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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I don't think that is just Maher, or just in the US for that matter. That brand of caustic humour was very popular a few decades ago, but has fallen out of favour. You really can't make the jokes any more that you could in the nineties.
The problem all too often seems to be that these people are a product of their time, and have shaped their act around the mores of that time, but they haven't grown since, while the world has grown around them. What was once acceptable comedy now just makes them look like jerks at best, and bigots at worst. And they can't stand it. The reason that they call it political correctness is because it was political correctness back then, but now it has become the norm.
It's not just comedians, either. Just look at JK Rowling and her open discomfort with trans people.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesIt was notable for the fact Ben Affleck was a guest on his show and Bill Maher got more and more racist in his speech while Affleck got increasingly furious at it. It was hardly the first time he got called out on his racism but it was particularly famous because Maher clearly didn't expect Ben to get so pissed on live television.
They then had a number of debates on it with Bill Maher going on OTHER talkshows to say, "Radical Islam IS Islam" and Ben going, "It's a tiny subset of a giant religion."
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 30th 2020 at 7:08:54 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Maher's is...western materialist supremacist of sorts. I could say "Progressive Supremacist", arguably ("our culture is more progressive, and therefore, superior to other cultures!").
Basically, they're a militant atheist who also believes that modernization=westernization, and that therefore unless you're a western-style materialist like he is, you're a backwards savage.
The guy also is a germ theory denialist and anti-vaxxer of sorts, which makes his supposed clinging to 'materialist logic' pretty rich.
Leviticus 19:34The Hill: Pelosi, Biden slam Scalise for doctored video that altered activist's words
Former Vice President Joe Biden (D), the 2020 Democratic nominee, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) to take down a video that Twitter flagged earlier Sunday as containing "manipulated media."
The video contains a clip of an interview with Biden and activist Ady Barkan - who uses a computerized artificial voice due to his ALS - in which Barkan asks if Biden can "agree that we can redirect some of the funding" from law enforcement to mental health and social services, to which Biden agrees.
Scalise's altered clip uses a computerized voice similar to Barkan's to falsely add the words "for police" to his question.
Edit: Looks like Scalise has deleted the tweet.
Edited by nova92 on Aug 30th 2020 at 8:42:49 AM
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Holy shit that's dire. Fuck Scalise.
Re: Bill Maher. He's aggressively a Know-Nothing Know-It-All.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Aug 30th 2020 at 12:01:01 PM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."It's also not remotely modern as it's the same bullshit the British Empire used to justify its takeover of the religious brown people they encountered.
"We're bringing civilization!"
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 30th 2020 at 9:08:10 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters."You really can't make the jokes any more that you could in the nineties."
Nineties, maher make that kind of jokes in the 2000-2010.
But other than that you are right, Maher like other god their jump because a change of culture, specially what people feel a sort of overdeference to religious authority and the sense the sense that ideas should not be sacred because it let them to be protect of all critic.
This was also in middle of war on terror and if islam deserve to be critize or not, which eventually was way to said "We a subset of western atheist can critize arab for being all muslism".
So yeah, it was very much a product of is time.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not""It's also not remotely modern as it's the same bullshit the British Empire used to justify its takeover of the religious brown people they encountered.
"We're bringing civilization!""
No, they were pretty up front about wanting to extract the wealth of India and Africa, first and foremost. It was in justifying why they should stay that the idea of exporting civilization came about. This was the argument of Rudyard Kipling, not Robert Clive, and it was a typically Victorian thing to worry about. I'd argue it worked a little too well, since Indian activists invoked Enlightenment philosophy originally imported by the English in arguing for independence and then in establishing a democracy. They didn't need to justify the takeover when it happened. The money was what mattered.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Aug 30th 2020 at 2:19:47 PM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 30th 2020 at 8:23:29 PM
We learn from history that we do not learn from history![]()
Fossil fuel industry-backed propaganda network PragerU actually put out a video about how the British Empire spread liberty around the globe and "left Ireland language" (also claiming the Irish didn't have a word for republic until the British came along).
You can imagine what Irish viewers thought of that last bit.
Oh yeah, the video also went for a double-whammy by defending Britain's massacres in India, pissing off Indians as well.
Not like the notion that the British Empire "was good" wouldn't already piss people off on its own.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 30th 2020 at 8:41:09 PM
We learn from history that we do not learn from historyRule Britannia! Oh wait, apparently we are not allowed to sing that anymore
.
For those blissfully unaware, the latest cultural war flare up in the UK was the decision by the BBC to not have Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory sung at the Last Night of the Proms. Mainly because it's hard to have an audience led sing-a-long without an audience. But instead it got taken up by the right wing newspapers as evidence of a "Woke" BBC and naturally blaming BLM. Boris Johnson, who had been completely silent over a two week crisis on exam results, waded into the debate saying we shouldn't be afraid of our history. Dogs started barking in the distance. I've put this in spoiler tags so as not to derail this topic.
Edited by singularityshot on Aug 31st 2020 at 1:03:51 AM

Isn't Maher the one who rails against cancel culture and political correctness?