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Bill Maher Defends Sterling’s Right to Privacy: ‘Even If It Makes Me an A**hole’
Mediaite ^ | 05/11/2014 | by Matt Wilstein

Posted on 05/11/2014 6:06:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

For his last “New Rule” of the night on Friday, Bill Maher used a recent column about Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling by The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker to stand up for privacy and the Fourth Amendment. If the Sterling case taught us anything, Maher said, it’s that “there’s a force out there just as powerful as Big Brother: Big Girlfriend.”

“If you don’t want your words broadcast in the public square, don’t say them,” Parker wrote in her column published last week, adding, “Such potential exposure forces us to more carefully select our words and edit our thoughts. This isn’t only a matter of survival but is essential to civilization. Speaking one’s mind isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be, as any well-balanced person reading the comments section quickly concludes.”

“Always editing? I’d rather be a Mormon,” Maher responded. “And that’s what we’d all be: Mitt Romney. I would listen to 100 horrific Cliven Bundy rants if that was the price of living in a world where I could also hear interesting and funny people talk without a filter.”

As for the idea that people won’t miss speaking their minds, Maher said, “I’ll miss it. I’ll miss it a lot. And for the record, speaking my mind is absolutely everything it’s cracked up to be.”

“Who wants to live in a world where the only right to privacy is inside your head?” Maher asked. “That’s what like in East Germany was like.”

“If I want to sit in my living room and say I think The Little Mermaid is hot and I want to bang her, or I don’t like watching two men kiss, or I think tattoos look terrible on black people, I should be able to, even if you think it makes me an asshole,” Maher concluded. “Now, do I really believe those things? I’m not telling you because you’re not in my living room!”

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TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: billmaher; donaldsterling; privacy; racism
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To: usconservative
I say, applaud him for being right (on this issue) and welcome him to the fight.

Well said.

21 posted on 05/11/2014 6:58:36 AM PDT by Leaning Right (Why am I holding this lantern? I am looking for the next Reagan.)
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To: SeekAndFind
What do you mean "if"?

Maher has been a grade A a-hole his whole life.

22 posted on 05/11/2014 6:59:18 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: SeekAndFind

I have read comments on quite a few sites from Libs who are recognizing the problem with having no freedom of speech-in private or anywhere else-and also with the gay people bullying every business into submission to their way or the highway.
To me, that they would not only think about those freedoms being hampered, but also would take the time to actually post a comment about how wrong it is and how wrong other Libs are for going along with it, well, it does give me some hope that we may be able to save some people from the Progressive agenda. I have even read comments questioning abortion and the R’s supposed War on Women and asking how exactly the R’s are preventing women from receiving healthcare and equal pay etc.

Maybe, just maybe, common sense is making a comeback...


23 posted on 05/11/2014 7:07:17 AM PDT by homegroan (Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option....)
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To: SeekAndFind

Is there yet hope for Maher? Judging by this rare piece of sanity...maybe. However, I bet there’s plenty of other libs who were chastened by the fact that someone was punished, not for doing something illegal but for something they thought they were saying in private. I’m thinking many would be Torquemadas will be hoist by their own petard.


24 posted on 05/11/2014 7:23:15 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: usconservative

I’m with you. I’ll applaud anyone when they do or say the right things and challenge them when I think they’re wrong. In this case, Bill Maher appears right.


25 posted on 05/11/2014 7:25:01 AM PDT by CitizenUSA (We can't have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it!)
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To: junta

Agreed. Maher is one of the few liberals who can see far enough ahead that many other heads will roll after all conservatives are silenced, imprisoned, or killed. Then the Black/homosexual/feminazi Mafia will start on in on liberals, like Maher, who don’t toe the party line.


26 posted on 05/11/2014 7:26:44 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: usconservative

Applaud him when he (or any other liberal) allows a glimmer of reality to seep into their thick skulls. It may never happen again, but we should give credit when credit is due.


27 posted on 05/11/2014 7:28:29 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: SeekAndFind
Bill Maher: ‘Even If It Makes Me an A**hole’

This doesn't make you an @$$hole. You've always been one.

28 posted on 05/11/2014 7:29:30 AM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves" Month.)
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To: SeekAndFind
I don't see in Maher's words much in the way of defending Clive Bundy's speech. He calls Clive's words horrific, although many pundits and Black analysts have concluded that Clive just espoused, in clumsy verbiage, a viewpoint that American Blacks are committing cultural suicide.

