I often watch "Real Time With Bill Maher". I don't watch it because I'm a Libertarian, or a Liberal, but because I really like to look at both sides of any argument or issue to better make decisions.
This week's episode was more of the same. The show has a lot of interesting content and discussion, but it always gets back to politics, and decidedly Left-Wing politics at that.
Maher takes President Bush to task over the Patriot Act, and the overwhelming Big Brother approach to government these days. He said that Bush has asked us to sacrifice a lot, and Maher stated that those sacrifices included 6 of the 10 basic civil rights.
Granted. The government has gone over the line under Bush. There are a lot of things going on that most of us wish weren't happening. I wouldn't dispute that for a minute. Our government ideology these days seems to be "business as usual until someone catches on."
What irked me tonight wasn't so much those statements. What got under my skin was Maher's comparison of the sacrifices being asked of us during this Iraq War to those asked of the Nation under the Presidency of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.
He listed the sacrifices: rationing, War Bonds, even made mention of women being asked to turn in their silk undergarments for use in parachutes. He made it all sound so patriotic, so "high road", and how much more noble the government was back then. He railed against the Bush Administration's mistreatment of a segment of society today.
He forgot one thing.
The Internment of Japanese American CITIZENS during World War II. Thousands of people of Japanese descent were forced out of their homes, forced to live in deplorable conditions simply because they were Japanese in descent.
Racial profiling, anyone?
For the first time, Maher almost had me agreeing with him.
Almost.
I'm decidedly left of center but can't stand watching Bill Maher anymore, despite the good conversation on the show. I find his smugness and intentional omission, like the Japanese concentration camps you mentioned, as annoying as the bile of Anne Coulter and her right wing ilk.
ReplyDeleteBill Maher....I couldn't listen to him, or any liberal; they all just get me fired up. I'm such a conservative; and Ann Coulter is right up my alley--in fact I'm reading one of her books right now.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't get is how we had a president in the 90s that was such a disgrace--where's the democrat outcry? There isn't one. They defend their party to the hilt.
Bush is almost a democrat in republican clothing; however I thank God it's him and not Kerry or Gore.
I watched him on Larry King and enjoy some of his outlandish comments. I don't take stand up comedians too seriously.
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