Can a porn star launch a serious political career?
Will Belle Knox really be the face of Libertarian victory?
The last time we checked in with the “Duke University Porn Star” Belle Knox, she was complaining about how the disclosure of her new-found adult film career was hurting her sex life.
Knox seems to be making a second career out of complaining. She is a featured speaker for Liberty Fest NYC this October, on the high cost of education that she says drove her to her current job.
Belle Knox (Miriam Weeks) made headlines when it was revealed that she is a Duke University student paying for tuition by doing porn. Belle has used her new found fame to have an honest discussion with Americans about the state of college tuition & the federal government’s wasteful spending.
I would have more respect for Knox if she put her expensive education on hold and perhaps learned a trade that would provide her the income necessary to get the degree she wants. I would feel exactly the same way if Knox were male, though it seems the porn industry is one in which women earn substantially more than men. Perhaps the current administration could focus on this particular wage gap?
The impetus for this speech may be the launch of a political career as a Libertarian.
The famed Duke University porn star says she’d like to tackle politics as her next big career move after her overnight success as a celebrity film star.
The second-year college student, whose real name is Miriam Weeks, told Business Insider she’s been heavily engaged in promoting libertarian views on her school’s campus and hopes it’ll carry her to a political career of her own one day.
“I’m conservative,” Weeks said of her political standing. “I’m very socially liberal, but I’m very economically conservative.”
Color me skeptical. I believe this stance is merely to garner media attention, as shocking behavior is often the realm of progressive sex activists. But perhaps she is wisely embracing the trend of millennials embracing Libertarian Party Values. I, for one, would be interested to hear her thoughts on Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek.
But I am not a Libertarian, and I know that my friends who are have very different sensibilities on this issue. Paula Ward, a long-time Libertarian, explains, “Generally, I am for anyone doing whatever they wish with their own bodies. It could have a negative “splash” on our party, but who knows.”
Libertarian pundit W.C.Varones concurs with Ward’s take, and adds:
She won’t have much electoral success in the Libertarian Party, but if she’s serious about a political career, she might find a home in the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. Is it too much to hope the GOP might be that much of a big tent?
To paraphrase something someone once said, I’d rather be governed by the most recent 535 AVN award winners than by our current Congress.
True: The Adult Video News award winners would have more of an appreciation of free markets values than many in Congress do.
On an international level, Italian Libertarian Luca Bocci says, “…[O]nce you go deep into debt from a government institution, God only knows what will happen. Not exactly the choice I would advise for my daughter, but as long as it’s a free choice, she’s perfectly entitled to do whatever the heck she wants. And suffer the consequences, obviously. There is no freedom without personal responsibility.”
Knox is not the first porn star to enter politics. Porn star Mary Carey ran for governor of California during the recall election of 2003 on a platform that included taxing breast implants, encouraging citizens to trade their guns for porn, and installing webcams in the governor’s mansion. After her loss, her last appearance of note was a Republican fundraising dinner in 2006.
The one aspect that ties my Libertarian friends’ views together is the emphasis on personal responsibility. Therefore, Knox and her complaints about being victimized by the higher education bubble indicates she still has a lot to learn about Libertarianism.
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Comments
Alert the circular firing squad! An attractive young woman, smart enough to get into a prestigious university, has come out as conservative – great news! Oh wait, she doesn’t pass the purity test, let’s get her! As long as our party is dominated by prudes and snarky judgment passers, we’re going to lose a generation that shares her views and values, and isn’t all that freaked out by porn. I think she’s a pretty cool kid, with some maturity issues, but I’m reasonably sure she’s not even 20 yet, let’s cut her a break.
I’m not sure that normalizing her views and values is of any benefit to society.
They’re already normalized among that cohort. His point. It’s a generation gap thing. How big is the Republican tent?
Judging by the comments here, it’s not a very big tent at all. Only Vestal Virgins need apply. Oh yeah, and they must be attractive, too.
What a load of smug, barbarous crap. Ms. Knox embodies freedom of expression in the same way the circus performers who bit off the heads of chickens in the midway embodied free expression. People with compassion for the chickens put a stop to that. No one rallied for the rights of circus geeks because they had the good sense to see it was degrading work.
You may want to stand and applaud this child and her warped value system, doesn’t mean I have to.
You’re the most crass, condescending, self-righteous manufacturer of strawmen this web site has ever had to endure.
Take it somewhere else.
Better this Adult Sex Worker than Jeb Bush, I tell you what. At least she isn’t bought and paid for.
What value is that? Better to pay for college yourself than to try to fleece the taxpayers?
No, but normalizing her RIGHT to make her own value judgments is to advance actual LIBERTY.
