Maher is a wretched piece of trash. I figured that out over 20 years ago. He was vicious in his attacks against Al Gore and did as much as anyone to get GWB in office. STFU Bill. You were never funny, you’re just an asshole.
John Moralessays
Good channel, that.
Sam Nsays
Ah, have you stumbled across the pieces on cancel culture yet? Excellent.
William Georgesays
I’ll give Bill Maher this: He was the first famous atheist that made me suspect there was some rot at the core of the movement. It was those YouTube dipshits that made me realize it was just the same old shit as always, just without Jesus. But Maher was my first warning.
A Sloth named Sparklessays
Too many times since Elevatorgate, we’re seeing Bill Maher and various New Atheists, along with “But I voted Democrat”-types making very worrying far right statements, while giving platform to bigots like Milo Icanttypehisnameright and Charles Murray, for some “anti-PC” freeze peach reasons. So much so that they’ve completely obfuscated their position on anything.
PaulBCsays
Ray Ceeya@2 Only 20 years? The first I ever heard of him was that he had a show coming out called “Politically Incorrect”. I just looked it up. It was in 1993. Yawn. I had already been reading conservative complaints about alleged “speech codes” on campus and what big bullies those liberal professors are. I recall some sad attempts at political cartoons addressing this made-up problem in a whiny conservative campus paper some undergrads had put out.
So all I knew is that he was some guy who was going to shamelessly exploit a myth that speech was being suppressed, and this made him oh so daring. OMG he was gonna do it on TV even, not just in a college paper. Side note: I was never a fan of PJ O’Rourke either, but he had the same schtick of saying stuff about politics that nobody else “dared” to.
Gimme a break. Actually in the 80s, you could make yourself very unpopular even at some college campuses by attacking Ronald Reagan. I went to such a university. So it cuts both ways. Human beings really hate hearing stuff they disagree with. Ever notice? Stupid humans! The idea that speech is less free now or in 1993 than during some great golden age is simply ludicrous.
I briefly felt a little solidarity for Bill Maher when he was “Dixie Chicked” over the war on terrorism even before the term existed. But I never found him very funny or insightful. Meh.
@t PaulBC
We didn’t get Comedy Central in 1993. I was watching CNN and Discovery (back when they actually did science stuff) back then. I had no Idea who Bill Maher was until I was in college. At that point I thought of him as a left wing Dennis Miller (sorry for bringing that name up). Two sides of the same coin, both pathetic hacks.
PaulBCsays
Ray Ceeya@8 I concede I liked Dennis Miller back in his original SNL days: clever wisecracks with a nice deadpan delivery.
His act wasn’t really political for the most part. The Iraq War (and maybe early parts of the War on Terrorism) just shifted his focus, not that his politics changed (I recall Al Franken explaining that Miller was always that way.) He stopped being funny at all around the time he decided that “Neville Chamberlain” was an all-purpose punchline. I don’t even know what he’s doing now.
chrislawsonsays
I do not understand the antagonism towards Neville Chamberlain. He did his utmost to prevent WW2 and only failed because Hitler was an out-and-out psychopath. Yes, we can talk about why he failed and how to prevent future failures along the same lines, but really Chamberlain has become a conservative excuse to justify unjustifiable wars.
birgerjohanssonsays
OT: “Ammon Bundy Files To Run For Governor Of Idaho”
Yes! Yes! Split the vote!
tacitussays
Bundy is running as a Republican, in Idaho. If he wins the primary, even he will beat any Democrat he’s up against.
Chris@10, I highly recommend Alan Allport’s recent history ‘Britain at Bay’. His account of Munich is interesting because he clearly loathes Chamberlain the man, while describing how JC made the best of an impossible situation. Allport lays out the context of how Britain was not ready for war during the Munich crisis, particularly at a time when the Arab Revolt was tying down imperial strength in Palestine and India, and that no-one (specifically Churchill) would have done any better given the options. Indeed, he notes how Churchill was, in July 38, was insisting that the Czechs accept concessions, suggesting that Winston, catapulted into the hot seat, may at best have cut a similar deal with Hitler.
