Berkely students petition to stop Bill Maher from delivering commencement addres

[garbon]

That hardly means that many people pay attention, particularly among the younger set. There are lots of well known people out there - more than one person could reasonably pay attention to.

He was well known to be invited to speak at Berkeley's commencement.  And the Younger set is ignorant of HBO comic shows?  They would at least see it on reddit.

Dana Gioia spoke at my commencement. Yeah that well known guy.

Knowing that Bill Maher exists doesn't mean that you spend two shits thinking about his views. It is ridiculous to suggest that anyone (let alone someone of college age) might be unaware of his stance on Islam and could be outraged now.

[dps]

I'd call him a left libertarian and I don't see how it's so far off to call him a leftist.

I guess I don't consider him a leftist because most of the people I think of as leftists are not at all libertarian.

I used to watch his show but it's been years since I tuned in for more than a couple minutes. I also used to think of him as a lefty but he's more like all over the place politically.

I haven't seen his show on HBO.  To be honest, until recently, I didn't even know he still had a show.  I used to watch his old show;  I thought it was better when it was on Comedy Central, because I thought he generally had more interesting guests than he had during the ABC years.

[Martinus]

Maher is much smarter than Affleck. In fact over the years, I think the only thing I ever disagreed with Maher about was his stance on vaccines.

[Martinus]

I just find it ironic because Maher is always hailed as a liberal and leftie.

I don't know. We had this discussion recently - there are three sides to the triangle. Maher is clearly on the liberal end, Berkeley students are clearly on the collectivist end. They hate liberals and conservatives with the same passion.

It's only in the US, where the collectivist side has never been strong, that it got so conflated with liberals.

As for liberals/collectivists supporting or defending Islam, I always applied what could be called a reverse Kantian imperative - "never support a principle which, if made the universal law, would mean you are put to death".

[Ancient Demon]

I'm not especially fond of Bill Maher, but I don't think he said anything outrageous in this case.

[Josephus]

I'd call him a left libertarian and I don't see how it's so far off to call him a leftist.

I guess I don't consider him a leftist because most of the people I think of as leftists are not at all libertarian.

I wouldnt call him a libertarian. Maybe he was once. But he's definitely in favour of gun control and socialized medicine, to name a couple of things.
In a sense, he's like me, and others, who can't be pigeonholed on some socio political measuring stick. I am left on some issues, but swing right on others.

[Viking]

The difference between Maher and other so-called liberals, is that the liberals do not see a difference between Islam and Muslims. Maher does. Even on the most recent episode he brought it up again and argued, again, for the liberal argument that Islam is an idea that needs to be treated on it's own merits .

FYP

[Martinus]

It's more ironic that other supposed liberals turn a blind eye when Muslims are involved.

Yeah it never ceases to amaze me. How can one be so opposed to religious conservatism when it is practiced by Christians but be so happy to embrace Muslims who, on average, make the likes of Pat Robertson and Huckabee look positively liberal.

[Martinus]

And before someone tells me there are liberal Muslims - so what? There are also sexually active gay Christians. The thing is in both cases it means one thing: you are reading the goddamn script wrong.

[Berkut]

I am not really sure what the Maher point is though - do liberals excuse radical Islam? I don't really see that.

Or is Maher just trying to equate having a nuanced view of religious extremism and how it is received my non-extremists as "excusing radicalism"?

I mean, I've never heard "liberals" say anything about Islam that I thought "OMG, they are so in denial!" Mostly they say what everyone says, right? The problem is the radicals, and most non-radicals are pretty much just like everyone else.

[Viking]

I am not really sure what the Maher point is though - do liberals excuse radical Islam? I don't really see that.

Or is Maher just trying to equate having a nuanced view of religious extremism and how it is received my non-extremists as "excusing radicalism"?

I mean, I've never heard "liberals" say anything about Islam that I thought "OMG, they are so in denial!" Mostly they say what everyone says, right? The problem is the radicals, and most non-radicals are pretty much just like everyone else.

The HARRIS point was that liberals often respond to legitimate criticism of Islamic theology, dogma, practice and consequences by accusing the critic of islamophobia and racism. Y'know, like Affleck did just after Harris said it as if on queue.

Maher was agreeing with Harris.

[Berkut]

I am not really sure what the Maher point is though - do liberals excuse radical Islam? I don't really see that.

Or is Maher just trying to equate having a nuanced view of religious extremism and how it is received my non-extremists as "excusing radicalism"?

I mean, I've never heard "liberals" say anything about Islam that I thought "OMG, they are so in denial!" Mostly they say what everyone says, right? The problem is the radicals, and most non-radicals are pretty much just like everyone else.

The HARRIS point was that liberals often respond to legitimate criticism of Islamic theology, dogma, practice and consequences by accusing the critic of islamophobia and racism. Y'know, like Affleck did just after Harris said it as if on queue.

Maher was agreeing with Harris.

Hmmm. I don't think you get a "Get out of jail free card" by saying "If I say XYZ, then people will accuse me of ABC!" then note that when you say exactly that they accuse you of exactly that, if in fact accusing you of ABC is a pretty reasonable response to you saying XYZ.

For example "Every time we criticize those meddling, do-gooder civil rights assholes, we get accused of being racist douchebags!"

See, noting that ahead of time doesn't really make the criticism itself invalid.

You need to actually show that the criticism is not warranted - that in fact the "legitimate" criticism is in fact legitimate, reasonable, and most importantly rationally scoped and doesn't over-reach.

[mongers]

Maher's politics and personal hatreds aren't the reason he's a lousy comic, it's that being a smug, condescending son of bitch isn't particularly funny.  Turning on his show is like having Grumbler come over to your house and insult your cooking for an hour.

[Viking]

I am not really sure what the Maher point is though - do liberals excuse radical Islam? I don't really see that.

Or is Maher just trying to equate having a nuanced view of religious extremism and how it is received my non-extremists as "excusing radicalism"?

I mean, I've never heard "liberals" say anything about Islam that I thought "OMG, they are so in denial!" Mostly they say what everyone says, right? The problem is the radicals, and most non-radicals are pretty much just like everyone else.

The HARRIS point was that liberals often respond to legitimate criticism of Islamic theology, dogma, practice and consequences by accusing the critic of islamophobia and racism. Y'know, like Affleck did just after Harris said it as if on queue.

Maher was agreeing with Harris.

Hmmm. I don't think you get a "Get out of jail free card" by saying "If I say XYZ, then people will accuse me of ABC!" then note that when you say exactly that they accuse you of exactly that, if in fact accusing you of ABC is a pretty reasonable response to you saying XYZ.

For example "Every time we criticize those meddling, do-gooder civil rights assholes, we get accused of being racist douchebags!"

See, noting that ahead of time doesn't really make the criticism itself invalid.

You need to actually show that the criticism is not warranted - that in fact the "legitimate" criticism is in fact legitimate, reasonable, and most importantly rationally scoped and doesn't over-reach.

The point here is that the question at hand is if the criticism is legitimate and well reasoned. You need to establish that before calling somebody a racist. When you call somebody a racist the burden of proof is on you, not on the alleged racist.

Harris and Maher are precisely the kinds of people who make this case the best. They have been going after ALL religions for some time now (well, Harris has been going after all but Jainism and is consequently a "heretic" among us atheists) and they only get accused of racism when they criticize Islamic theology and it's consequences.

[Eddie Teach]

Jains are fruitcakes.