Discussion for article #232180
Bill seems to always find his āmeā angle in every news story.
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Yes, but is what he said untrue?
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" ā¦ free speech only works if there are no waivers ā no waivers, including for religion."
Agreed, and also including Bill Maher. No liberal is saying that Maherās opinions should be illegal, but free speech means that anyone is free to criticize Maher and protest against his opinions. He doesnāt seem to get that.
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Provocative as usual. Donāt always agree with Maher, but I do agree itās wrong and hypocritical for the French government, or any government, to arrest someone for saying something repulsive or ugly. I disagree that focusing on single events or people and then drawing broader conclusions about them really says much of anything other than what the person doing it wants to believe. But thereās plenty of room for everyone to continue to self-evaluate our own opinions and how we (through our own prejudices) selectively apply them.
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I donāt know why this is so hard for so many people to understand. People saying āJe suis Charlieā are expressing support for a magazine in reaction to 12 journalists and cartoonists from it being murdered for expressing their views, which in case Bill Maher hasnāt noticed, is what actually happened last week.
Since then people from across the political spectrum, from David Brooks to Maher to have issued these ridiculous pronouncements asserting that anyone who objects to people being killed for expressing an opinion or using satire is being a terrible hypocrite if also thinking that universities or student bodies have the right to decide who they want or donāt want speaking at their events.
The idea that if you protest people being gunned down for religious āblasphemyā you must also protest any business or university making decisions about who to hire or fire or hire for a speaking engagement is completely bonkers, yet here it is being asserted over and over. Itās amazing that this even has to be said, but letās say it anyway: the two are not the same thing.
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Yes, but is what he said untrue?
Itās his opinion, how can that be true or untrue?
Itās insane, if that answers your question at all.
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āOpinions shouldnāt be illegal,ā he continued. āEveryone can always come up with a reason why the thing that bugs you should get a waiver, but free speech only works if there are no waivers ā no waivers, including for religion.ā
Is that insane?
My first thought when I saw the story headline was, oh there goes Bill again. You donāt think that there is any validity to his statement though?
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I think he and many others are drawing false equivalencies as the entire basis for their statements.
No, I donāt think opinions should be illegal. How is that related to whether you protest being being murdered for what someone decided was blasphemy against (their extremist interpretation of) their religion?
Itās not the statements about whether things should or should not be illegal that Iām saying are crazy, itās the assertion that āthose saying je suis Charlieā are saying anything about that. I say it because I think people should not be killed for what others decide is blasphemy. The people who carried out the murders werenāt saying āthis satire should be illegalā they were saying that people drawing it should be killed. And they were.
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āAnd if youāre doing that, you donāt get to wear the āJe suis Charlieā button.ā
News flash, you arrogant prick. Just because you canāt hold two thoughts in their mind at once doesnāt make you the man in charge. Iām really starring to despise this sonofabitch.
No one ever suggested he not critique Muslim extremists. Everyone should critique all extremists, and loudly, Muslims included. But when he paints Muslims,who amount to a quarter of the worldās population, with the broad brush of bigotry and then hides behind allegations of a double standard when people point it out, not only is what he implied untrue, but heās takes the refuge of a coward. When all the critique is levied against one band of extremists, and by extension to the entire population for ānot speaking outā (which is patently untrue) then something else is afoot.
Contrary to what he purports, no one, Charlie Hebdo supporters included, has freed any bigot, no matter their stripe, from the consequences of their bigoted speech, consequences which in his case amount to critique no more acrid than that he levies at others.
If weāre going to spend time critiquing extremists, letās get our priorities in order. In case we forget, in this cultural war, despite these despicable terrorist acts that get all the press, Muslims are getting their asses kicked, as they have throughout modern history. Itās been said thereās not a family in Iraq that hasnāt suffered a casualty at the hands of our Christian-indoctrinated military. Iām not taking their side, but were I a Muslim, Iād be pissed off too.
Iām sure Maher has spoken out against that insane and illegitimate war, at least I would hope he has. But when will Bill Maher start suggesting we do a little introspection at the policies that foment the hatred against us? You know, turning his criticism to doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome? But no, instead, right wingers and people like Pam Geller are using Maher to amp up the hatred to a fevered pitch. And heās not going to modulate his tone, because heās an arrogant, and I think bigoted, prick.
Oh, and āJe suis Charile,ā Maher.
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Beyond laws, and making speech illegal though, isnāt there something wrong with suppressing speech and ideas by getting speakers banned from universities, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they fall on. Is it really any different than the police at funerals turning their backs on De Blasio?
