Bill Maher: Western culture isn't just different, it's better.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

On "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart relatively soft-pedaled his defense of fellow Comedy Central employees, "South Park's" Matt Stone and Trey Parker, against a group of Muslim critics. Over at HBO this weekend, though, Bill Maher wasn't holding anything back. On his show "Real Time With Bill Maher," the show's every-incendiary host opined during his segment "New Rules:"

"When South Park got threatened last week by Islamists incensed at their depiction of Muhammad, it served -- or should serve -- as a reminder that our culture isn't just different than one that makes death threats to cartoonists. It's better." In his defense of the First Amendment and other Americal civil liberties, Maher -- who made the film "Religulous" -- continued: "The Western world needs to make it clear: Some things about our culture are not negotiable. And can't change. And one of them is freedom of speech, Separation of church and state is another."

Completely spot-on observation about real differences in cultures, one that will not play well with PC police. Bill Maher is certainly no friend of religious people; and gives grief equally to Christianity, Judaism, Scientology, and Mormons as you will see. But he specifically singles out Isalm with the recent actions in Afganistan and the Taliban's attack on an all girls school.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Leaving aside that Islam has had separation of Church and state for over 1,000 years while the West has had it for maybe 200 at max.....

Would this be the Western world where in some cases freedom of speech means banning Holocaust denial? The Western world where freedom of religion translates to discrimination against Muslims? The Western world where freedom of speech meant censorship of things like Lady Chatterly's Lover?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Speaking of other ideals that other cultures had first-the Chinese invented the idea of revolutions. And a way to justify the succession of one government to another. In the West the mere idea of a change to the system was unthinkable, which is why the string of disasters from 1789-1991 happened. I find it telling that Western society tried to keep putting the Djinn back in the bottle only to find out that surprise, surprise the monarchies were unable to stop the Revolutions.

This where the rest of the world had already had freedom for intellectuals to publish and in China at least the Jeffersonian ideal of how to refresh the tree of liberty since, oh.....the 11th Century BC......

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Where exactly are you citing in the Islamic world that has this magical separation?

I'd also like some substantiation of this discrimination again Muslims other than the profiling that's been a fact of life post 9/11.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Caliphs tried to force this on the Muslim masses the way the Kings of Europe and the Emperors of Rome did with Orthodoxy and Catholicism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%27tazili

It failed, utterly.

Would it help to note that in Francophone countries they repeatedly try to outlaw the hijab and then wonder why Muslims really don't like the double-standards? Or is this a case of "It's only discrimination if it's somebody else?"

And I should note as well that for a long time the Caliphate was far closer to approximating Western ideals of the present than anything in Europe or the shattered wreck of the Roman Empire. And that even today Islam is actually egalitarian in theology where Christianity is very much still not....

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the info from your first link.

I know that at one time, the Islamic world was a beacon of intellectual development - math, art, architecture, etc. But now? Those countries suck, even the ones we consider allies are horrible places for human rights, women, etc.

Do Francophone countries just go after Muslim traditions? I've only read a bit about thing like the hijab ban.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, Quebec recently passed a law that bans wearing hijabs when there's maybe 15 women in Quebec who do. It's blatant racist demagoguery, but alas, to expect something else from Frenchmen anywhere is a losing cause.

My comment is that we are allies with Saudi Arabia, which is the single nastiest regime in the Middle East and one Osama bin Laden and company hate because it is just that nasty. To ally with the Middle Eastern version of Antonescu's Romania and claim that we're seeking freedom is a blatant lie, but that's not stopped us.

Is it shitty to be a woman in the Middle East? Yes. The Middle East's experience with European "liberty" was foreign rule that was as nasty as it was everywhere else. Europeans did nothing to encourage freedom aside from using Christians as wedges and then reducing everybody to equal misery, something their successor states continue.

And nowadays the USA is joining the misery-producing crowd as well.

I personally believe that concerns for women's rights and human rights are insincere because the people who preach this loudest are also the most fervent supporters of an alliance with one of the vilest group of scumbags on the planet and quietly overlook that Dubai is currently allowing real true modern day slavery to make all those tourists happy.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Quebec is a terrible place, just ask any Canadian from another Province.

I completely agree about Saudi Arabia and it's worth noting that the Christian right is every bit as supportive of them as they are China, which is to say, where there's vested financial interests, we feel free in the west to turn a blind eye.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And frankly, given that the Right supported mortgaging the USA's future to Mao's heirs and also supports the worst theocrats in the Middle East, I think it's safe to say they mean neither their anti-Communist nor their anti-Islamist rhetoric with any degree of sincerity. The problem for them is that running an idealist movement and realpolitik are incompatible. Not that I shed too many tears over that....

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

The problem for them is that running an idealist movement and realpolitik are incompatible.

I think this illuminates the problem for all of us, be it liberal or conservative. There's constant compromises made, be it getting in bed with dictators or going into business with regimes like China. The U.S. only has moral authority in their own minds.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately our own minds happen to be the most influential single bloc on the planet at present. If somebody in Kiribati wants to go a-spreadin' the democracy everyone laughs. It's rather more serious with the USA involved....

[mijan.livejournal.com]

...to expect something else from Frenchmen anywhere is a losing cause.

You know, I expected better from you than such blatant prejudice, bordering on racism. Are you going to apply that opinion to all people of French descent? What about the Acadians? Seriously, I thought better of you than that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It was a tongue in cheek statement. I'd also note that to expect the English to write a book about the wonders of English cuisine would be a losing cause.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Amusing thought on the English cuisine (I'm actually quite fond of Cornish pasties)... but it was a fairly accusatory statement that made it sound like you thought all people of French heritage to be bigots. I've been given a lot of crap for my French name (even more than the amount of crap I've been given for my Jewish heritage), and I find it interesting that people can toss around insults about Caucasian ethnicities without people calling them out on it.

[sgiffy.livejournal.com]

Its really a shame that Islam stagnated(though the west had a bit to do with that). For a while there they were pretty progressive and science minded.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

A bit?

Suppressing Tanzimat was the single stupidest decision the Great Powers could have made. The second-stupidest was to use Middle Eastern Christians as proxies to insert their imperialism into the Middle East. Hence the moment the Europeans were forced to skeedaddle, well, the Christians had already been the ones that let the bastards in.....

Theo van Gogh says you're full of shit

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I give you Theo van Gogh.

Re: Theo van Gogh says you're full of shit

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Tolerance.

Would this be

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The tolerance shown to the victims of the genocide in Bosnia by Muslims on the part of Christians which Christian Europe sat on its hands as it unfolded?:

Re: Would this be

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

that was an internal matter...

Re: Would this be

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Not Christian America, however.

Re: Theo van Gogh says you're full of shit

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

A fascist gets killed? My heart bleeds.

The early Caliphs tried to force a state version of Islam on Muslims 1,000 years ago and it failed. Where it was only in the last 200 years that the Western world has *started* to erase the power of the Church and it very obviously has not done so enough, given the number of people in countries where Separation of the two is non-existent that lecture our country where it's one of our oldest traditions.

Re: Theo van Gogh says you're full of shit

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

For that matter, the rise of the West and its current global dominance is solely because we have better guns than everybody else. All this talk of virtue and liberty is usually a euphemism for more power and control by the few at the expense of the many.

But if it's pictures you want.....



Behold the fine legacy of what Middle Eastern Christians leave the Muslimn.

Re: Theo van Gogh says you're full of shit

[telemann.livejournal.com]

From Europe, the land of tolerance and freedom:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Please. I was trying to eat :(