Bill Maher is back to bashing his side of the aisle with another New Rules segment that probably caused the woke Left to explode. The comedian was aghast at the surge in antisemitism, not that he was naïve in thinking it never existed. It is the world’s oldest form of bigotry, but this wave is different. Social media has made it easier for certain things to spread, like a virus, but Maher added that this was like a volcano going off. Maher said that the young people who are screaming for Jews to be killed have become like the neo-Nazis who were rightfully bashed for their tiki torch antics at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, six years ago.
He then directed his fire at the woke Left, hurling their worldview into the furnace and once again exposing their appalling grasp of history. Maher isn’t a conservative, but you can tell he’s had it with the woke Left. From the get-go, you knew progressives weren’t going to like the commentary when he defended Israel, namely that the world would be better if there were more nations like it in the world, including the United States. He was taking a blowtorch to the idiotic left-wing take that Israel is a colonizing state and an outpost of Western civilization in the Middle East.
“Young people who hated Trump because he wouldn’t condemn the people with the Tiki torches, talking about Jews – you’re the ones with the Tiki torches now” – @BillMaher on #RealTime pic.twitter.com/xBI2xZz0oB
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) November 4, 2023
Maher laid into this narrative noting the lunacy of going against a set of values that gave us freedom of speech, religious liberty, a right to trial, a free press, women’s rights, gay rights, and democracy. The world's marginalized people live better lives because of Western ideals, but the comedian noted that the woke cannot see that because their brand of politics isn’t about ideas. It’s about the rigid prism of oppressed and oppressor, which explains their pro-Hamas stance.
The segment became something of a history lesson, as Maher listed how Martin Luther King, Jr. cited Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience as the compass of the civil rights movement; the United Nation’s Universal Declaration for Human Rights has its roots in Rosseau and Voltaire; and how John Locke influenced the protections codified in the Fourth Amendment. Maher quipped that left-wingers would dismiss Locke’s ideas and legacy as too old, too white, and too dead.
Hamas had ruled the Gaza Strip with an iron fist for 17 years, and there are no laws against spousal rape, homosexuality is punishable by death, child brides are typical, and honor killings are the norm. These are the values that the Left thinks are admirable. And no, Israel hasn’t colonized anything. Jews have historical ties to the land. The State of Israel was created by the UN in 1947, with almost every nation voting in support of it. Maher quipped that the Left doesn’t know this because it’s not mentioned at drag queen story hour. He also said that the only area Jews have ever colonized is probably Boca Raton.
Maher lamented how Western civilization has become the ‘white people ruin everything’ class, with a forced curriculum on African and Middle Eastern studies, which he noted was never taught writ large because there wasn’t much regarding course material. That’s not to say you can’t have courses on this material, but the application involves reading “queer poetry of the African diaspora instead of Shakespeare.”
Maher conceded that there is value in both, but this nation overcorrects. Any history student knows that times were different and that many leaders were atrocious. The comedian finally settles on Genghis Khan, an actual colonizer, who killed 40 million people during his conquests but made up for it by having a harem so large that some 16 million people might be direct descendants of the Mongolian khagan, thanks to, as the HBO host put it, being a “prolific colonizer of vaginas.”
While not overtly saying it, Maher thanked the three-name dudes—Henry David Thoreau, John Stuart Mill, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Jean-Jacques Rosseau—who were the original social justice warriors.
“The ideas that came through Athens, Rome, London, Paris, and Philadelphia are what make life good for most people in free societies today. That the individuals have value, and even the powers that be must submit to the rule of law,” Maher added.
But he did offer a jab at Republicans toward the end.
“Stop saying Western civilization like it’s a contradiction in terms. It’s not. You’re thinking of moderate Republican.”
This is very good. Yes, Maher needs to make a "moderate Republicans" joke at end to show he's still a good leftie but I don't even mind that. He's telling his lunatic side what needs to be said. https://t.co/qnWUPH1Ftn
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) November 4, 2023