Saturday, February 25, 2017

Boycott Bill Maher? Um, No. Here's What Liberals Should Boycott


I read an article today critical of Bill Maher in the Daily News arguing he should be boycotted.

There are many loud voices on the Left now calling to boycott Bill Maher and his show Real Time after he interviewed Milo Yiannopolous, the controversial "dangerous faggot" and alt-right darling. I think these calls are wrong and misguided.

We desperately need voices like Maher, who is indeed a liberal, and who calls out the Left on its hypocrisy and occasional insanity when many others on the Left aren't willing to. Without people like him, the Left will further spiral into their echo chamber where nonsense will emerge and flourish without any reflective criticism to keep it in check.

Maher is willing to talk with the "other side." He's willing to sit down with conservatives of all stripes and challenge them (and occasionally agree with them!). But it seems that most on the Left these days would rather succumb to the worst of political tribalism and never speak with those they disagree with and never concede a single point the other side makes. This is stupid.

Most importantly, Maher criticizes Islam. Yes, he commits the unspeakable crime of criticizing a religion that enables the discrimination and mistreatment of millions of women, LGBT people, religious minorities, and atheists. How dare he! For most on the Left today, any criticism of Islam at all is racism, bigotry, and Islamophobia.

This must stop. I genuinely understand the desire of the Left to want to prevent actual racism and anti-Muslim bigotry, and I don't want to enable the far Right racists. But I'm not going to play this game where Islam is untouchable, and I highly respect Maher for being consistent in criticizing anti-liberal values where ever they exist, even when it's politically incorrect.

So no, we shouldn't be boycotting Bill Maher. We as liberals should be boycotting countries like Saudi Arabia that treats women like pieces of shit and arguably worse than black people were treated in the Jim Crow south. We should be boycotting anything to do with that country, and use every opportunity we have to call out its barbarism and sexism. We should picket its embassies, and criticize its leaders without mercy, and foster international pressure for the government to change its ways. And as a country we shouldn't even consider selling them weapons until they do this.

Now I understand some people just aren't going to like Maher. I get that. But we shouldn't be boycotting everyone we dislike. There are plenty of people I don't like that I don't plan on boycotting. Maher is not a bigot for merely criticizing Islam, nor is he wrong for talking to people who disagree with liberals. The Left would just rather live in an echo chamber, and I just don't want to see it fall apart because I see that it's quickly doing that. So the Left needs figures like Maher to defend liberalism when other liberals are too afraid to out of feat of looking "Islamophobic," and to keep liberals in check. Boycott what matters.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Share

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...