parties at certain points in your life. Do you have any thoughts on this new Republican-led Congress?
You know, it’s depressing, I don’t even like to think about it … What the average American doesn’t realize is Congress doesn’t make the laws anymore. Who makes them is the Supreme Court. Congress has shrugged their legislative responsibility and left it up to the courts to do the legislating. And that’s dividing our country; the rich keep getting richer and the poor just get poorer; there’s nothing more true than that is today. And I don’t want to sound cold and bitter when I say that Republicans are mean, but they just are. They are downright mean, and it’s all about them. And I think we’re obligated to help take care of the less fortunate among us.
http://thehill.com/capital-living/20-questions/150331-20-questions-with-larry-flynt#ixzz2zFjCbYRt
:: You know, it’s depressing, I don’t even like to think about it … What the average American doesn’t realize is Congress doesn’t make the laws anymore. Who makes them is the Supreme Court. Congress has shrugged their legislative responsibility and left it up to the courts to do the legislating. ::
Larry Flynt’s “broken clock” moment?
Congress has shrugged their legislative responsibility and left it up to the courts to do the legislating. And that’s dividing our country; the rich keep getting richer and the poor just get poorer; there’s nothing more true than that is today. And I don’t want to sound cold and bitter when I say that Republicans are mean, but they just are. They are downright mean, and it’s all about them. And I think we’re obligated to help take care of the less fortunate among us.