I’ve just about had it with Bill Maher. I have never agreed with him on everything, but he’s always been funny, smart, and occasionally pretty insightful. This is why I clicked on a clip of his monolog from a recent episode of his show. As a result of that viewing, I might just be done with this guy. I mean, he can go on TV and make jokes and do his thing, but if it’s just going to make me angry every time I do, I won’t be clicking anymore.
Bill will seemingly go to any lengths to establish a false equivalency between the American left and right. The right, he says, is overly romantic about the good ol’ US of A and it prevents them from seeing our faults. So far so good. But the American left does the same thing in reverse! According to Bill, we under-romanticize America. We lack all perspective in our criticism of our country, to hear Bill tell it.
Did you know that many immigrants come here from terrible places and are glad to be here? Did you know that places like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China and Burundi are shit places to live? In reality, nobody is confused about these things. But Bill seems to think if only we on the left knew these things, we’d stop “bitching” about problems in America. (Presumably he means problems he himself doesn’t care about.)
When the left points out America’s flaws it isn’t because we don’t know about Afghanistan and Burundi. It’s because we do know about places like Germany and the Netherlands. And even if we bitch about things that nobody seems to get completely right, like racism, maybe it’s because we would like for America to be a leader in the world and set the example for everyone else.
Although Bill seems to think it is not possible, we can both understand that Saudi Arabia is a shitty country, and still insist that we can do better than Ken Jennings.
Finally, if Bill wants to criticize Democrats why is he pointing at “gender neutral bathrooms” and not Joe fucking Manchin? The answer is as sad as it is obvious. It’s because one of these things threatens to bring change to his old white guy world and the other one does not.