People do throw around words like bigot, and racist too easily, and it does serve itās purpose of preventing people from expressing their thoughts for fear of retribution, and for people who make their living from their speech, it adds in the fear of economic retribution, for example The Dixie Chicksā¦
Criticize the state of Israel, and itās policies and you are an anti-semite. I donāt agree with Maherās portrayal of Islam in his recent remarks, but that isnāt a reason to silence them. Criticism from someone within your own ideology can feel like a betrayal, but stopping it from being expressed or punishing those who express it doesnāt solve anything. If anything it just pushes the thoughts into hiding, where they really do damage.
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Paraphrasing The Big Lebowski: āNo Bill, youāre not wrong. Youāre just an ASSHOLE.ā
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Freedom of speech should extend to everybody. But if somebody says something you disagree with, you have every right to protest it, thereby exercising your own freedom of speech. Sadly, Bill Maherās self-importance grows exponentially. I remember when he used to be kind of funny.
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āOpinions shouldnāt be illegal,ā he continued. āEveryone can always come up with a reason why the thing that bugs you should get a waiver, but free speech only works if there are no waivers ā no waivers, including for religion.ā
Correct, but the same rights that allow you to refer to religious people as ignorant allow your critics to call you a bigot. If youāre going to play hardball (which is fine by me), donāt whine when others do the same.
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Bill Maher has a huge stage from which he gets to trumpet his views. And yet he is claiming that people who use their freedom of speech to criticize what he says amounts to bullying. Saying you donāt want Bill to speak at your university is just like terrorist killing people. Bill, as usual, thinks he is at the center of the universe.
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Yes, because liberals who complain about Bill are the equivalent of armed terrorists storming into his offices and killing his writers.
He has a great sense of proportion.
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Iām sure Maher has spoken out against that insane and illegitimate war (IRAQ), at least I would hope he has. But when will Bill Maher start suggesting we do a little introspection at the policies that foment the hatred against us?
What youāve written here suggests that this is one of your first interactions with Bill Maher.
He essentially got fired from his ABC show for his Iraq commentary.
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Well, thatās a long discussion and my point is that itās not what Maher was saying. Is there something wrong, well if you frame it as āsuppressing speechā then yes, but does a university for example have a right to fire someone for expressing certain views-- as I say, long discussion. Imagining that thereās some clear cut answer is a mistake, in my opinion.
What Maher is saying here is something else however, this speech of his was specifically about the Charlie Hebdo attack, and heās claiming that anyone who protests that attack and yet doesnāt equally vigorously defend him against being barred from a speaking engagement is being a terrible hypocrite.
Heās drawing false equivalencies as the basis for his entire statement. What happened in Paris isnāt about whether cartoons shoud be legal or illegal. According to the logic of what he and some others are saying, youād have to imagine that if the attackers in Paris had just stood outside the magazine and said āthese cartoons should be illegalā, then people would be protesting, worldwide, just as fervently. The whole idea is absurd.
I can say that I donāt think anyone including him should be killed for expressing his views on religion or anything else. According to his logic, this means I must also support his right to engaged as a speaker any time he wants to be.
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No. There is no validity to his statement. Heās smart enough to know heās deliberately conflating two completely different ideas. Yes freedom of speech includes the right to not get gunned down for your opinions no matter how provacative. Heās claiming a right for himself as a TV host to say deliberately inflammatory things and have no one allowed to argue with him or protest. How to handle extremism is a difficult and nuanced argument and heās now basically trumpeting that heās solved it and anyone who disagrees with him is either a fascist or a faux liberal fool and no more debate is allowed. Why donāt the students who protest him coming to campus get free speech? Honestly, I used to think he was just trolling but now I feel more like heās gotten so isolated and arrogant that he believes his own schtick.
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A few quotes from Maher on some of the subjects that you touched on.
We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. Thatās cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, itās not cowardly.
Maybe every other American movie shouldnāt be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.
I do think the patriotic thing to do is to critique my country. How else do you make a country better but by pointing out its flaws?
To me a real patriot is like a real friend. Whoās your real friend? Itās the person who tells you the truth. Thatās who my real friends are. So, you know, I think as far as our country goes, we need more people who will do that.
He has a problem with all religions and criticizes them all freelyā¦
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who donāt have all the answers to think that they do.
Letās face it; God has a big ego problem. Why do we always have to worship him?
I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.
If you are going to hate on him for saying something that you disagree with, thatās fine, but be honest about it.