Bill Maher reserves his anguish for Donald Sterling, a fellow traveler and Democrat (but, I repeat myself,) whose gold digging mistress ratted him out. There is Maher's real fear; that one of his solo night trollops (paging Ann Coulter) will rat him out.

29 posted on 05/11/2014 7:32:46 AM PDT by Thommas (The snout of the camel is in the tent..)
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To: homegroan

There’s hope so long as extreme elements on the left keep pushing. Consider the fight over homosexual “marriage”. The more the homosexuals seek to silence dissent and force everyone to celebrate their perversion, the more people will wake up and see this isn’t simply about tolerance. It’s an attempt to use the full force of government to regulate speech and force acceptance. In other words, the homosexual activists go too far, and there’s hope we FReepers aren’t the only ones who see where the radical, homosexualist left is taking the country.


30 posted on 05/11/2014 7:33:48 AM PDT by CitizenUSA (We can't have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it!)
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To: SeekAndFind
I am gonna try to temper this, but what is that expression every saint had a past and every sinner has a better future, something like that.

Is it me or is this guy finally getting his act together and getting beyond his satirical / sardonic humor that he thought was funny, but bordered more on the side of truly ugly?

Is something changing in his heart?

Is he channeling the Libertarian Wing of the Conservative movement or has he got Religion if you will for other reasons ( aka he was audited )...

Love to be a fly on the wall to know the real skinny...

31 posted on 05/11/2014 7:35:51 AM PDT by taildragger (The E-GOP won't know what hit them, The Party of Reagan is almost here, hang tight folks....)
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To: SeekAndFind

Maher was born an Ahole. :-)


32 posted on 05/11/2014 7:37:12 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Bill Maher is irritating, but this is not the first time he’s stepped out of the liberal line to say something independent of their agenda. (On aggressive atheists: “If you can’t handle seeing a cross now and then, you picked the wrong country.” On gays: “There is a gay mafia... if you cross them, you do get whacked.” On racism: He suckered people with a quote that was allegedly from Paul Ryan and then surprise, it was Michelle Obama.)


33 posted on 05/11/2014 7:37:46 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: SeekAndFind

This has to be the only time I have agreed with Maher.


34 posted on 05/11/2014 7:39:22 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: usconservative
Now the challenge is: does this forum trash him for being so wrong on so many other issues, or does it applaud him for being right on this issue and welcome him to the fight? I say, applaud him for being right (on this issue) and welcome him to the fight.

Well said. New converts are often the most fervent believers, since many of them arrive at the truth with fresh memories of being mugged by their former fellow travelers. Conservatives ought to remember that the Apostle Paul and Ronald Reagan were both activist enemies of the beliefs that eventually won them over, and to which they dedicated the remainders of their lives.

I'm not comparing Bill Maher to either of those men, but I welcome his voice in support of freedom. Such public expressions should be lauded and encouraged, especially when they cut against the grain of the speaker's own community and culture. Clubs that remain closed to new members can only shrink and die.

35 posted on 05/11/2014 7:39:44 AM PDT by Always A Marine
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To: SeekAndFind

Ben Stein’s ‘punishment for thought’ hit the nail on the head. Sterling’s actions were worthy of NAACP commendations and that makes this whole bizarre.


36 posted on 05/11/2014 8:04:30 AM PDT by griswold3 (I was born heI're in America. I will die here in a third world country. Obama succeeded.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Bill Maher..blah, blah, blah...: ‘Even If It Makes Me an A**hole’

Too late.

37 posted on 05/11/2014 8:14:22 AM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: usconservative

Makes you wonder what Bill says behind closed doors? I’m glad he finally gets it though.


38 posted on 05/11/2014 8:56:32 AM PDT by dragonblustar ( Psalm 103, Psalm 37:7, Ephesians 6:12)
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To: SeekAndFind

Maher was an asshole way before he said anything.


39 posted on 05/11/2014 8:57:58 AM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: SeekAndFind

No worries Bill. You were already an asshole.


40 posted on 05/11/2014 10:37:22 AM PDT by Old Yeller (Why is Jon Corzine a free man?)
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