I’m a liberal, and I’ve believed for several years now that Bill Maher makes liberals look bad. He’s a hypocrite when it comes to his so-called belief in science, picking and choosing which scientific evidence-supported ideas to believe, and rejecting others. And he doesn’t recognize his anti-islamic ideas as bigotry. I used to enjoy his humor, but I got tired of some of his dumb statements. This is not the first time when he’s insulted or bullied groups of people out of a feeling of superiority.
So when this happened, he had already lost me as a fan, and I was not at all surprised that he would treat so many people like dirt.
I didn’t mean to turn this into a “defend Bill Maher about everything” thread, but my previous posts illustrate some of the reasons I’m not going to throw him under the bus for some incidental transgression. With regard to the latest attack, I respond as follows:
Maher has been flitting around the fringes of anti-vax beliefs, but ISTM he’s moderated that considerably in recent years. But I’ve never heard anything like the claim in your last sentence. Can you cite that he’s ever said we don’t don’t need government health care if everyone just ate the way he did? What I’ve specifically heard from him for a long time is strong support for measures like the ACA and for health care reform in general.
This I can refute categorically, because I’ve specifically heard him say multiple times that he does NOT fault individual Muslims, but faults a religion that he considers fundamentalist, absolutist, and easily interpreted as inciting violence or war – a position that in fact contains substantial elements of truth, especially when you consider the confluence of the religion and the cultures in which it’s dominant.
I’d be interested in seeing a cite of Maher making “idiotic statements about the economy and agriculture” on behalf of PETA that are meant to be taken seriously.
I’m not going to embark on the fools errand of looking for cites. He did all those things on his HBO show, which I watched routinely.
The first one is particularly burned into my mind. He made the unequivocal, specific claim that government supported health care would be unnecessary if people merely adopted a proper diet. He has spoken about his own diet often, and the implication was clear that it was his own diet he was implying was the diet that he was referring to.
I didn’t say he said he opposes universal health care. But he did make this claim. And he didn’t say it as a joke.
QFT.
My only qualm is way too much freaking clapping. Someone tell the producer (oh wait - it’s Bill, forget it) to tone that shit down. Cheerleader-y.
I wonder if Affleck will ever go on again.
Hope BM’s fully registered the response from his ill-conceived Stan Lee sentiments.
In keeping with the name of his previous show, sure, he can make the odd liberal look bad. Are there examples of which scientific ideas he believes in and rejects? (other than the anti-vax issue)
Bill Maher said a shitty thing about people who like comics. I’m a person who likes comics, but somehow, Maher’s comment isn’t about me. Okay, sure. Let’s pretend that idea makes sense.
This thread isn’t about you. Nobody in this thread said anything about you at all. But you’ve spent half a dozen posts bloviating about how nobody should care about what Maher said, and saying anybody who takes issue with Maher is “a problem.”
And yet, you have not done that with this thread. Which, again, is not about you, or even about any of your interests.
Here’s why it makes sense. Maher has no power to actually affect in any way the life of people who like comics. He just posted a shitty blog post. It was an idiotic thing to say. He can be an asshole. My comments are specifically about people who are “offended” by things that other people say. My comments are basically in response to someone who said, in a sarcastic tone, “When someone says something offensive, it is the people that are offended that is the problem?” I think a lot of people are assholes but that’s different than being offended. I do not think that people should refrain from making any public statements for fear that expressing an opinion might “offend” someone. There is, of course, a line where you cross over to true offensiveness, as in the example I gave earlier of a public official that has the ability to negatively affect people’s lives in a material way based on his personal prejudices.
I didn’t say nobody should care. I said nobody should be offended. I wouldn’t care, but that’s just me.
You lost me on this last line. Why is what different when I do what?
I’m not posting in this thread because I’m “offended” by what Maher said. His opinion about comics doesn’t affect my self-image or my opinion about comics.
But it’s something he chose to say. And it’s absolutely fair to judge him, his intelligence, his ability to reason, and the value of his opinion based on what he says. In fact, it would be idiotic not to.
Comedians don’t have some kind of special pass that says that you can’t judge them for what they say, just because their statements are somehow vaguely related to jokes.
As I said, I agree with most of his political opinions, at least lately, but what he has revealed about how his opinions are reached make me conclude that he’s not someone who is worth listening to.
