Bill, it's not Americans that are stupid. It's the human race that's stupid
Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher had a heckuva time recently with his remarks calling America a “stupid country.” (My NewsReal colleague Joseph Klein had a great retort here in which he ripped Maher for the clown’s Anti-Americanism.)
On last Friday’s new episode of HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher expanded on and defended his initial remarks. As usual, the transcript of the evening’s final “New Rule” was reprinted as a blog post at the Huffington Post, the leftist mega-blog founded by conservative-turned-progressive Arianna Huffington. (Huffington was even on the show as part of Maher’s panel.)
New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn’t make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn’t put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing – in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!!
Admittedly, Maher was on pretty firm ground in questioning the intelligence of those who send angry email messages or internet comments with their caps lock on.
For the remainder of Maher’s monologue, legitimate points of many Americans’ lack of political and general knowledge are interspersed with shots at Republicans:
I’m the bad guy for saying it’s a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don’t know what’s in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don’t know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.
There’s the joke about Republican sex scandals:
Not here. Nearly half of Americans don’t know that states have two senators and more than half can’t name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife’s name right on the first try.
And there’s the obligatory Sarah Palin shot, followed by the birther shot, and concluding with the George Bush shot:
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they’re not stupid. They’re interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words “Bush” and “knowledge.”
I have to give Maher props when his jokes are clever, though. This joke about Home Land Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is good:
People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It’s actually less than 1%. And don’t even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream.
(Now that I think about it, maybe my fondness for that joke derives mainly from my love of ice cream.)
Then, of course, the obligatory religion shot. I wonder if Maher just has a checklist for his monologue of all the conservative symbols he wants to smack:
And I haven’t even brought up America’s religious beliefs. But here’s one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That’s right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
Oh, and Maher couldn’t restrain himself. Joe the Plumber might be a ghost in the mainstream media but he still haunts Maher:
And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they’re talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.
Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that “pure democracy” doesn’t work because “there is nothing to check… an obnoxious individual.” Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.
Though Maher can frequently be off base, he often stumbles onto a good idea here and there. Regarding this question of whether Americans are stupid or not, he’s actually correct. The American people are idiots.
Maher has mistaken the source of the body politic’s stupidity, though. For Maher it’s because we’re American. (Maher comes out of a staunch tradition of Leftist Anti-Americanism.) I say we’re stupid not because we’re American, but because we’re people.
Human beings are really, really dumb. And not just Americans — people all across the world. It’s not that France, Germany, and Japan are any smarter than us. (If they were, then they would be the force that dominates the planet.)
Every single person on the face of this planet is a moron in some way or another. Myself included. (I’m sure my wife can testify to this with all the dumb things I say and do every day.)
Even and especially our Presidents demonstrate the validity of this observation. President Obama proved himself a fool with his premature comments on the Henry Louis Gates, Jr controversy. Former President Bill Clinton might have been the Baby Boom Generation’s Political Michael Jordan but he was an idiot when it came to sex. And — to be fair and bi-partisan — actual books were written collecting George W. Bush’s foolish verbal slips.
This realization of human inadequacy brings us to two conclusions. First is a skepticism at the ability of “Great Men” to change the world. We shouldn’t trust charismatic politicians to save us, because they’re just as flawed, weak, and stupid as we are. Second is an embrace of a philosophy of limited government. We should maintain and defend a system of government that prevents Idiots in Chief from screwing up the freedom that so many millions of Americans have died to protect.
Granted, this isn’t quite the conclusion that Maher might have reached from his “Americans are stupid” rhetoric, but perhaps it might be more useful.
The term is cognitive misers. All people are cognitive misers in that they know best what is closest to their interest and know least what is furthest from their interest. Most people do not pursue information about things they have no interest in. A rancher may be “stupid” about insider Washington politics, but he sure as Hell knows how to raise beef or he would be described as an ex-rancher. Anyone can take an arcane bit of information, turn it into the question of the hour, and declare any that do not answer correctly stupid. This is an ignorant chump’s game. Could Bill Maher raise cattle? Could he explain Einstein’s theory? Could he bake a cake? An inability to do any one of these randomly chosen things might render him an idiot in someone’s eyes.
You are correct!
I have long maintained that liberals confuse the human condition for the American condition. They see racism, sexism, etc., as exclusively American faults and not symptoms of the flawed nature of man, regardless of human’s country of origin.
I have developed a great rejoinder to their carping. Whenever they go on and on about some American flaw, I simply ask what country has less racism or sexism, or stupid people, etc. And I swear, each and every time they are stumped! Because when they answer, then it become a factual argument, not an emotional one. The answer is “Bing-ableâ€â€¦and therefore the argument can be won by the conservative (me).
Maher is correct that people are stupid, and so is Mr. Swindle! But what Mr. Mahr fails to see is that arrogance is worse than stupidity. It is a flaw that is insipid, unappealing, and often times destructive. But fortunately it is curable, though it requires the arrogant creature to have a soul…and I am not sure that is the case with Mr. Nahr.
Well, perhaps if Americans could all choose their primary & secondary education sources instead of the government imposed ideological methods we’d all be as smart as Mr. Maher.
But our “stupid” fate continues since Mr. Maher (and his ilk) doesn’t support using public money for education choice because it takes money away from “needy” institutions.
That’s good because we all know how much better it is to serve an institution than the people. NOT.
I’ve watched Maher for years and the fact is, the man is a euro-phile. He sees the european model as the ideal. Everything from their secularism, to their health care, to their nude beaches. The other side of that coin is Maher’s scathing contempt for americans that reject those values. Maher sees the rural middle class as fat, ugly, religious, racist…and oh yeah…stoooopid.
It’s a classic case of Left wing elitest mentality. Maher truly believes the vote should be limited to highly educated intellectuals. He truly believes people are too stupid to vote their own interests…and others should do it for them. For those who don’t believe that some on the Left really do hate this country, all they have to do is watch Maher.
What I can’t figure is why is he still living in the United States. I would think maybe he is too smart to live among the dumb clucks he so fondly attacks. Maybe he’s still here is because he wouldn’t be free to speak in this manner in a lot of other countries and societies. And if he is so bright, why is his highest calling comedy and being a host on HBO?
The only stupid americans are the ones who watch Bill Maher.
Well said!
Glad that this point was stated. I considered making it in my post but thought it best to stay focused. (And I was getting a bit long-winded already!) The people that are “stupid” when it comes to politics are almost certainly much smarter than me on other subjects. Well done, Cas.
The idea that comes to mind as a result of your excellent comment is this: perhaps we are not born with souls, rather it is our responsibility to create them. Some pursue this task with more than effort than others. Others do not. Hence the accurate term “soulless.”
Your comments on arrogance are also engaging. Please come back again and grace us with your thoughtful remarks.
Thanks for your kind words. No one has ever used the term “grace” in relation to me before. I am positively giddy!
Reading Horowitz allowed great changes in my thinking, all to the better. I had gotten away from him in the last couple of year, but now I am back! And enjoying your work as well.
Continue forth!
Thank you Chris. I’d very much appreciate you continued feedback with my work. And please don’t hesitate to drop me a line via email sometime if you have any suggestions/ideas/constructive criticism.
Great points. Thanks for bringing up his europhilia.
With the exception of those assigned to monitor his weekly rantings for conservative blogs?
I bet he just likes being able to drop F-bombs on HBO. And besides his post 9/11 comments made him too much of a liability for any other network.