What day is it? Is it something that rhymes with man-crush? Doesn’t matter. Kurt Russell is deserving of your completely straight man-crushing no matter what day of the week it is. And because of the liberty roll Russell’s recently been on publicly, we might as well just make this Kurt-crush month.
In a recent interview with The Daily Mail, Russell defended the Second Amendment and warned that “now is not a good time to lay down your weapons.”
“Sure I believe in the right to bear arms, as guaranteed under the Second Amendment of the American constitution,” said Russell in response to a question about the San Bernadino terrorist attack. “This is what people need to understand, now is not a good time to lay down your weapons – how will you protect yourself? I am a libertarian, a hardcore one, and of course I have guns. I shoot things with them. I hunt game.”
Earlier this month, Kurt surprised another liberal interviewer, who assumed he’d tow the Hollywood lefty line when pressed on the topic of “scary” American gun culture but instead Russell responded, “I don’t understand concepts of conversation [about] the gun culture. We’ve lived with guns since, what, the 7th Century or something? If you think gun control is going to change the terrorists’ point of view, I think you’re, like, out of your mind. I think anybody [who says that] is. I think it’s absolutely insane.”
After that, Kurt was on ABC’s The View where he once again defended his views on gun ownership.
“When we’re dealing with things like, terrorism, we’re all going to have different opinions on how to do it—how to deal with it,” said Russell. “Mine happens to be that, I think there’s a very strong reason the Founding Fathers had for the Second Amendment. And that is that no government ever hasn’t had to fight its own people, and its own people hasn’t had to fight its own government. We had our Civil War. If that Second Amendment hadn’t have been there, those people wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do what they considered defending their life, their way, their style of living. So I agree with that. I think that’s an important part of our existence. It’s basically that simple.”
In a interview afterward with The Daily Beast, Russell clarified his libertarian beliefs while taking a swipe at Bill Maher and Hollywood:
“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.
The other thing I’ve found is that a lot of liberals in Hollywood are faux-liberals, and a lot of Republicans in Hollywood are faux-conservatives. When I was a young guy, I was finding myself not quite being able to see the things that were going on and buy into a political culture. I didn’t know what to do, so I finally said, “Why don’t I go back and see what the Founding Fathers were all about, and see how that stacked up.” Well, I found them and I found libertarianism. They were pretty radical guys, and damn smart, and I just believe in that old-time stuff and think they had great ideas.
Years later, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Cato Institute’s 20th anniversary and spend some real time with some amazing people. I met some great people there, and that cemented it for me. I felt, guess what, there is a place where I can have a conversation and not be laughed at or smirked at.”
In a town full of hypocritical liberal gas-bags…
…Russell is surely a breath of fresh air.
