Kurt Russell: I’m a ‘Hardcore’ Libertarian, Not a Faux ‘Bill Maher Libertarian’
Kurt Russell, one of the stars of the new big movie The Hateful Eight, is a rarity in Hollywood: an outspoken libertarian. And in an interview this week with The Daily Beast, Russell talks about being a political outsider of sorts in Hollywood.
After talking a lot about the new movie and praising Quentin Tarantino, Russell was asked about his recent interview with a reporter who pressed him on gun control. He said he just doesn’t believe gun control is a “magic wand of fixing the situation with terrorism.”
When asked about his libertarian views, Russell said, “I wasn’t a Republican, I was worse: I was a hardcore libertarian. I’m not a Bill Maher libertarian. That’s faux-libertarianism. He doesn’t know what it is. I like him, and he’s a nice guy, but seriously, that’s not libertarianism.”
He said plenty of publicly political people in Hollywood are “faux-liberals” and “faux-conservatives,” and he came around to libertarianism after doing some reading on the Founding Fathers and attending a Cato Institute Event.
Russell mentioned Maher again as he explained that he’s been invited on a lot of TV shows to talk politics. He’s always declined, but lined out his personal philosophy thusly:
I’m fair, I’m pretty energetic, and I’m pretty knowledgeable. I don’t pop off without finding out about stuff—and I like finding out about stuff, and don’t have that much of an agenda about it. I believe in limited Constitutional government, free market capitalism, reach for the brass ring. There’s this place where you can go do that and don’t step on anybody’s toes and still try to reach for the brass ring.
You can read the full interview here.
[image via screengrab]
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