Allport also notes that two key figures regarded Munich as a victory for Chamberlain. One was Chamberlain himself (he was nothing if not an egotist). The other, arguably more important figure, was Hitler, and indeed his failure of nerve in late ’38 set the stage for his own error of judgment regarding British and French support for Poland. In Allport’s account Munich also set the anti-Nazi ducks in a row. The Empire – specifically Canada and Australia – was not prepared to go to war over Czechoslovakia, but having seen promises broken they were under no illusion what the threats to Poland meant. A war in ’38 would have meant fighting without the wholehearted support of many nations. The aftermath of Munich dispelled any illusions everyone had about the Fuhrer and aligned great powers against him.
PaulBCsays
Man, it sure is easy to derail any thread into an argument over the Munich Agreement. I wasn’t even trying. Maybe I should take up intentional trolling one of these days.
Bill Maher is a libertarian heartthrob aka an asshole. I did watch his show on ABC until it was canceled after he said about 9/11 “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, [it’s] not cowardly.”
He really isn’t any different than the QAnon people who hold on to views that have long been rebuked just for the lols
PaulBCsays
cadfile@15
“We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away.
To be clear, that’s one of the few instances where I agreed with Maher wholeheartedly. The 9/11 hijackers were driven by murderous intent and killed many innocent people, but it really takes some pretzel logic to call them cowards. (Perhaps the moral cowardice of any suicide yadda yadda… The grave and unforgivable sin of despair. I mean I was raised and educated Catholic, so I can do the pretzels. My point is just that “cowardly” is very strange word to apply here and requires explication.)
Since then, many Americans have been killed in action on the ground, but at the time Maher said it, he was indeed correct that we lob missiles from afar. We do it with drone strikes now. In some cases it could be effective and necessary to our defense (I throw that one out hypothetically but have no intention of defending it). What it definitely is not is “courageous.”
So in that case, Maher was absolutely right, and unusually “politically incorrect.” Ironically, it is probably what cause the demise of his show of that name.
numerobissays
I watched Bill Maher for a few minutes and wondered why anyone would be taken in by his schtick. He’s clearly got no research team, so what’s even the point?
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a fan of Bill Maher’s.
Maher is a wretched piece of trash. I figured that out over 20 years ago. He was vicious in his attacks against Al Gore and did as much as anyone to get GWB in office. STFU Bill. You were never funny, you’re just an asshole.
Good channel, that.
Ah, have you stumbled across the pieces on cancel culture yet? Excellent.
I’ll give Bill Maher this: He was the first famous atheist that made me suspect there was some rot at the core of the movement. It was those YouTube dipshits that made me realize it was just the same old shit as always, just without Jesus. But Maher was my first warning.
Too many times since Elevatorgate, we’re seeing Bill Maher and various New Atheists, along with “But I voted Democrat”-types making very worrying far right statements, while giving platform to bigots like Milo Icanttypehisnameright and Charles Murray, for some “anti-PC” freeze peach reasons. So much so that they’ve completely obfuscated their position on anything.
Ray Ceeya@2 Only 20 years? The first I ever heard of him was that he had a show coming out called “Politically Incorrect”. I just looked it up. It was in 1993. Yawn. I had already been reading conservative complaints about alleged “speech codes” on campus and what big bullies those liberal professors are. I recall some sad attempts at political cartoons addressing this made-up problem in a whiny conservative campus paper some undergrads had put out.
So all I knew is that he was some guy who was going to shamelessly exploit a myth that speech was being suppressed, and this made him oh so daring. OMG he was gonna do it on TV even, not just in a college paper. Side note: I was never a fan of PJ O’Rourke either, but he had the same schtick of saying stuff about politics that nobody else “dared” to.
Gimme a break. Actually in the 80s, you could make yourself very unpopular even at some college campuses by attacking Ronald Reagan. I went to such a university. So it cuts both ways. Human beings really hate hearing stuff they disagree with. Ever notice? Stupid humans! The idea that speech is less free now or in 1993 than during some great golden age is simply ludicrous.
