Trey Parker and Matt Stone: South Park Libertarians

Not everyone likes South Park. Heck, sometimes, even I'm not sure I like South Park: the preachy polemics, the cut-out animation, the blood-shitting Virgin Marys, and the diarrhea attacks of Eric Cartman. And the hardcore fans are filthy idiot monkeys.

Still, there's no doubt that gutter-minded though they might be, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are actually incredibly smart guys. More importantly, they posses that all too rare virtue of most people: they're reasonable. They think things through. They don't attempt to polarize their opinions into an overwhelming, all-encompassing philosophy.

So it's probably appropriate that Reason Magazine saw fit to interview them recently. It's actually a great read... a candid talk with a couple of foul-talking excrement-enthusiasts actually carefully measuring their opinions and doling level-headed and reasonable criticism at extremist maniacs on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum.

I particularly like this comment by Parker, trying to explain their political views:

We both grew up in Colorado in the ’80s, and we wanted to be punk rockers. When you were a teenager in Colorado, the way to be a punk rocker was to rip on Reagan and Bush and what they were doing and talk about how everyone in Colorado’s a redneck with a gun and all this stuff. Then we went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and everyone there agreed with us. And we were like, “Well, that’s not cool, everyone agrees with us.” And then you get to Los Angeles. The only way you can be a punk in Los Angeles is go to a big party and go, “You can say what you want about George Bush, but you’ve got to admit, he’s pretty smart.” People are like, “What the fuck did he just say? Get him out of here!”

Definitely worth a read, if you're a fan of fart jokes or not.

South Park Libertarians [Reason]