One has to appreciate the tragic irony that in the 50th
anniversary year of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, a petition is being
circulated there to disinvite the controversial Bill Maher as commencement
speaker, because of his “racist and bigoted” views.
I am no fan of Bill Maher. He’s an Obama supporter who favors income redistribution, race
preferences, abortion, tough gun control, and the outlawing of home
schooling. He dismisses conservatives as racist, Christians as mental
defectives, Americans as “stupid,” and the Second Amendment as “bullsh*t.” I
believe university students deserve a prestigious, accomplished commencement
speaker with more gravitas than a
foul-mouthed standup comic whose days are spent hanging out in the Playboy
mansion grotto (in fact, I don’t believe celebrities in general should be
invited to speak at commencements).
But at least the atheist Maher has enough intellectual integrity to
realize that not all religions are the same. He also has the courage to openly
criticize Islam, something that a microscopically small number of public
figures have the cojones to do. And
let’s face it: it is his position on Islam that sparked the resistance of the
UC Berkeley petition, because if Maher’s insults were limited to bashing Sarah
Palin and Christians, no objection would have been raised.
He recently had a notable dustup on HBO’s Real
Time with Bill Maher with the self-appointed voice of Muslims everywhere, Ben
Affleck. In it, Maher and guest Sam Harris tried to reason with an inflamed
Affleck about the, shall we say, problematic
nature of Islam, which Harris called “the mother lode of bad ideas.” Maher
sided with Harris, and Affleck called their attitude “gross and racist,”
despite the always-overlooked fact that – all together now – Islam is not a race. Mere days before
that, Islamic dissembler Reza Aslan took Maher to task on CNN for his “facile arguments” about
Islam.
That was three weeks ago. Shortly thereafter, a Change.org petition was initiated by Associated Students of the
University of California Senator Marium Navid, who, according to the school’s Daily Californian, is backed by the Middle Eastern, Muslim and
South Asian Coalition, or MEMSA, and Khwaja Ahmed, an active MEMSA member. The
petition asks UC Berkeley to stop him from speaking at the commencement
ceremony. It has garnered 2,089 signatures as of this writing Tuesday night.
The petition claims that Maher “has no respect for the values UC Berkeley
students and administration stand for.” I don’t know what those values are, but
apparently a speaker who tests the boundaries of the comfort zone of sensitive
Berkeley students, who uphold a selective “tolerance” as the highest of virtues,
is intolerable. After all, “too many students are marginalized by his remarks
and if the University were to bring this individual as a commencement speaker
they would not be supporting these historically marginalized communities.”
Heaven forbid that colleges might not make “historically marginalized
communities” their focus, or that grown students might have to endure “remarks”
that marginalize them.
As evidence that Maher is a “blatant” racist bigot who “perpetuates a
dangerous learning environment,” the petition lists a few examples of his “hate
speech.” They include: insults of religions in general (not only Islam); a
shockingly racist assertion that Western values are better than non-Western
ones; a smackdown of Hamas (because criticizing a terrorist organization is
obviously racism); a statement that too much of the Muslim world shares the
values of ISIS (no comment); and this truism, which not even Ben Affleck
denied: “Islam is the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will f**king
kill you if you say the wrong thing.”
“It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of campus
climate,” Navid said. “The First Amendment gives him the right to speak his
mind, but it doesn’t give him the right to speak at such an elevated platform
as the commencement. That’s a privilege his racist and bigoted remarks don’t
give him.” While it is true that free speech doesn’t guarantee him a
commencement speaker slot, what her argument masks is the sad fact that today’s
university students are intolerant of anyone and anything that challenges their
biases and makes them feel uncomfortable. Too many of them are not interested
in testing received wisdom and expanding their horizons, but in protecting
their favored illusions and wrapping themselves in the force-field of victim
status.
Claire Chiara, president of Berkeley College Republicans, also is no fan
of Maher but said she has no issue with his confirmation as commencement
speaker. “He’s a very prominent public figure, and I’m certain that he’s not
going to treat a commencement speech at a prestigious university the way he
treats his talk show.” Imagine that: Republican rationality and tolerance.
Navid, however, believes that Maher is beyond the pale. According to The Daily Californian, her office
launched a campaign with the semi-oxymoronic name, “Free Speech, Not Hate
Speech,” asking students to express their outrage to the Chancellor and the
director of external relations. Of course, hate speech is quite simply speech
you don’t agree with, so if you believe it must be suppressed, then you cannot
claim to support free speech.
Again, I’m no fan of Maher, but I’m even less of a fan of the
progressive/Islamist hypocrisy, intolerance, and smear tactics behind the
petition to have him disinvited as speaker.
(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 10/30/14)