No, sorry, you missed what part of your post I said was nonsensical. Here it is again: Bill Maher characterized adults who read comic books. I’m an adult who reads comic books, so through normal logic, he’s characterizing me when he said that. However, according to CookingWithGas logic, because Maher didn’t mention me by name, what he said wasn’t about me.
That’s the part that didn’t make sense.
Have you ever heard of Frederic Wertham? He was a private citizen who had a strong dislike of comic books, and was able to use his prominence as an author and psychologist to force a fifty year censorship regime on the entire medium. So, yeah, opinionated dipshits with a soapbox can, in fact, have an impact. Obviously, I don’t think Maher’s going to bring back the Comic Code Authority, but part of preventing further nonsense like that involves pushing back on the idea that comic books are disposable kiddy stuff that serious people don’t care about.
And now we have the meat of your argument: “I think a lot of people are assholes but that’s different than being offended.”
No, Cooking, that’s not different at all. If you think someone is being an asshole, then it’s because they’ve done something that you find offensive. “Offensive” isn’t some super-special term that we reserve for bigots and racists. It means someone has done something that you don’t like. It can be promoting racism. It can be wearing too much cologne in an enclosed space. It can be picking your nose in a restaurant. It can be someone saying something stupid about comic books.
You should figure out the basic meanings of words before you scold people for using them in their correct context.
Bill Maher went online, and said something a lot of people disagreed with. They went online, and registered their disagreement. Then you went online, and castigated those people for complaining about something somebody wrote on the internet.
Why is it a bad thing when people have opinions about what Bill Maher said on the internet, but not a bad thing when you have opinions about what those people said about Bill Maher?
1a : VIOLATE, TRANSGRESS
a contract not offending a statute … might still be in restraint of trade
— C. A. Cooke
b : to cause pain to : HURT
tasteless billboards that offend the eye
2 obsolete : to cause to sin or fall
3 : to cause (a person or group) to feel hurt, angry, or upset by something said or done
was offended by their language
She carefully worded her comments so as not to offend anyone.
Ex: I think Alex Jones is an idiot. But I’m not offended–I’m not hurt, angry, or upset by anything he has said or done. I just think he’s an asshole that that’s trying to get attention.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have opinions. I never said that. I think it’s wonderful to have opinions. I think it’s valid to disagree and disapprove. I wouldn’t blame you if you never watched Maher’s show or read his posts because you don’t want to hear his drivel. What I did say is that, on the topic of this particular blog post by Maher, if your opinion escalates to the level of being offended–hurt, angry, or upset–it’s not Maher’s responsibility.
What’s the point of nitpicking over the meaning of the word “offended”? Do you consider it to be somehow virtuous to avoid or deny the feeling of being offended?
I’m not saying I agree with him, but I think CookingWithGas is saying that being offended by something a comedian says is essentially just recreational outrage.
Okay, let’s try this thought experiment. You’re driving along, and you see a really ugly billboard. Not racist or political or anything, just really badly designed and an eyesore. You don’t like the billboard. You think it would be better if someone took down that billboard. Are you offended by that billboard? Because your own cite says that’s an appropriate word to use in that context.
If you’re not hurt, angry, or offended by Alex Jones, why do you think he’s an asshole? What emotional response does he generate in you that causes you to think he’s an asshole? What word do you think best describes that emotional response?
I think Stan Lee’s body of work has had far more influence on American culture than anything Bill Maher has done. Stan’s work outlasted his death and has become enshrined in American culture. If anyone has an accomplishment that Bill Maher has done that will outlast his death I’d like to here what it is.
There is no emotional response. It’s an intellectual assessment. The assessment is that he spouts deliberately misleading information to get attention or possibly to incite people stupider than him.
Do you think that a negative emotional response to an erroneous comment that is also insulting or demeaning represents some kind of intellectual weakness?
It’s not an android perspective at all. I have emotional responses to all kinds of things and I can be offended. For example, there are certain highly-placed elected and appointed government officials who say and do things that offend me and anger me and upset me because they are in positions of leadership and their words and actions result in things that do measurable, tangible harm to entire classes of people and to the country as a whole.
I would agree with this concise characterization. And I take no offense that you might not agree with me. In fact I suppose I am swimming upstream here since most people who would likely join into this thread are pissed off at Maher(based on the wording of the OP subject). Sorry, I am not trying to threadshit, but just reflecting a different point of view than expressed in some earlier posts.