I briefly felt a little solidarity for Bill Maher when he was “Dixie Chicked” over the war on terrorism even before the term existed. But I never found him very funny or insightful. Meh.
@t PaulBC
We didn’t get Comedy Central in 1993. I was watching CNN and Discovery (back when they actually did science stuff) back then. I had no Idea who Bill Maher was until I was in college. At that point I thought of him as a left wing Dennis Miller (sorry for bringing that name up). Two sides of the same coin, both pathetic hacks.
Ray Ceeya@8 I concede I liked Dennis Miller back in his original SNL days: clever wisecracks with a nice deadpan delivery.
His act wasn’t really political for the most part. The Iraq War (and maybe early parts of the War on Terrorism) just shifted his focus, not that his politics changed (I recall Al Franken explaining that Miller was always that way.) He stopped being funny at all around the time he decided that “Neville Chamberlain” was an all-purpose punchline. I don’t even know what he’s doing now.
I do not understand the antagonism towards Neville Chamberlain. He did his utmost to prevent WW2 and only failed because Hitler was an out-and-out psychopath. Yes, we can talk about why he failed and how to prevent future failures along the same lines, but really Chamberlain has become a conservative excuse to justify unjustifiable wars.
OT: “Ammon Bundy Files To Run For Governor Of Idaho”
Yes! Yes! Split the vote!
Bundy is running as a Republican, in Idaho. If he wins the primary, even he will beat any Democrat he’s up against.
Chris@10, I highly recommend Alan Allport’s recent history ‘Britain at Bay’. His account of Munich is interesting because he clearly loathes Chamberlain the man, while describing how JC made the best of an impossible situation. Allport lays out the context of how Britain was not ready for war during the Munich crisis, particularly at a time when the Arab Revolt was tying down imperial strength in Palestine and India, and that no-one (specifically Churchill) would have done any better given the options. Indeed, he notes how Churchill was, in July 38, was insisting that the Czechs accept concessions, suggesting that Winston, catapulted into the hot seat, may at best have cut a similar deal with Hitler.
Allport also notes that two key figures regarded Munich as a victory for Chamberlain. One was Chamberlain himself (he was nothing if not an egotist). The other, arguably more important figure, was Hitler, and indeed his failure of nerve in late ’38 set the stage for his own error of judgment regarding British and French support for Poland. In Allport’s account Munich also set the anti-Nazi ducks in a row. The Empire – specifically Canada and Australia – was not prepared to go to war over Czechoslovakia, but having seen promises broken they were under no illusion what the threats to Poland meant. A war in ’38 would have meant fighting without the wholehearted support of many nations. The aftermath of Munich dispelled any illusions everyone had about the Fuhrer and aligned great powers against him.
Man, it sure is easy to derail any thread into an argument over the Munich Agreement. I wasn’t even trying. Maybe I should take up intentional trolling one of these days.
Bill Maher is a libertarian heartthrob aka an asshole. I did watch his show on ABC until it was canceled after he said about 9/11 “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, [it’s] not cowardly.”
He really isn’t any different than the QAnon people who hold on to views that have long been rebuked just for the lols
cadfile@15
To be clear, that’s one of the few instances where I agreed with Maher wholeheartedly. The 9/11 hijackers were driven by murderous intent and killed many innocent people, but it really takes some pretzel logic to call them cowards. (Perhaps the moral cowardice of any suicide yadda yadda… The grave and unforgivable sin of despair. I mean I was raised and educated Catholic, so I can do the pretzels. My point is just that “cowardly” is very strange word to apply here and requires explication.)
Since then, many Americans have been killed in action on the ground, but at the time Maher said it, he was indeed correct that we lob missiles from afar. We do it with drone strikes now. In some cases it could be effective and necessary to our defense (I throw that one out hypothetically but have no intention of defending it). What it definitely is not is “courageous.”
So in that case, Maher was absolutely right, and unusually “politically incorrect.” Ironically, it is probably what cause the demise of his show of that name.
I watched Bill Maher for a few minutes and wondered why anyone would be taken in by his schtick. He’s clearly got no research team, so what’s even the point?