Will UC Berkeley Nix Maher Commencement?

Bill-MaherOne 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.

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  • Pete

    Let Berkely disinvite maher.

    Then we shall know them for who they are.

  • johnlac

    Who believes that if Maher hadn’t said those nasty (and true) things about Islam and just let stand his negative comments about Christianity, these students would be protesting? .

  • wildjew

    Why are contemporary “liberals” so illiberal (authoritarian and totalitarian even) when it comes to a free exchange of ideas?

    • I_Am_Me

      Because freedom and free thinking is anathema to their true Utopian, harmonious humanity goal. Quite simply, they can’t handle the truth and the elitist progs want to protect the minions from harmful thoughts.

  • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

    We all knew that the “Free Speech Movement” was only about leftist speech. They claimed otherwise at the time but now that they are in power it is becoming clear. This is why liberals was never the right word to use for leftists. We are the liberals. Kudos to the Republicans at Berkeley who are speaking out in favor of free speech.

  • Hard Little Machine

    They kind of deserve one another. All they’re screaming about is who hates the US, the Jews and Israel more.

  • http://crownofkingnothing.blogspot.com/ King Nothing

    Muslims play the victim role yet again when their false religion is to be exposed for what it really is, and the powers that be submit to their demands so they don’t offend the very people who hate us the most.

  • cree

    Maher getting a taste of his own medicine. His accurate views on Islam and the left attacking one of their own; that is a rare win-win.

  • Debbie G

    Navid: “It’s not an issue of free speech, it’s a matter of campus climate.”
    What a bunch of hooey.

  • Demopublicrat

    Since when does Maher tell the truth about anything?

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Since talking about Islam.

      • Demopublicrat

        Because you want it to be true, much easier to swallow than the alternative.

  • Legs2

    There is a slight chance that Maher may learn something from this experience.

    • Scar

      Possibly, but I’m betting against it. It’s more likely that he’s going to have a serious identity crisis. I mean, Bill Maher being attacked by leftists! That’s supposed to be reserved for people like us.

  • kafir4life

    Had Bill stuck with only bashing Christians, Jews, Conservatives, Republicans, he’d have not only been welcome, he may have received an honorary degree.

  • SCREW SOCIALISM

    The US needs people like Libertardian Maher to tell the truth about Islam.

  • Avi R.

    As a Berkeley liberal (alumnus and current staff), I don’t often visit this frontpagemag website, since it serves a conservative audience, but the link to this topic showed up in my FB feed, and now I’m glad to have a little window into what you morons (just kidding) are thinking.

    Campus administration circulated a statement this morning that takes a pretty firmly paternalistic stance against the pressure-sensitive student-led committee that invited Maher in the first place:

    http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/10/29/campus-statement-on-commencement-speaker/

    Regarding your article above, note that this is the December (mid-year) graduation ceremony, not the ‘real’ one, so the gravitas of the speaker is more in line with the occasion.

    I’m sensitive myself, cringing actually, at the comments about leftist intolerance of diversity of opinions. I want to keep the original Free Speech Movement activists up on the pedestal, though, so I want to point out that those guys, now with grandkids of their own, really did welcome views from across the spectrum (a spectrum that was a lot wider in ’64 than it seems to be in ’14). The hardening into partisan narrowness deserves our scorn, but you Republican’ts aren’t helping your image when you squeak ‘those guys do it, too!’ If Billy jumps off the bridge, does that make it ok for you to do it?

    Regarding the young people trying to leverage current pieties into some power assertion of their own, it is yet another instance of what Nietzsche pointed out about Christianity — engaging in a cultural/rhetorical kind of judo that turns weakness into strength. People work with what they’ve got, and if they think they can take advantage of guilty consciences and over-applied multicultural sympathy, then that’s what they’ll try to take advantage of.

    • aspacia

      The point is the left’s hypocrisy!”

      Not all posters on this board are Republicans nor Democrat not do they belong to any party.

      • Avi R.

        Mr. Aspacia,

        I already took my ‘morons’ swipe preemptively; please don’t make me repeat it ad nauseum. The Left hasn’t cornered the market in hypocrisy.

