Bill Maher On Hunters

[fredrikw]

What are you all talking about?

[wannalift]

To clarify:
I think that Fallen_Horse is saying that in the US, the guns laws are too lax, and that we should have some sort of gun ban.
loveliberate is in favor of allowing people access to guns.
NatB is in favor of a gun ban.

I do not like Bill Mahr, and I do not know why beforewisdom keeps posting video of him.

Do you have to like everyone that you see a video to respect their opinion on a matter? What does liking them have to do with the content of the video?

Instead of posting his videos, which always are laced with bad humor, post your own opinions?

Perhaps the poster prefers the way the person in the video conveys their opinion. Not surprising in this case since Mr. Maher is a professional comedian.

Mahr, for example, often neglects race and class in any of his analysis.

Horsefeathers. Perhaps he does not bring the issue up as often as you would like him to, but to say he neglects this is patently false.

It is hard to have a useful critique of someone who sits in a Hollywood through a message board. I'd much rather talk to real people.

This is the internet. FYI, you can email questions comments directly to Mr. Maher.

The shooting of Trayvon is about racism first, and gun access further down the line.

The fact is if this guy didn't have a gun it is much less likely he would have killed Trayvon. He was killed by a gun.

Until we have an outright ban on guns (as Fallen_Horse state), folks like Zimmerman will have access to them.

Probably.

An elderly black war vet was killed in his own home after his medical device went off... and he was shot and killed by police. That's not "gun laws" as Bill Mahr put it, but an outright gun ban, and further, it has to do with racism, which Mahr rarely mentions (he does occasionally).

I really don't understand how this relates at all to the discussion so I won't comment.

Well, more occasionally than Mahr brings his sexism to the fore.

Sexism is defined as: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially discrimination against women and or behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. Where does he do this other than instances that are obviously (to most of us) satire?

Even in this video he is recalling the cartoon "chinless" mountain man, which is a caricature of Appalachian people, as a method to dehumanize. Awesome. That's not the enemy at all.

It's very easy to picture the cowards that he is referring to here. They do plenty to dehumanize themselves. Not sure how you were able zero in on a specific region?

On top of it, his analysis is wrong. "Liberals" didn't lay down to the Right in Florida and other states: the Right wing took over! That's not because liberals have no spine; that's because voters have no spine, and because the media has no clear narrative for the Left. Mahr is a part of that failure, perhaps not as much as the politicians... but certainly more than your average voter.

I agree with the first part, but not sure how you arrived at the latter.

Mahr's kinda like PeTA. OK for some very narrow things, but no one to emulate or to hold up as a standard bearer for real change and a better world.

I'll take someone who focuses on issues of political corruption, climate change, animal rights, religious nonsense, etc. any day. Sorry he is not Michael Bakunin enough for your tastes. No one is perfect. Well, almost no one:

[beforewisdom]

FWIW, Bill Maher regularly brings racism on his show. So much so conservative pundits criticize him for it Anyone who watches Bill Maher's show would have see this. It is a fairly regular occurrence.

[Fallen_Horse]

.... My right to say anything I want on public property is dwarfed and made ineffectual by Super PACS and others who can afford expensive media air time. So, going by the reasoning above, we should just ignore that part of the constitution as well.....

I am confused. My right to freedom of speech is HEAVILY limited by how much money I make. This is also a fairly recent development that our Constitution is powerless to handle. "I" am not ignoring that part of the Constitution, but our society certain is.

[xrodolfox]

I am not going to respond to every part of the argument, because I think it boils down to this:

I'll take someone who focuses on issues of political corruption, climate change, animal rights, religious nonsense, etc. any day.

Instead of hitting all of Mahr's sexism and racism, I'll just hit on one point; his anti-worker classism.

I work for workers, specifically public school employees, as a union organizer. I talk directly to teachers who are squeezed and interfered with by the state, especially with "reforms" like No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and efforts to get rid of due process in dismissal.

Mahr has routinely attacked teachers and teacher's unions. He states things that are misinformation like, "The union moves bad teachers around like the Catholic Church moves pedophiles." Just today, I saw a Union Rep tell a local union president that, "We cannot support a bad teacher. Even if we could make a stink and have this teacher keep his job, we will not be sticking up for teachers that don't do the work." What Maher said is a parrot point of the right wing, and is actually inconsistent with the numbers. About 1% of all post probation teachers get fired. Of that rate, it is about the same for non-union or union teachers. In fact, in California, which is mostly unionized, almost 7% of probationary teachers are let go, while in non-union states that rate is as low as 3%. Maher was actually spewing lies.

Later, Maher seemed to be making amends with teachers, when he decided to not put the blame on the US lackluster educational system on the parents.

I've worked in the educational system for years, as both a parent, a union organizer, a teacher, and most recently, by starting our own school. Maher shifting the blame to parents is just as bad as blaming the teachers. Next, he'll blame the youth.

Maher is like PeTA in their sexism.

I'm sure some of you like PeTA. I sure use their merch when appropriate... but I will certainly criticize anyone presenting the PeTA point of view as uniformly valid, or their posters as entertainment. PeTA, rightfully, should be criticized. Maher should be criticized, because he actually works against my interests as someone who values education, families, and workers.

It is nice that he is an atheist, and left-wing-ish, and into Animal Rights... That doesn't make him an ally, though. Maher still fights against 1/3rd of my values. Like I said, he's three steps forward, and one step in the wrong direction. You can laugh, but I will surely do what I can to temper that laughter with a reminder of his anti-worker, anti-teacher, and anti-parent views.

If I posted video of IWW vegans, I would expect criticism as well. They might at least be funnier.