Category Archives: Politically Incorrect

Bill Maher does the progressive movement a disservice when he mischaracterizes Islam by Gray Whisnant | Oct 08 2014 | 10/08/14 12:57am

Bill Maher has made it his calling card over the years to foment controversy by making what he calls politically incorrect arguments. While sometimes this tendency positions him as a brave dissenter against the conventional wisdom, other times Maher just gets it wrong in ugly ways. On a recent edition of his show Real Time with Bill Maher, the comedian ripped into liberals for their refusal to criticize the Islamic world for its supposed attacks on liberal values like freedom of speech and religion. According to Maher, the Muslim world as a whole has too much in common with ISIS and as such, multiculturalism and tolerance should draw the line at acceptance of what he labels an Islamic worldview. The following week, Maher went even further by comparing Muslims to a murderous mafia that issues hits on dissenters. Sadly, Mahers characterization of what he calls the Muslim world is a reactionary break from the Enlightenment tradition he claims to champion and instead gives progressive cover to the all-too-real problems of Islamophobia and racism.

With recent beheading videos from ISIS shown on loop in the media, old tropes like Mahers about the unique savagery of the Muslim world have been given new life. As much as alarmist and xenophobic media coverage seems to suggest otherwise, 72 percent of Muslims worldwide believe violence against civilians is never justified. As New York Times columnist Nick Kristof pointed out in the segment with Maher, claiming Muslims are uniquely inclined towards violence on a global scale recalls many arguments about African-Americans that white racists have made over the years. If Maher can recognize that blaming a persons socially constructed race for violence in his or her American community is bigoted, its frustrating that he cannot make the same leap for adherents of a religion in a part of the world that has experienced exceptional external violence and war in recent decades.

None of this is to say that all violence in the Middle East is an illusion, just that its scale and causes are widely misunderstood. A brief survey of the history of the Middle East helps dissect some of the nuances of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the ways in which it has been unwittingly enabled by Western powers. The most famous example is the Iranian coup of 1953. Angered by democratically-elected Prime Minister Mossadeghs attempts to nationalize the oil industry, the CIA and British MI6 fed on domestic turmoil and helped engineer a coup that installed the Shah as pro-Western absolute monarch. Over the following decades leading up to the 1979 Revolution, American intelligence officials helped SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, torture and imprison leftist opponents of the regime that left political Islam as one of the few remaining outlets for political dissent. When we criticize the Iranian regime today for its nightmarish security apparatus and political repression, we should remember what role the United States had in enabling it and steering the country away from democratic progress and towards theocracy.

A similar story of Islamic fundamentalism fueled by Western malfeasance can be seen in Afghanistan. Today, Afghanistan is viewed as the great failed state of the Middle East and a hotbed of jihadists. As Slovenian philosopher Slavoj iek points out, Afghanistan approximately thirty years ago was a country with a strong secular tradition and only saw growth in political Islam after being drawn into global power struggles first by the Soviet Union and then by the United States. As iek pointed out in the context of the Ukrainian crises of the past year, it is the aggressive attempt to export liberal permissiveness that causes fundamentalism to fight back vehemently and assert itself. The more the West misguidedly tries to impose its liberal values (and access to oil fields) through force and violent disruption, the further away from realization of those values we will be.

So are there any alternatives to Mahers simplistic condemnation of the religion of 1.5 billion mostly nonviolent people and an equally unsatisfying moral relativism? As American citizens, there is only so much we can do alone to bring about the change wed like to see in the developing world, as history is rife with examples of Westerners swooping in to civilize non-white people to disastrous effects. That said, we can and should call out the policies of our own governments that are antithetical to our values and that history has shown will only incite more violence and hate. While condemning ISIS for its unspeakable brutality, we should simultaneously question why one of the United Statess closest allies is a Saudi Arabian government that beheaded eight people over just the past month to fight them. Violence is violence, and it is worthy of opposition no matter what its ideological source. In seeing nuance and studying history, we can move beyond a limited notion of tolerance towards something far more satisfying: understanding.

Gray Whisnant is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at g.whisnant@cavalierdaily.com.

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WHISNANT: Perpetuating misunderstanding

American Pie cast on Politically Incorrect 1999
Jason Biggs Alyson Hannigan Tara Reid and Shannon Elizabeth.

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The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Lecture 1, Colonial America
Lecture 1, "Themes and Lessons from Colonial America" by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr., a senior fellow in history at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, presents thi...

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The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Lecture 1, Colonial America - Video

Ebola: A Politically Incorrect Approach
Ebola: A Politically Incorrect Approach.

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Bill Maher: Michael Brown was Acting Like a Thug, Not Like a Gentle Giant

Oct 26, 14 by EurPublisher 7 Comments

Michael Brown

*Say what you will about Bill Maher, dude is outspoken to a fault.

On the latest episode of his politically incorrect program Real Time, he spoke out the situation in Ferguson.

He basically has issues with both sides. For example, hes got a problem with the cops in Ferguson who actually wore I Am Darren Wilson bracelets. He asked, Why do you want to throw your lot in with this plain murderer?

On the other hand, as far as Michael Brown is concerned, Maher doesnt agree with the slain teens mother who called him a gentle giant.

Im sorry, but Michael Browns people say hes a gentle giant. Well, we saw that video of where he was in the 7-11. No, he wasnt a gentle giant. He was committing a robbery and he pushed that guy. He was acting like a thug, not like a gentle giant. He certainly didnt deserve to be shot for it.

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Bill Maher: Michael Brown was Acting Like a Thug, Not Like a Gentle Giant

The Most Politically Incorrect Comments On Ferguson
Our go-to guy for the most politically incorrect commentary on the issues of the day is John Hawkins of RightWingNews.com and he never lets us down! Follow h...

