Drew Carey Says Libertarians Can ‘Get Away’ in Hollywood, but Conservatives Pretty Much ‘Doomed’

Newsbusters ^ | 03/20/10 | Anthony Kang

[198ml]

According to actor and comedian Drew Carey, Hollywood is not the intolerant blackballing liberal utopia many deem it to be. In fact, Hollywood is very accepting of the right-wing crowd - except for that fringe, radical segment known as conservatives.

"In Hollywood, you can pretty much get away with being a libertarian," Carey told John Stossel on the Fox Business Network. "But if you're a conservative you're kind of doomed."

Carey was a featured guest on "Stossel" March 18, dissecting the economic calamities surrounding his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio (anointed Forbes' new "Most Miserable City"), and to provide the perspective of a fledgling businessman.

"Now you're a libertarian right?" Stossel asked. "Has that slowed your career?"

[GL of Sector 2814]

Shut the hell up

Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel!

And oh yea — there’s also that one tiny mundane detail of alcohol not being even in the SAME UNIVERSE as H or crack or Oxy or meth.

Are you seriously asserting that alcohol abuse in the United States causes far less damage than meth abuse?

[GL of Sector 2814]

Let's suppose it were up to you...would you bring back prohibition?

[stylecouncilor]

ping

[DoughtyOne]

I’m not opposed to that take on it actually. I would certainly hope that he doesn’t harbor that view.

I did not mention the amendments, particularly our right to own weapons in that list. It’s an important right to champion because it is infringed to a degree no other right is.

[Richard Kimball]

True. People go to Hollywood from middle America because they don't want to live in middle America. Having been an Art major, and knowing the mindset of most people in acting programs, even in middle America, there's a screening process that shoos away most people who don't "fit the mold." Considering the chances of being successful, a person almost has to be mentally unbalanced to pursue a career as an actor or actress.

So, in Hollywood, you end up with irrational people who left an area to pursue an almost insane dream. They spend most of their working career pretending to be someone other than who they actually are.

[BlessedBeGod]

“Jon Voight is leading the conservative cause for Hollywood... “

Yep, and as far as employment, he couldn’t get arrested.

Jon has a new series on FOX this fall, called "Midland."

[BenKenobi]

Voight is one, so is Sinise. It’s a question, what’s more important, your principles or your pocketbook. Libertarians usually fail on this question.

You want a healthy family, don’t be a libertarian. Don’t tolerate the liberal social garbage that destroys people.

[198ml]

Are you “seriously asserting” just as many and anybody can get a dimebag of meth from every liquor store?
-are you “seriously asserting” fear of incarceration isn’t a major deterrent to some middle class whiteboy in the suburbs who may be curious about trying coke but doesn’t know how to get it and/or is too scared to?
-don’t act like you know how the drug trade works or think it’s like that in every inner city just cuz you’ve seen The Wire.

[FrankR]

"The same could certainly be said of alcohol. Would you bring back prohibition? "

While I realize that this is the classic libertarian "gotcha" question, I will answer by saying "no", I would not bring back prohibition.

It is easier to build a dam while the river is still but a stream. Alcohol has been around for centuries and a very small percentage of drinkers are actually alcoholics; alcohol use is readily detectable, whereas drugs can be concealed and more secretly used.

I am not condoning one over the other, but with the laws and controls in place for alcohol it is easier to track (yes, and tax) than drugs. The sale of it - and who it is sold to - can be more easily controlled.

Legalize drugs and most of our future citizens will be be stoned from sunrise to sunset. The stuff has lasting effects, and is highly addictive. The casual drug users who become addicts is far more prevalent that casual drinkers who become alcholics.

Alcohol and drugs are kindred in nature, but in practice are as drifferent as day and night.

But, I know libertarians want their drugs and will foist any argument to keep them, so what I am saying to you is a moot point, I suppose. But saying that drugs are ok because alcohol is "ok" is like a kid saying, "Bawwwww, Johnny got a new bike, why can't I have one too....bawwwww.". It's the classic liberal "I want" syndrome backed by flimsy facts and bratty excuses. .

In this life, we usually argue vehemently and come down on the side of our wants and desires, so if anyone wants to be a druggie, then be one...but it shouldn't be a plank in a political party.

