Why Condemning Bill Maher Is Condemning True Liberalism

gwb-trading said:
Provocative article calls Liberals who criticize Bill Maher over his stance on Islam - Fascists.

Why Condemning Bill Maher Is Condemning True Liberalism
http://www.vocativ.com/usa/us-politics/bill-maher-twitter-charlie-hebdo/

"During a heated discussion on his show with Ben Affleck in October, he asserted that Islam was the “only religion that acts like the Mafia, that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book.” The subsequent backlash bled into personal engagements when students at University of California, Berkeley—historically a bastion of liberalism and free speech—launched a petition on Change.org to prevent Maher from speaking at the school’s winter commencement. The comedian was maligned as a “blatant bigot and racist,” and suddenly, the sentiment became fashionable.

Still, the incident in Paris has reignited the issue, which, at its core, is really about a larger dilemma: What does it mean to be a liberal?

...

To punish Maher is to subscribe to another -ism entirely. It’s the one that starts with the letter F."
More...

It makes me chuckle how my liberal friends used to love Bill Maher and now all of a sudden he is a douche bag because of his Islam Commentary. Well, it case they have not noticed, it is sort of his job to be a douche bag.

fan27
 
On a similar theme...

I am not Charlie Hebdo: David Brooks
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/i_am_not_charlie_hedbo_david_b.html

The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let's face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.

Public reaction to the attack in Paris has revealed that there are a lot of people who are quick to lionize those who offend the views of Islamist terrorists in France but who are a lot less tolerant toward those who offend their own views at home.

Just look at all the people who have overreacted to campus micro-aggressions. The University of Illinois fired a professor who taught the Roman Catholic view on homosexuality. The University of Kansas suspended a professor for writing a harsh tweet against the NRA. Vanderbilt University derecognized a Christian group that insisted that it be led by Christians.

Americans may laud Charlie Hebdo for being brave enough to publish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad, but, if Ayaan Hirsi Ali is invited to campus, there are often calls to deny her a podium.

So this might be a teachable moment. As we are mortified by the slaughter of those writers and editors in Paris, it's a good time to come up with a less hypocritical approach to our own controversial figures, provocateurs and satirists.

(More at above url)
 
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