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The Most Politically Incorrect Comments On Ferguson - Video

TLC wasted no time dropping Here Comes Honey Boo Boo when it was revealed that Mama June may have dated a man she knew was a child molester.

But this was hardly the first TV show that owes its cancellation to a real-life scandal!

[ Related: The TV Guide Network Pulls 7th Heaven From Its Schedule After Stephen Collins' Child Molestation Confession Comes To Light ]

From hosts saying politically incorrect things to stars being accused of murder, here are 10 shows that could not survive their scandals!

CLICK HERE to see the gallery "TV Shows That Were Canceled In The Midst Of Scandal!"

CLICK HERE to see the gallery "TV Shows That Were Canceled In The Midst Of Scandal!"

CLICK HERE to see the gallery "TV Shows That Were Canceled In The Midst Of Scandal!"

CLICK HERE to see the gallery "TV Shows That Were Canceled In The Midst Of Scandal!"

CLICK HERE to see the gallery "TV Shows That Were Canceled In The Midst Of Scandal!"

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Honey Boo Boo Isn't The Only One! These Other TV Shows Were Also Canceled In The Midst Of Scandal!

Isolated remarks related to an employees national origin may not be enough to support a claim of discrimination, but they can lead to costly lawsuits. During training, be sure that managers and supervisors understand the negative consequences of making politically incorrect comments.

Akila, an Egyptian dentist, enrolled in a 2-year dentistry program for international students at the University of the Pacific, intending to become credentialed to practice dentistry in the United States.

During a procedure 3 months before graduation, Akila followed her clinical supervisors instructions to seat a crown. The procedure was not successful.

After learning about the failed crown seating, Stuart, the head of the restorative dentistry program, told Akila that her clinical work on the patient was Third World dentistry. The comment was made in the presence of other faculty, students, and patients.

Akila confronted Stuart in his office. She told him that her clinical supervisor had recommended the crown-seating procedure, and she was merely following his instructions. Stuart noted that the procedure used was nowhere in the syllabus. Akila reiterated that she was following her supervisors advice, and she did not feel that it was [her] place to question the direction of a respected faculty member.

Stuart did not relent, saying, Its still Third World dentistry. When Akila said that his comment offended her, he asked her where she is from. When she replied that she is from Egypt, he told her that Egypt is not a Third World country. Akila responded that, in fact, Egypt is a Third World country. Stuart, however, insisted, No, its not, and its still Third World Dentistry. Yes, it is [a Third World country]. And in any case I learned this Third World dentistry in your First World clinic, Akila replied.

A short time later, Akila was greeted by another supervisor with the comment, Whats up, TW? Akila did not understand the remark. Oh come on! Dont you get it? ... Third World? the supervisor said.

She later sent that supervisor a thank-you e-mail for his assistance with a different procedure. She signed the e-mail with her name followed by aka T.W.

Akila learned 4 days before graduation that she would not graduate. Although her course work performance was more than adequate, she was told that she would have to do remedial work in restorative dentistry and removable prosthodontics. She was allowed to perform an additional quarter of clinical work at no extra cost, but her performance did not improve.

Her evaluators concluded that her performance was clinically unacceptable, and she was, in fact, harming patients. Faculty members discussed her poor performance in e-mails and tried to create a strategy to prevent her from practicing dentistry in the United States until she could practice safely.

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Comment about Third World performance prompts national origin bias claim

Politically Incorrect- 10/17/2014 (made with Spreaker)
Source: http://www.spreaker.com/user/radiomarkowitz/politically-incorrect-10-17-2014 Its the end of the week, and what do we have, nothing but more of the sa...

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Expect Bill Maher to come out swinging when he takes the stage at Ruth Eckerd Hall on Saturday night.

The always politically incorrect host of HBOs Real Time is likely to take on conservative Republicans, the U.S. reaction to Ebola, what he calls the do nothing Congress, whatever else is in the news, and his latest target Islam.

In a recent telephone interview, Maher said he has even more new material to unload since his live HBO comedy special in September.

The last time he performed to a sold-out Ruth Eckerd Hall audience, the 2012 Republican Convention had just wrapped up in Tampa. I guess Im not doing my job because they are still around, he joked.

Maher, 58, has a loyal following and has garnered 32 Emmy nominations for his hit TV shows and specials. Mahers first creation, the late-night talk show Politically Incorrect (Comedy Central, ABC), ran from 1993 to 2002. Real Time has been on 12 years.

Conservatives have always been a target for Maher, a self-proclaimed proud liberal who goes back and forth from the serious to the funny. But in recent weeks he has made news by taking on other liberals over his views on the Muslim religion.

In a clash with actor Ben Affleck on his Real Time show, Maher said that to claim that Islam is like other religions was just nave and plain wrong, pointing to a recent New York Times article that 19 people have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia since August, with most being for non-violent crimes, including homosexuality.

Affleck, and others since that show, have accused Maher of being a bigot for painting all Muslims with the same broad, negative brush.

I think weve started a national debate over what are some of the non-liberal beliefs held by this religion, Maher responded during the interview. Ive never said all Muslims believe the same thing, but many, many throughout the world support treating women as second-class citizens, and that its all right to kill those who leave the faith.

All religions are strange in some ways, but Islam is the most dangerous and violent right now, he adds, noting that the terrorist group Isis is labeled as extreme but a high court in Pakistan recently upheld the death sentence for a woman whose crime was something derogatory against the prophet Muhammad.

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Get ready to spend real time with Bill Maher in Clearwater