Hollywood Liberal Ashton Kutcher: I’m Going Conservative in the Clutch

COMMENTARY Political Process

Hollywood Liberal Ashton Kutcher: I’m Going Conservative in the Clutch

Jan 6, 2011 2 min read
COMMENTARY BY

Senior Policy Analyst on International Economics

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Has outspoken liberal Ashton Kutcher been secretly reading The Heritage Foundation's research on the importance of missile defense and the fallout from an EMP attack? Has some of the self-reliance and rugged individualism of Sarah Palin crept into his brain? The guy who's essentially famous for being famous is suddenly not so sure the federal government can protect him in the lurch:

The movie star and producer...fears a major U.S. energy meltdown is nigh and he's trying to get super fit so he can deal with the chaos that will follow a blackout or worse.

Kutcher discovered combat training Krav Maga last year... and he insists he's committed to his extreme workouts, so he can dominate in desperate times.

The 32 year old tells Men's Fitness magazine, "It will not take much for people to hit the panic button. The amount of convenience that people rely on based on electricity alone. You start taking out electricity and satellites, and people are going to lose their noodle.

"And people are going to go, 'That land's not yours, prove that it's yours,' and the only thing you have to prove it's yours is on an electronic file...

He adds, "I got my guns out [during a 14 hour power outage]. We made a fire. We went to the grocery store... People were rolling in and out, clearing out all the shelves..."

Ashton Kutcher's politics are almost as convoluted as an Ashton Kutcher movie. In one fell swoop Barack Obama's Russian-diplomat extraordinaire makes the case for self-reliance, a strong national defense, private property rights, and The Second Amendment! Conservative spokesmen everywhere should send him a thank you note and some canned goods for the apocalypse. (Just make sure the tuna has a Dolphin Safe label or he’ll starve to death.)

The problem we have as a culture isn't our uninformed, quixotic liberal celebrities, such much as media that won't call them on their pseudo-intellectual psychobabble. For instance, if Ashton Kutcher were seriously concerned about energy crises, he would have thought twice before taking cheap shots at Republicans during the Gulf Oil Spill:

If you can go back to the Republican National Drill…and look the guys in the eyes who were saying ‘Drill! Drill! Drill!’ at the Republican National Convention—those guys—there you go! That’s what you got!

Instead of taking Krav Maga combat training, Ashton would be better served using his time and resources advocating for the sound conservative public policy he inadvertently supports whenever he speaks extemporaneously.  Instead of worrying about his neighbors, Ashton should worry about New York City unions that see snow storms as an opportune time to protest budget cuts.

Conservatives don't "lose their noodle" in a crisis.  We're the ones who know from the get-go that primarily relying on the federal government for assistance should be avoided whenever possible.  It's the average citizen who has abdicated responsibilities essential to strong character to politicians and bureaucrats (perhaps in part by listening to Hollywood celebrities?), who don't fare well when disaster strikes.

Note to Ashton:  By “disaster”, I'm not talking about your upcoming role in No Strings Attached.

Douglas Ernst works in Washington, DC for a leading conservative think tank.

First appeared in News Busters