        I’m glad to hear that posters on this board aren’t all R’s or D’s. That was true in ’64, too. The then-president of the student union opposed the Free Speech Movement’s resolutions, and the FSM organizers invited him to speak at all of their meetings. They felt that being right, and given the chance to make the argument for their position, they could win. And so they did.

        Just because the broader culture and media have replaced debate with name-calling doesn’t mean we have to do it, too.

        Now, why don’t you go back to torturing animals for fun and punishing your children for stuff that isn’t their fault ;P

        • aspacia

          I am a married 61 year old woman with two B.A.s and a English M.A. I did not use ad hominem attacks against you and have taught logic at the community college level.

          You are a very shallow, myopic male to resort to personal attacks especially when you have no idea who I am and whose pets were all strays that adopted me and my husband.

          My son is 36 and is an executive who makes 3x the amount I did when teaching.

          • Scar

            Just ignore him. He’s a pseudo-intellectual who probably gets aroused by insulting people whom he deems inferior.

            Actually, I’m a native of Berkeley and my late father was a UC graduate and 25-year veteran of the Berkeley Police Department. He was on the front lines during the Free Speech Movement, the Viet Nam protests, and People’s Park I & II. A good number of the objective, open-minded protesters displayed their high moral standards and intellectual superiority by swinging 2x4s, calling the cops “pigs” and spitting in their faces.

            I doubt that Avi R. is into torturing animals, but it’s highly likely that he warps young minds by spewing his leftist drivel in the classroom. After all, that’s now a requirement if someone wants to teach at Berkeley.

          • Avi R.

            Mr. Scar: Greetings, Landsman! Great to know that you can take the boy out of Berkeley but you can’t take Berkeley out of the boy.

            Every cause and commotion has good eggs and bad eggs in its ranks. What inclines us to see rotten apples in one barrel rather than another? I, too, am disappointed by the anarchists and crashers that take advantage of protest actions as a chance to be violent. But the FSM core did stick to the better angels of their nature, and we shouldn’t sully their memories by confusing them with the free-riders and outliers.

          • Scar

            A valid point. And I agree that there are “rotten apples” in virtually every barrel, if you look hard enough.

          • Avi R.

            Apologies for any offense, Mrs. Aspacia!

            I was getting too much into the snarky spirit of the commentariat on this thread — like the surrounding return volleys to my previous jab.

            Again, please accept my apology — I was playing at the rush-to-judgment game that comments so often become. Like any naughty fun, it can miss its mark.

  • http://www.facebook.com/aemoreira81 aemoreira81

    If UC Berkeley is for free speech, they should be for freedom of support for that speech as well. My solution would be to permit an “opt-out” from paying the speaker fee (except for cases where the speaker has a prior relationship to the school in question), and in exchange, one cannot vocally disrupt the speaker. If the resultant fee offered is not satisfactory to the speaker, the speaker can then bow out. One does not have a right to freedom of speech with other people’s money unless those other people grant that permission.

  • ping
    • bob e

      don’t forget to wash the piss off your hands
      before you stick ‘em in your mouth ..

  • Consider

    “I am no fan of Bill Maher 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.”
    Strange. This is excatly why I am a fan of Bill Maher.

  • Hank Rearden

    The article has it right and everybody in this community knows it as well. Maher is a nihilist. That is the downside. But the logic of his positions is that Islam is a bad thing and he has embraced that logic. He has done so clearly, repeatedly and courageously.

    Courageously.

    Let Berkeley disinvite him. Who will be hurt more? Islam is a depraved death cult founded by a psychopath. And Bill Maher is willing to say that in public.

  • garyfouse

    If you look at the reader thread of the Daily Californian, this becoming an issue much bigger than Bill Maher, who admittedly, is a jerk. This issue merits following and the hope is that Maher does not back out of the speech.

  • Michael Durham

    Bill Maher will have do a comprehensive self-examination. He will have to re-assess everything he is, and everything he stands for. This is not going to happen.

    Ever.

    Leftists are incapable of such self-examination. The brainwashing runs too deep.

    What they don’t realize – what they will never realize – is that their lives are empty. They’re not worth living.

    “The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates

    • Consider

      Have you performed such a ‘self-examination’?

      • Michael Durham

        This thread isn’t about me.

        But the answer is “yes”. Many times.