Druggies and alkies are all weak people, who need a crutch to handle reallity. But my take is, if you can't handle reality while you're sober or straight, you sure as hell can't handle it while stoned....and when you sober up, guess what...reality is still there...patiently waiting on the addicts to grow up.

[198ml]

Of COURSE not! That ship has sailed, thus all the more reason we shouldn’t normalize the use of every other drug in today’s culture and society.

Far more destructive drugs already exist — it’s called entitlement and welfare programs — just look at Greece. Thus it’s all the more reason not to flood our homes w/ more destructive drugs.

[BlessedBeGod]

You want a healthy family, don’t be a libertarian. Don’t tolerate the liberal social garbage that destroys people.

Absolutely agree 100%. And I thought post #42 was a great reasoning of how libertarians fail in their thinking.

[BlazingArizona]

“Unfortunately they can take years to die and can do enormous amounts of damage in the mean time.”

That is why we have a Second Amendment.

[Skepolitic]

I consider libertarians closer to the original FOunders than either Democrats or Republicans.

The only reason that libertarians do not call themselves "liberal" is that Progressives somehow appropriated that word in the early 20th century. Until then "liberal" referred to the philosophy of John Locke, which was indeed the philosophy of the Founders. Certain key concepts reasoned by Locke form the basis of the American idea of government and the rationale for its Declaration of Independence, and are incorporated directly in its founding documents. The Founders were liberals in this sense and their opponents, the Tories, were the conservatives.

Unfortunately, the language of politics has become so corrupted that it almost seems as if it were "designed to diminish the range of thought", which was the objective of Newspeak in Orwell's 1984. The words "conservative" and "liberal" have no fixed definition and mean precisely what the speaker (or hearer) intend them to mean, nothing more nor less. Unfortunately, the word "libertarian" has recently been similarly corrupted with knuckleheads as diverse as Noam Chomsky, Bill Maher, and Glenn Beck referring to themselves as liberatarian, or leaning libertarian. It may be somewhat correct for Beck since he's at least superficially partial to the Founders, but Chomsky and Maher's views align with the Founders and "real" libertarians in very few regards and only by coincidence.

"The end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom." -Locke

[Skepolitic]

Libertarians are no more supportive of the Obama nanny state than they are of the Giuliani nanny state.

The same faux reasoning that you use to justify prohibition against vices that you do not like have been applied to beer, demon rum, Coca Cola, Big Macs, comic books, and religion. I suppose your slogan should be, “it’s not fascism when we do it.” Government is not going to create heaven on earth. But it is pretty adept at creating infernos, and that’s where your reasoning inevitably leads. Obama and Pelosi rationalize their positions in exactly the same way as you.

[FrankR]

"The same faux reasoning that you use to justify prohibition against vices that you do not like have been applied to beer, demon rum, Coca Cola, Big Macs, comic books, and religion. "

I don't know WTF you are talking about with your mixed metaphors, and I don't think you do either; I never heard of anyone spending their life in rehab getting unhooked from Big Macs and/or Comic books. No one robs a convenience store to get money to buy a Coca Cola, or beer...or even rum.

Regigion is spritual and has nothing to do with any of this...I don't know what you're smoking, but your reply has nothing to do with anything the rest of us have been talking about.

Pssst...I really don't care if you're a libertarian, but if you are one, then you should defend my right to speak my opinion on the subject. If you don't, then you're just another progressive...it's simple as that. It's in the Constitution...go read it.

[MrEdd]

Dead on.

Sane libertarians left the movement when Ayn Rand arived with her hippy commune crowd.

[AmishDude]

Got to get rid of the welfare state first, otherwise it’s not a Libertarian paradise but a Brave New World dystopia.

[hellbender]

Alcohol is used without serious damage by millions of people, and has been for thousands of years. It’s entrenched in our culture. There is no such thing as “safe” use of meth, which is a synthetic chemical of recent origin.

[hellbender]

Maybe he favors it, but someone must oppose it, or it would be legal by now in a place like NV. I suspect the casino lobby figures it would be bad for business, because it might defeat their attempt to "clean" habitat where they can market gambling as a mainstream habit, and because visitors would spend on whores money they might otherwise have gambled away.

[hellbender]

make that: ‘defeat their attempt to create a “clean” habitat...’