What you MEANT to say was “I don’t think will normalize MY SOCIETY”. FIFY
If you want to reduce pornography production in the U.S., you’d push for contract enforcement. Proper payment of residuals from producers to porn models would make porn more expensive, reducing the total amount produced.
It would also make the “choke porn” she is allegedly engaged in (not a fan, so don’t know about it) more expensive than “vanilla” porn, making it even rarer.
When confronted with a problem that seems to require a new law, first examine whether old laws are being improperly enforced.
The evidence positively screams that Ms Knox is a troubled young woman in need of professional help, not a platform from which to even more seek attention.
You are that Ms. Knox’s specialty is a particularly degrading class of smut know as “choke porn”? The goal of this extreme form of oral sex is for the man to cause his partner to gag, choke and vomit. Are you also aware that Ms. Knox’s body bears scars associated with the habit known as “cutting” in which young people scar themselves with razor blades in an attempt to deal with emotional pain? A thin girl, she carved “FAT” into one of her thighs.
This is a very troubled human being in need of compassion, not explotation.
In response to your previous post (“No one rallied for the rights of circus geeks because they had the good sense to see it was degrading work.”):
“All work is honorable.”
Kwai Chang Caine “Kung Fu”
You’re preaching to a box of hammers. These people championing this female don’t know the difference between freedom and liberty, for God’s sake. How in the world can they be expected to understand morality?
Unfortunately, we need a few more of these types to fail at trying to trade their candle in a closed room for a spotlight in a stadium before this form of idiocy ends. The scary part is how many people don’t care about personal value enough to shun her.
My point isn’t to hold her up as a paragon, but rather to note that if “having issues” disqualifies you from being a conservative, we are going to be a small, lonely group. Why we do have to castigate someone who is at least trying to think for herself rather than follow lockstep leftist orthodoxy? And if she really is troubled, why do we need to pile on, rather than encourage her in a positive direction?
Those in the porn industry are not “thinking for themselves”; they are damaged people on railroad tracks that were laid down a long time ago.
If by “purity test” you mean, someone who is not a nut job, not prone to self serving attention seeking, not serially dishonest, and has some track record of actually adhering to conservative principles then yeah, she fails the test.
Because all her protestations about needing to do what she does due to the the high cost of Duke evaporated when it was revealed she was offered a more traditional form of full ride elsewhere.
But otherwise, spot on!
Oh, please. She passed up a full scholarship at Vandy to pay her own way to Duke. Then she makes sex tapes and gets upset when her secret comes out, because who knew people can see porn on the internet, right?
Are you sending this bimbo cash for her “tuition” or something? You seem the sort of, er, generous chap who might.
Considering what politicians of both purported parties do to us on a regular basis; a career as a porn star would seem to be excellent preparation for a career in politics. At the very least, someone coming from the porn industry may have some familiarity with the concept of lubricant. And there is the fact that the campaign videos would be more entertaining, if not more truthful. Fantasy being just as much a part of politics as it is porn.
For men in “straight porn” it’s excellent preparation for politics. For women it’s more like excellent preparation for being a voter.
“Paula Ward, a long-time Libertarian, explains, ‘Generally, I am for anyone doing whatever they wish with their own bodies.'”
In case Christians reading this article have been brainwashed by our secular culture into thinking that they own “their own bodies,” I will mention that this idea is completely incompatible with Christianity.
You know what else is incompatible with Christianity? The idea that anyone other than an individual and their Creator is empowered to dictate or coerce what said individual does with their own body.
Anyone not that individual, or their Creator, has no ownership at all; and anyone feeling a call to provide more than limited, gentle, loving advice on the subject would probably better spend their time attending to the log in their own busy-bodying eye.
The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.
1st Corinthians, chapter 7 (NIV)
That’s all well and good for people who adhere to a bronze age philosophy. Much philosophical thought has passed under the bridge since then, including that of the “Enlightenment” that guided our founding. It’s called the “Enlightenment” for a reason – it brought light to the darkness under which humanity has struggled, oh, since about the bronze age.
I think you’ve stumbled onto the wrong blog for your kind of attitude. This is a legal blog which means there are standards. You may know them as the rule of law. There are other sites that will hold your interest better, if you catch my drift. You should waste no more time here, because it will be a long time before this site has an article about porn again.
Bronze Age = 3300-1200 years before
1st Corinthians written = 55 years after
What were we talking about?
So, let me get this straight: you NEVER vote for ANYONE who is not 100% supportive of State-enforced wife ownership?
Because if you have, even once, since you started to believe that wife ownership is awesome, then you admit that voting for people you don’t 100% agree with is okay, and at that point, “Belle Knox” would be preferable to whatever ass the Democrats would nominate.
Thanks for playing.
I’ll have to bookmark this one … an award should be given to the wittiest comment.
Don’t you mean dirtiest comment?
No, wait. We are talking politics here which is by definition dirty.
Okay then, would she be playing dirty if she was enticing Democratic male voters married to blondes to vote for her if she wore a blue dress?
Time for my “beat the crap outa-SOMEbody” break…
I find these SOOOOOO stimulating just before retiring…
Playing pirate again, Rags?
Well, she’s already a egotistical, publicity seeking, exhibitionist attention whore so . . .
Just what we need.
She probably couldn’t tell anymore whether she’s coming…or going.
That’s why I’m not a libertarian. We used to subscribe to Reason, but the fascination with porn stars going into politics or some sort of libertarian figures doing LSD was just silly. Just because one believes in individuals owning their own bodies (or the state not getting in the way in what one decides to do with own body) doesn’t mean that stupidity and self-destruction is something to be celebrated.
And for the record, she’s not at all attractive.
Well, as far as a political Libertarian career, Belle has got her foot (and all else) in the door. Who knows? We now have an emperor with no clothes. Maybe she will end up as an emperor-ess without clothes. Talk about transparency!
But, then again, I think she would poll (and pole) negative.
Well, you ruined my intended post: “She can run, but her poling is bad.”
Now I gotta think up something else. You should sleep in later, give a feller a chance.
No way, Hose (that’s Spanglish for Henry). I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I better write this while you were snoring away.
The early bird gets the pun.
That’s not all the early bird gets. Sometimes it gets nailed by the hungry cat.
2nd mouse gets the cheese…
So we’re supposed to cut poor Belle Knox a break because she’s a Libertarian and can do with her body as seems fit to her, fine but porn has ruined almost as many lives and marriages a alcohol but hey, what’s wrong with watching a little porn, right?
Let’s cut her a break because she’s just trying to pay for an outrageously expensive tuition at Duke University by having sex on camera for everyone to see. If I were her father, my heart would be irreparably broken, shattered into a million pieces. This is what her parents and her other family members get for many years of loving patience and dedication, a daughter who has so little respect for herself that she exposes her very most private and intimate parts for the entire world to see, just to make money.
But hey, she’s a Libertarian. She can always have an abortion, its her body right? She can conveniently forget that there is another little tiny innocent life involved that gets no choice because she is responsible for her own body.
Society has no benefit from people who’s only claim to fame and notoriety, sort of like Monica Lewinski and Kim Kardashian et al, is the fact that they had sex for all the world to see.
“…but porn has ruined almost as many lives and marriages a(s) alcohol…”
Are you suggesting that we rag on the producers, purveyors, and consumers of alcohol as vociferously as we do against porn? If not, then you’re being disingenuous. If yes, then you have failed to realize that the “cure” for alcohol (Prohibition) was worse than the disease. I thought we were supposed to learn from history.
Defining deviancy down.
Even a Democrat could see it.
Moynihan, Moynihan, anyone, Moynihan?
Well, with a porn star politician, at least we’ll get a little kissing with our f**king.
I’m fairly sure you don’t want to go kissing that mouth.
Are you hitting on me?
Is that a fear or a hope?
j/k
Will she seek to normalize, tolerate, or reject pornography?
That said, liberal economics is a deception. There is no such thing as an economic liberal. Everyone wants to benefit from the product of their labor. That is why liberals prefer to enact redistributive change schemes at the national level, where individual liability is reduced. The problem with this approach is that it promotes policies that are far removed from economic development and accountability.
Check out porn star Ilona Staller’s political career in Italy. She occupied an elected office for 5 years. She stood for re-election, but her attempt failed. I’m not saying she was effective in office, only that the electorate chose her once. In that sense, she was successful, and more so than many aspirants to political office.
Ah, Italy. Isn’t that country one of the PIIGS? And isn’t the longest serving Italian government since WW2 about 18 months?
We won’t talk about the Mafia, Italy’s most notorious export.
I tried to get into the porn biz, even underwent pre-hire tests, but they said there was no market for 8 second videos.
*sigh*
Growing up, I wanted to be a comic. They all laughed at me.
Well, no one’s laughing now!
buh-boom, ting!
With the advent of Vine you might be back in business. But you’ll have to work on shaving a couple seconds off your time.
There has been a whole lot of prostitutes in office, so why not a porn star?
” would have more respect for Knox if she put her expensive education on hold and perhaps learned a trade that would provide her the income necessary to get the degree she wants.”
Ummm she has done exactly that… your “respect” notwithstanding she has nearly risen to the top of a VERY competitive market and earned/is earning a degree from a very prestigious university. I must confess that I would not wish this track for my own daughter but I do not look upon this young ladies “trade” with disgust. signed… and average, middle class white guy over 50.
Isn’t that exactly what she did?